Top 7 Movies Filmed in Memphis, Tennessee by US Box Office

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Lights, Camera, Action! Explore the Movie Magic in Memphis, Tennessee

Hey there, fellow movie enthusiast! Feeling a bit bored, are we? Well, buckle up because we’re about to take you on an extraordinary journey through the silver screen in the charming city of Memphis, Tennessee. Get ready to explore the captivating world of movies filmed right here at the heart of the Volunteer State!

Key Takeaways:

  • Uncover the magic: Discover the movie locations that brought your favorite films to life.
  • Step into the spotlight: Feel like a star as you visit iconic spots where the cameras once rolled.
  • Lights, camera, action! Immerse yourself in the glitz and glamour of the big screen.

Imagine strolling through the very streets that some of Hollywood’s biggest stars have tread upon. Picture yourself standing exactly where the camera captured those iconic scenes that have stirred your heart and tickled your funny bone. Visiting film locations is like stepping into the shoes of your favorite actors and experiencing the movie magic firsthand.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Why should I bother visiting movie filming locations? Isn’t it just a bunch of random places?” Oh, my movie-loving friend, you couldn’t be more mistaken! Exploring these sites will not only add that extra sprinkle of excitement to your trip but will also give you a deeper connection to the films you hold dear.

So, here’s the deal: Memphis, Tennessee, has been the backdrop for countless incredible movies. From heartwarming dramas to thrilling adventures, this city has it all. By visiting these movie filming locations, you’ll not only check off your travel to-do list but also transport yourself into the realms of your favorite films. It’s like entering an alternate universe where you become a part of the stories that have captured the hearts of millions.

As you wander through the streets, you might find yourself getting lost in the charming neighborhoods that served as the setting for heartwarming tales or discovering hidden gems that played a part in action-packed sequences. You’ll have the chance to imagine scenes unfolding right before your eyes, pretending you’re right there alongside the characters you adore.

But it doesn’t end there. Let’s not forget the bragging rights you’ll earn! Picture yourself sharing anecdotes with fellow movie buffs about the time you stood in the very spot where your cinematic heroes once stood. Your friends will marvel at your knowledge of movie trivia and envy your adventures through the movie landscape of Memphis.

So, get off that couch, grab your shades, and embark on this blockbuster adventure. Memphis is waiting to welcome you to its marvelous movie world. Lights, camera, action—take your place in the story!

Now that you’re all set to dive into the magic of movies, check out our listicle below for a comprehensive guide to the incredible films shot in Memphis, Tennessee. Lights, camera, let’s roll!

Lights, camera, adventure! Unleash your inner movie buff and explore the mesmerizing movie filming locations in Memphis, Tennessee. Dive into the stories that unfolded right here in the heart of the city. Lights, camera, action—click here to discover the movies filmed in Memphis!

Cast Away –  US Box Office: USD$450millions

Director:  Robert Zemeckis

Main Cast: Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, Paul Sanchez, Lari White

Release Date: 7 December 2000

Filming Locations: Monuriki, Fiji; Farm to Market Road 48 and Farm to Market Road 1268, Mobeetie, Texas, 79061, USA; Arrington Ranch House Lodge, 9765 County Road Canadian, Texas, 79014, USA; Red Square, Kitai-gorod, Tverskoy District, Moscow, Russia

Main Plot: FedEx executive changes physically and emotionally following the island tragedy. Chuck Noland, a FedEx operations executive, and Kelly Frears, a grad student, have dated and lived together for years but haven’t been married because of their busy schedules, especially Chuck’s. Chuck contacts Kelly on Christmas Day 1995 as he hurries to catch a FedEx jet. The plane crashes in the south Pacific due to mechanical problems. Chuck washes up on a life raft on a deserted island, unaware of his crew or plane. Several packages for delivery wash ashore with him, which he first respects. Chuck’s goal is survival and rescue (food, drink, shelter, fire). Kelly gifted him an ancestral pocket watch with her portrait for Christmas. After getting the FedEx packages, he paints a face on a Wilson volleyball and names it Wilson. As time passes, Chuck experiences a spectrum of emotions, but he realizes he must find a way off the island, which is nearly impossible due to the tremendous onshore surf. Chuck may not realize that the longer he isn’t saved, the tougher it will be to return to his prior existence. Kelly’s death drives him to be rescued, although Kelly may have moved on emotionally.

Famous quotes:

Chuck Noland: “We live and we die by time, and we must not commit the sin of turning our back on time.”

