The Top 10 Greatest Movies Filmed in Oregon

Movies as we know them today- in color and with sound, have been produced for almost a century, and Oregon has been a popular location choice for many of them.

But before that, “The General,” a silent black-and-white classic, was filmed in Oregon in 1926. It made it onto the top 10 list with many more sophisticated but just as good movies- including one using AI animation, produced in the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

The state’s dramatic landscape lends itself to almost any genre, whether it’s comedy, drama, Westerns, science fiction epics, or thrillers.

We found the best 10 movies filmed in Oregon as rated by IMDb. As for the best movies, here’s a clue: Jack Nicholson seems to really like Oregon…

10Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

Of the many movies made in Oregon by Portland’s own Gus Van Sant, this one has become a bit of a cult classic.

Starring Matt Dillon and Kelly Lynch, the audience follows the actors into the violent, transient world of a drug addict who robs drugstores across the country to feed his habit, and then tries to clean up.

It proves harder than he had imagined when an old acquaintance reappears and wants drugs at any price. Other Van Sant films shot in the state include “Elephant,” “My Own Private Idaho,” and “Paranoid Park.”

9Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995)

Richard Dreyfuss plays composer Glen Holland, a role that earned him an Oscar nomination. He takes a job at an Oregon high school but keeps believing he will compose a life-changing music piece.

Using unconventional teaching methods flowing from his frustration in the job, Mr. Holland and his students learn to love each other as the job- intended to be temporary, stretches into decades.

8 National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)

Smart and dumb at the same time, this Faber College frat-house college comedy was a huge hit. Setting the “animals” against a house full of sanctimonious Anglo-Saxon white boys nobody likes, the movie spawned food fights and toga parties.

A highlight of John Belushi’s career, Eugene locals from 1978- when the movie was filmed there, and the University of Oregon will never forget the movie or the homecoming parade.

7The Goonies (1985)

Even now, tourists still go to Astoria off the Oregon coast looking for locations featured in the movie made almost 40 years ago- that’s how memorable it is.

The cast of “The Goonies,” an action-comedy, partly filmed in Astoria, includes a very young Josh Brolin, Sean Astin, and Martha Plimpton and follows two brothers who find out they may lose their home. A treasure map, several friends, and a group of bad guys join their quest.

Fun Fact: “The Goonies” house at 368 38th St. in Astoria Oregon was sold last year.

6Coraline (2009)

Dakota Fanning voices the young heroine in this stop-motion animated feature, an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel. Coraline finds a secret door and steps into an alternate world much like hers, only better.

It’s only when her mother and other alternate-world family members try to prevent her return to reality that she has to dig deep to get back to real life. The movie established Laika as a world-class production house.

5Into the Wild (2007)

Sean Penn turned director for this beautifully made drama Based on the real-life story of the travels of Christopher McCandless, Sean Penn directed this tragic movie starring Emile Hirsch and a young Kristen Stewart.

As McCandless ventures towards Alaska, he passes Oregon locations including Astoria and the Cascades. Along the way, he meets people who will ultimately shape his values and life. Catherine Keener and Vince Vaughn are included in the stellar cast.

4The General (1926)

One of the best American comedies ever made, the 1926 silent classic, “The General” stars Buster Keaton- one of the greatest performers in movie history playing a Southern Civil War-era engineer who will do anything to protect his beloved locomotive, named the General.

Shot in Cottage Grove, the film marks a big anniversary, going on tour in Oregon this summer. When the train is stolen by Northern forces with the hero’s fiancee on it, Keaton’s comedic excellence is on display as he uses several modes of transport. A new live score was composed by Mark Orton for this classic.

3Stand By Me (1986)

Based on a Stephen King novel, the horror-tragedy-comedy unfolds the story of four boys learning about themselves and each other on their search for a missing teen accidentally killed in the Willamette Valley.

Actors Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’Connell come across a leech-filled marsh and a mean junk man as they move across locations where filming took place, including Brownsville, Eugene, Cottage Grove, and Veneta. The journey turns into a defining moment for the boys.

2The Shining (1980)

Despite depicting the creepy Overlook Hotel- inspired by a Colorado hotel,  several shots of the Timberline Lodge were filmed to match Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of the Stephen King novel, but not much filming was done in Oregon otherwise.

It would be difficult for anyone but Nicholson to play the writer Jack Torrance who descends into a homicidal mania as the hotel’s dark secrets emerge. Not a movie for the faint-hearted, yet the Timberline Lodge reports that guests still ask to stay in Room #217- the room number in the book, despite the substitution in the movie to non-existent Room #237.

1One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Ken Keysey, one of Oregon’s most distinctive writers, Ken Kesey, wrote the book this Oscar-winning movie is based on. Arguably Jack Nicholson’s best movie, he plays McMurphy, a smarmy prisoner convicted of statutory rape who thought a mental institute would be a cushier place to serve out his sentence.

Director Milos Forman and a gifted cast highlight the struggle between rigid authority and nonconformity as Nurse Rached (a stunningly cool, calm, collected performance by Louise Fletcher) supervises McMurphy and other patients in the psychiatric ward she runs with an iron fist.

Partly shot on location at Oregon State Hospitals in Salem and the central Oregon coast, the movie raises existential questions over the use of electroconvulsive therapy.

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But perhaps we cheated a little because one of the movies is animated so we included a bonus movie. The next ranked movie on IMDb scored a whopping 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and is definitely worth a mention:

11Bend of the River (1952)

James Stewart stars in this classic Western as a cowboy leading a group of settlers into Oregon and covers locations that include Mount Hood and sections on the banks of the Sandy River.

Directed by Anthony Mann, a young Rock Hudson also appears in the movie which follows a reformed outlaw who rescues a thief who then joins him on his journey. Scamming and stealing highlight the rough life of the old American West as the players prepare for battle.

Have fun watching. Don’t forget the popcorn!