Movies Set In New Orleans and Louisiana

Photograph from the first film, Dupont, shot in New Orleans 

           From the earliest beginnings of the movie industry, filmmakers have long flocked to New Orleans and Louisiana. The first film shot in the city was in 1898 and it was called Dupont. The film was about a torpedo boat. By the 1950s, New Orleans became a popular location for movie shoots, due to the number of stories set in the Crescent City and Louisiana’s unique blend of geography, architecture, and accessibility. Where else can you film in a swamp one day, a 19^thcentury plantation house, and an above ground cemetery all just miles apart? 

            Presently, the state of Louisiana offers tax incentives to productions to film in New Orleans. As a result, movies ranging from White House Down to 12 Years a Slave to Easy Rider have all been shot in Louisiana. There's also a steady stream of TV shows like NCIS: New Orleans and American Horror Story. With all this in mind, let’s turn to some famous movies set in New Orleans or Louisiana that are worth your time. 

Jezebel (1938): Let’s start with an old Hollywood classic. This is a movie very much of its time—Lost Cause nostalgia in the depictions of slavery for instance—and it was a Hollywood effort to tell a Jane Austen type story. Set in 1852, a New Orleans belle named Julie Marsden (Bette Davis) is engaged to a banker named Preston Dillard (Henry Fonda). She’s strong-willed and vain and he’s a noble doctor. She humiliates him, he humiliates her, there’s a duel where some poor sap gets killed and then they all end up quarantined on an island with yellow fever. The film is gorgeous to look at, but it's best not to think about the plot too much. 

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951): With an all-star cast featuring Marlon Brando and Vivian Leigh and an all-time great director, Elia Kazan, A Streetcar Named Desire is set in New Orleans and revolves around the delusions of faded southern dame, Blanche DuBois, and her brutish brother-in-law Stanley. This version of the Tennessee Williams play is worth a watch, even if you’ve seen the play. The Simpsons famously satirized the play and city in a classic early season episode, drawing the ire of some residents. 

Easy Rider (1969): A film about an LSD trip that’s also structured like an LSD trip. Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda are a pair of bikers on a road trip where they sell drugs, make money, and get high. Along the way, they head to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. The film is a great look at the city in the late 1960s. 

The Big Easy (1986): A classic New Orleans story about the city’s legendary corruption. Ellen Barkin plays a district attorney investigating a murder involving a bunch of crooked cops. Only the problem is police counterpart in the film, played by Dennis Quaid, is also crooked as hell. The NOPD does a couple things really well: crowd control and corruption. 

12 Years a Slave (2013): Based on the true account of Solomon Northup, a free African-American who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana, the film is unsparing in its depictions of American slavery. It is a useful corrective to films like Jezebel and Gone with the Wind. Northup eventually regains his freedom, but not before witnessing a wide range of the horrors. It also has Brad Pitt!  

Ella Brennan: Commanding the Table (2016): A wonderful documentary about the matriarch of the famous Brennan restaurant family in New Orleans. Ella Brennan passed away earlier this year, but if you’ve ever been to Commander’s Palace or any of the other Brennan family restaurants (there’s a whole bunch of them) and enjoyed the hospitality, that’s because of Ella Brennan. A powerful figure who led her family’s restaurant group after the death of her older brother, she’s also the creator of the dessert classic Bananas Foster. Under her guidance, chefs Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse became culinary superstars. Even today, her influence continues to reverberate in the New Orleans culinary landscape.