Kelly Frears: “I always knew you were alive, I knew it. Everybody said that I had to let you go. I love you. You’re the love of my life.”

Chuck Noland: “I couldn’t even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over nothing.”

Chuck Noland: “87 hours is an eternity! The cosmos was created in less time. Wars have been fought, and nations toppled in 87 hours! Fortunes made and squandered.”

Chuck Noland: “Hey, you want to hear something funny? My dentist’s name is James Spalding.”

Sequel: Castaway 2 (2017) 

Fun Facts about Cast Away:

  • Tom Hanks chose to stay inactive and gain weight to appear to be a typical, out-of-shape middle-aged man. Then, for a year, production was put on hold so that he could shed fifty pounds and grow out his hair in preparation for his time on the isolated island. During this break, Robert Zemeckis employed the same crew to shoot What Lies Beneath (2000).
  • Following the release of this movie, FedEx job applications increased by 30%.
  • To assist Tom Hanks in communicating with Wilson the volleyball more naturally, actual words of dialogue were produced for the inanimate object.

The Firm –  US Box Office: USD$158.35millions

Director: Sydney Pollack

Main Cast: Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, Paul Sanchez, Lari White

Release Date:  30 June 1993

Filming Locations:  Mount Baker, Washington, USA; 125 Front Street, Downtown Memphis, Tennessee, USA; Cayman Islands; Peabody Hotel – 149 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee, USA; Copley Plaza Hotel – 138 St. James Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Main Plot: An aspiring young attorney joins a famous legal practice only to uncover its shadowy underbelly. It looks like Mitch McDeere’s legal career is going to take off soon. Shortly before taking the Bar test, he is approached by “The Firm” with an offer he can’t refuse. To him, it’s all about money and gifts, and he has no idea of the darker aspects of his firm because of it. And then there are two Associates slain. His life is turned upside down when the FBI contacts him and asks for information. He can either join the FBI or continue working for the Firm. Either way, his current way of life will end. For Mitch, the only option is to trust in his own strategy.

Famous quotes:

Abby McDeere: “I’ve loved you all my life. Even before we met. Part of it wasn’t even you. It was just a promise to you. But these last days… You kept your promise. How could you lose me?”

Mitch McDeere: “It’s not sexy, but it’s got teeth! Ten thousand dollars and five years in prison. That’s ten and five for each act. Have you really looked at that? You’ve got every partner in the firm on overbilling. There are two hundred fifty acts of documented mail fraud there. That’s racketeering! That’s a minimum of one thousand, two hundred fifty years in prison and half a million dollars in fines. That’s more than you had on Capone.”

Danny Ocean: “I only lied about being a thief, I don’t do that anymore.”

Mitch McDeere: “You want to know something funny? You actually made me think about the law. I managed to go through three years of law school without doing that.”

Tammy: “You got the account number, you know how to access it? Mitch has verified that the money is there, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

Avery Tolar: “Being a tax lawyer’s got nothing to do with the law. It’s a game. We teach the rich how to play it so they can stay rich. The IRS keeps changing the rules so we can keep getting rich by teaching them. It’s a game.”

Fun Facts about The Firm:

  • The Hyatt Regency Grand Cayman was the hotel in the Cayman Islands. Ivan, a hurricane, destroyed it in 2004. It continues to be abandoned and deteriorating.
  • The whole film score was composed by Dave Grusin exclusively on a piano, except for a few soundtrack tunes. Grusin replicated harp-like periods by stroking the naked strings of his grand piano and pounding the wooden frame for effects, as a drummer might beat his drums, to increase the tone range of the instrument’s percussive characteristics.

The Silence of the Lambs – US Box Office: USD$130.7millions

Director: Jonathan Demme

Main Cast: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Lawrence A. Bonney, Kasi Lemmons

Release Date: 14 February 1991

Filming Locations: Bimini Airport, South Bimini Island, Bimini Islands, Bahamas; Western Center – 333 Curry Hill Rd., Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, USA; Bellaire, Ohio, USA; Lindbergh Avenue, Shaler Township, Pennsylvania, USA; Clay County, West Virginia, USA

Main Plot: Clarice Starling, a rookie FBI agent, wants to join the Behavioral Science Unit. Jack Crawford, head of the Behavioral Science Unit, asks Clarice to meet cannibalistic murderer Hannibal Lecter. Clarice is unaware that Crawford thinks Lecter will help her understand Buffalo Bill, the latest psychopathic serial killer. Buffalo Bill has killed five obese women and torn off large portions of their flesh. Buffalo Bill has been on Crawford’s team’s trail for a while, but they’ve made no progress. Clarice learns from Lecter that she must play his mind games to solve the crime. In exchange for his guidance, he wants Clarice to open up emotionally and tell him about her background. The investigation shifts when they realize the sixth victim had a Death’s Head Moth placed in her throat. Clarice and the FBI must work rapidly to find Buffalo Bill’s seventh victim, Catherine Martin, in light of this evidence and Lecter’s investigation. Clarice uncovers Buffalo Bill’s refuge and kills him just as he’s about to kill her. After graduation, Lecter calls Clarice at the convocation reception.

Famous quotes:

Clarice Starling: “I don’t know. I didn’t have any food, or any water and it was very cold, very cold. I thought, I thought if I could save just one, but… he was so heavy. So heavy. I didn’t get more than a few miles when the sheriff’s car picked me up. The rancher was so angry he sent me to live at the Lutheran orphanage in Bozeman. I never saw the ranch again.”

Hannibal Lecter: “First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this man you seek?”


Hannibal Lecter: “Look for severe childhood disturbances associated with violence. Our Billy wasn’t born a criminal, Clarice. He was made one through years of systematic abuse. Billy hates his own identity, you see, and he thinks that makes him a transsexual. But his pathology is a thousand times more savage and more terrifying.”

Hannibal Lecter: “You know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube. A well-scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste. Good nutrition’s given you some length of bone, but you’re not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling? And that accent you’ve tried so desperately to shed: pure West Virginia. What is your father, dear? Is he a coal miner? Does he stink of the lamp? You know how quickly the boys found you… all those tedious sticky fumblings in the back seats of cars… while you could only dream of getting out… getting anywhere… getting all the way to the FBI.”

Hannibal Lecter: “And you think if you save poor Catherine, you could make them stop, don’t you? You think if Catherine lives, you won’t wake up in the dark ever again to that awful screaming of the lambs.”

Sequel: Hannibal

Fun Facts about The Silence of the Lambs:

  • The idea was to put Lecter in a jumpsuit that was either yellow or orange when he was relocated from Baltimore. Sir Anthony Hopkins persuaded director Jonathan Demme and costume designer Colleen Atwood that the role would appear more clinical and disturbing if he were clothed in all white. Hopkins later claimed that his phobia of dentists was the inspiration for the notion.
  • In preparation for his role, Sir Anthony Hopkins researched files of serial killers. He also went to jails, researched murderers who had already been found guilty, and attended some court proceedings involving horrific murderers and serial killers.

Walk the Line –  US Box Office: USD$119.52millions

Director: James Mangold

Main Cast:  Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin, Robert Patrick

Release Date: 1 February 2006

Filming Locations: Tennessee State Penitentiary, Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Mississippi, USA; Memphis, Tennessee, USA; Arkansas, USA; Covington, Tennessee, USA

Main Plot: Johnny Cash rose to popularity at Sun Records in Memphis, where he recorded with Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley. Johnny Cash grew up in Arkansas during the Great Depression and joined the German air force. He proposes to Vivian, buys a guitar, and writes music there. He worked as a salesman to support his family in Tennessee after they married. He finds a man who can support him, and they record a song. Soon after, he went on a music tour and met June Carter. Their friendship strengthens when they tour with June, the guys, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Due to his acts, June leaves the tour. When he runs across June at an awards ceremony years later, his marriage is also in jeopardy. He coerces her into accompanying them on tour again, offering to support her two children and himself. As the tour progresses, June and John’s bond grows, and his marriage dissolves. June helps him quit drugs when she finds out. John stopped using drugs because of her love and care, and he proposed at a performance.

Famous quotes:

Johnny Cash: “You’ve got me all revved up. Now I’ve asked you forty different ways and it’s time you come up with a fresh answer.”

Johnny Cash: “I’m asking you to marry me. I love you, June. Now I know I said and done lotta things, that I hurt you, but I promise, I’ll never do that again. I only want to take care of you. I will not leave you like that dutch boy with your finger in the dam.”

June Carter: “You wear black ’cause you can’t find anything else to wear? You found your sound ’cause you can’t play better? You just tried to kiss me because “it just happened?” You should try to take credit for something every once in a while, John.”

Jerry Lee Lewis: “God gave us a great big apple, see, and He said don’t touch it. He didn’t say touch it once in a while; He didn’t say take a nibble when you’re hungry; He said don’t touch it! Don’t think about touchin’ it, don’t sing about touchin’ it, don’t *think* about singin’ about touchin’ it!”

Johnny Cash: “You know what your problem is, June Carter? You are afraid to be in love, you are afraid of losing control, And you know what June Carter, I think you are afraid of livin’ in my big fat shadow.”

Fun Facts about Walk the Line:

  • According to co-writer and director James Mangold, Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix became very dependent on one another while filming. He claims that Phoenix told him after the shoot was over that he and Witherspoon had become so dependent on one another that they had forged a covert pact. The agreement said that if one of them dropped out or left, the other would also do so.
  • All of the songs were performed by Joaquin Phoenix, and Reese Witherspoon live, without any dubbing. Additionally, they had to teach themselves how to play the guitar and the autoharp from scratch.

The Client –  US Box Office: USD$92.1millions

Director: Joel Schumacher

Main Cast: Susan Sarandon, Tommy Lee Jones, Brad Renfro, Mary-Louise Parker

Release Date: 20 July 1994

Filming Locations:  Memphis, Tennessee, USA; Clinton, Mississippi, USA; New Orleans, Louisiana, USA; Mississippi, USA; Louisiana, USA

Main Plot:

A boy who saw a mafia lawyer commit suicide employs an attorney to protect him when the DA tries to use him against a mob family.

Mark Sway lives in a trailer with his mother and brother. An automobile pulls up beside him and his brother as they’re hanging out. The motorist places an exhaust hose in his car. Mark retrieves it. The man sees him and snatches him for the automobile. A man talks to Mark and then shoots himself. The shock catatonics Mark’s sibling. One of his clients is a mobster suspected of killing a senator who was after his family. The Senator can’t be prosecuted because his body is missing. Tommy Lee Jones’ Roy Foltrigg believes Mark’s lawyer told him where the body is, so he wants to talk to him. Mark meets Roy, who threatens him. Mark leaves, and Reggie comes in with a video of their conversation, telling him he broke the rules. The family’s boss tells the mobster to look after Mark. Threatens Mark. Mark doesn’t know what to do and finds Reggie has secrets; he’s unsure if he can trust her.

Famous quotes:

Reggie: “The program sets them up with a fair income, and a nice little house. White, with a walk-in closet.”

Mark: “Yeah right, that’s what all the drunks say, how they’re gonna get sober and all. They even say they love you but they don’t. And then they come home wasted and beat on you and your mother so bad that you gotta hit ’em in the face with a baseball bat!”

Mark: “Yeah, well, I got rid of him. When I and my mom went into court to buy our divorce our lawyer SUCKED as usual, so I went up there and told the judge myself about all the beatings, about how he made us sleep in the street. And that’s when my father became my ex-father, and now I got you, and you’re a drunk and a bad lawyer too! So now I’m gettin’ rid of you, you’re fired, okay?”

Sequel: The Summon

Fun Facts about The Client:

  • Author John Grisham had casting authority over all motion pictures based on his books at the time of filming and had requested that “no professional kid actors in Hollywood” be cast as Mark Sway. He believed that by choosing an unknown actor for the part—preferably from the Memphis region, where the tale is set—the film’s authenticity wouldn’t be jeopardized, rather than a well-known child actor (donning a fake accent). Brad Renfro, a Knoxville, Tennessee native, won the part over thousands of competitors, including Macaulay Culkin.
  • In order to persuade Susan Sarandon to star in the movie, Joel Schumacher proposed “movie marriage” to her in the middle of a packed New York City restaurant in the summer of 1993. After a few days, she consented to participate in the film.
  • Susan Sarandon, her on-screen daughter, was just eight years older than Micole Mercurio. However, Susan’s age difference with her son Eric Roberts from King of the Gypsies (1978) makes up for this.

 Road Trip – US Box Office: USD$68.54millions

Director: Todd Phillips

Main Cast: Breckin Meyer, Seann William Scott, Amy Smart, Paulo Costanzo

Release Date: 1 November 2000

Filming Locations: Austin, Texas, USA; Sanford Stadium – 200 E. Campus Road, Athens, Georgia, USA; University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA; Knoxville, Tennessee, USA; University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA

Main Plot: In order to retrieve an unlawful tape that was inadvertently delivered to a female acquaintance, four pals from college embark on a journey by car. Josh and Tiffany have known each other since they were children and have been together ever since. Beth, a beautiful blonde student and Josh’s college roommate, enters the scene. Josh and Beth decided to meet together one night and record a videotape. On the same day that Josh intended to send Tiffany a video of him talking about life in college, Josh and Beth decided to get together. Because Tiffany is now located in Austin, Josh and a couple of his other buddies are compelled to travel there in order to stop her from seeing the wrong tape.

Famous quotes:

Rubin: “It’s supposed to be a challenge, that’s why they call it a shortcut. If it was easy it would just be the way.”

Kyle: “It’s not cheating if you spread peanut butter on your balls and let your dog lick it off.”

E.L.: “Think about it Josh, you’re in college. The window of opportunity to drink and do drugs and take advantage of young girls is getting smaller by the day.”

E.L.: “You’re already cheating! Anytime you pass up sex, you’re cheating on yourself.”

E.L.: “Well, there are these rules that guys have, an understanding as to what exactly constitutes cheating. Take your situation for example it’s not cheating. It’s never cheating when you’re in a different area code, not to mention a different state.”

Sequel: Road Trip: Beer Pong 

Fun Facts about Road Trip:

  • Harvard University is the institution that can be seen in the opening scene’s flyover. The same video was utilized for the flyover in Old School (2003).
  • The majority of the college sequences were shot at Georgia Tech, Emory University, and the University of Georgia, all of which are close to Atlanta, even though the movie is set at institutions in Ithaca, Boston, and Austin.
  • For her role as Tiffany, Rachel Blanchard was encouraged to tint her hair red. Since Blanchard and Amy Smart both had blonde hair and blue eyes, Todd Phillips decided that only one blonde should be a part of the plot.

The Rainmaker – US Box Office: USD$45.86millions

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Main Cast: Matt Damon, Danny DeVito, Claire Danes, Jon Voight

Release Date: 18 November 1997

Filming Locations: Memphis, Tennessee, USA; Alameda, California, USA; Oakland, California, USA; San Francisco, California, USA; Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Main Plot: A lawyer who represents the underdog takes on an insurance corporation suspected of fraud. Young attorney Rudy Baylor wants to make a positive impact on the way the judicial system works. He is also the only hope for an old couple whose insurance company is corrupt and will not pay out a claim that could save their child’s life. He is the only one who can save their child. In this courtroom drama, Baylor takes on corporate lawyers, corrupt judges, and violent wives with the assistance of a colleague attorney who hasn’t even taken the bar test yet. Even though this is only his first case, the odds against him in the courts are not good.

Famous quotes:

Rudy Baylor: “My dad hated lawyers. You might think I became one just to piss him off, but you’d be wrong. Did piss him off so much though that when he heard he fell off a ladder and didn’t know who to sue first.”

Rudy Baylor: “Mind my manners? I come up here from Memphis, to depose four people… two of them are not here. And you tell me to mind MY manners?”

Rudy Baylor: “In my first year of law school everybody loved everybody else, ’cause we were all studying the law, and the law was a noble thing. By my third year you were lucky if you weren’t murdered in your sleep. People stole exams, hid research materials from the library, and lied to the professors. Such is the nature of the profession.”

Rudy Baylor: “My father hated lawyers all his life. He wasn’t a great guy, my old man. He drank and beat up my mother; he beat me up too. So you might think I became a lawyer just to piss him off. But you’d be wrong. I wanted to be a lawyer ever since I read about the Civil Rights lawyers in the 50s and 60s, and the amazing uses they found for the law. They did what a lot of people thought was the impossible. They gave lawyers a good name. And so I went to law school. And it did piss my father off – he was pissed off anyway.”

Rudy Baylor: “I’m hot. In fact, I’m so hot, there’s no place for me to go but down. Every client I ever have will expect the same magic, nothing less. I could probably give it to them, if it didn’t matter how I did it. Then I’d wake up one morning and find that I’d become Leo Drummond.”

Sequel: The Abduction (2011)

Fun Facts about The Rainmaker:

  • Matt Damon was taken aback when Danny DeVito abruptly woke him up on the seat during the hastily shot scene. Damon had actually dozed off following the sequence.
  • The movie adaptations of John Grisham’s works that he likes most. I love the movie. It’s so brilliantly done, the author remarked of the movie, “To me, it’s the best adaptation of any of my books” (Entertainment Weekly 2004).
  • Judge Tyrone Kipler, played by Danny Glover, played a significant but uncredited role.

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