Focus Features

The term “Minnesota nice” is defined as the region’s penchant for being reserved, polite, and putting the needs of others before one self. Take Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) in the Coen brothers’ new film, A Serious Man. He goes out of his way to embrace the man his wife is leaving him for. But for films, Minnesota nice can mean many other things: the state’s encouraging films through tax incentives; its ability to double as many other places; it’s willingness to laugh at itself in the many comedies made here. The following are a range of films made in Minnesota that got a chance to make Minnesota nice.

Made for $10 million, this thriller about a snowbound airport with a suicidal bomber holding a plane hostage went on to gross over $100 million. Its formula of “one place (hotel, airport, luxury liner) + one disaster + a host of current and expired stars––Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset, Helen Hayes in Airport––= Hollywood hit” would be repeated throughout the 70s. Although Arthur Hailey’s novel (on which the film is based) took place at a fictional Chicago-based airport called Lincoln International, the producers choose Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport because of the script’s need for snow and cold weather. Unfortunately the production was marred by clear skies and no snow, forcing the production team to create their own.

Directed by native Minnesotan George Roy Hill, Slaughterhouse-Five dramatizes Kurt Vonnegut’s novel about Billy Pilgrim, a Midwestern kid who survives the bombing of Dresden during World War II, only to end up living on the planet Trafalmadore (with a Playboy model) when he becomes unstuck from time. Vonnegut later exclaimed: “I love George Roy Hill and Universal Pictures, who made a flawless translation of my novel Slaughterhouse-Five.” While the Dresden scenes (especially those picturing it before the bombing) were shot outside of Prague, the Midwest was all shot in Minnesota, including locations such as Excelsior, Lake Minnetonka, and outside the airport.

Writing for the Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages, Rob Nelson proclaimed: “Forget Fargo and A Simple Plan: In 1972, The Heartbreak Kid had Minnesota down cold.” Cold is right. In Elaine May’s 1972 comedy (based on a play by Neil Simon), recently married, New York-reared Jewish Lenny (Charles Grodin) meets his real dream girl (Cybill Shepherd) while on his honeymoon in Miami. Even though he chides Shepherd, “So whaddya wanna live in a dumb place like Minnesota for?" he nevertheless ditches his wife to follow his blond goddess home to meet her uber-WASP family. The production shot at Minnetonka's Lafayette Club and all around the University of Minnesota. While shooting the production donated $1,500 the University Film Society in gratitude for "how knowledgeable [the student extras] were about films and film making."

David Wrye directed this fan-favorite, tear-wringing, romantic ice-capade in which a young aspiring champion ice skater (Lynn-Holly Johnson) goes blind. Thank god her hockey-playing beau (Robby Benson) helps her by keeping her disability secret from the tournament judges. While the story is perhaps a bit soft, many feel the skating was very realistic, especially since it featured a skating pro with Johnson. The film’s theme song, Melissa Manchester’s "Through the Eyes of Love,” also proved a big hit that year. The film was shot throughout St. Paul and at the now defunct Met Center.

Local-bad-boy-made-good, Prince never deserted his hometown even after he became a star. So he set his 1984 biographical debut feature Purple Rain in Minneapolis. The story of a young singer (Prince) pushing to survive an abusive father and win the heart of his beloved (Apollonia) is played out in many of Prince’s favorite local spots. In the Minneapolis/St. Paul’s City Pages, Rob Nelson called the film “the Citizen Kane of Minnesota movies.” The film shot in 32 Minneapolis-St. Paul locations, including St. Paul Civic Center, Crystal Court of the IDS Center, and the First Avenue nightclub.

Now a staple of Sunday afternoon TV movie marathons, Drop Dead Fred is remembered more often for its deeply uncomfortable humor than its Minnesotan locations. In the story, an adult Phoebe Cates is forced to move back with her parents where she rediscovers her old imaginary friend Fred. But the antics Fred and she got up to as kids don’t really play out so hilariously in the adult world, especially one set in Minneapolis. The film covers some favorite Twin City spots: Walker Art Center, the Gaviidae Common on Nicollet Mall, Lowry Hill, Harriet Island, and Paisley Park.

When a self-consumed attorney (Emilio Estevez) is arrested for drunk driving, the judge delivers a sentence worse than death in The Mighty Ducks: he must coach a team of misfit kid hockey players. Of course, by the end the motley crew pulls together to become a force to be reckoned with. The fable of the little team with heart could equally apply to the film, which went from being a low-budget Disney project to a phenomenon, spawning two more sequels, a cartoon series, as well as a National Hockey League. While the actual team located itself in Anaheim, CA (the home of Disneyland), the film takes place in Minnesota––Cook Memorial Arena, Elliot Park, Mickey's Diner, Rice Park, Theodore Wirth Park, etc. 

“Welcome to Wabasha, Home of Grumpy Old Men,” a sign at the edge of this Minnesotan town reads. In the sixth pairing of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, the two are feuding ex-best friends whose small-town worlds are turned upside down when a new woman (Ann-Margret) moves next door. But the action wasn’t restricted to Wabasha, as the production spread out across the Twin Cities. The film, following on the success of The Mighty Ducks, pushed Minnesota as a production hot spot, but not without its dangers. Walter Matthau was hospitalized with double pneumonia after they wrapped shooting. But despite his near-death experience, he came back to Minnesota for Grumpier Old Men two years later. 

As a sort of follow-up to his no-budget hit Clerks, Kevin Smith accepted an offer from Universal to take his trash-talking types inside for a story about a shopping mall in Mallrats. The main plot revolves around two broken-hearted friends (Jeremy London and Jason Lee) seeking solace at a mall, but finding instead a plot to sabotage a dating show, dating advice from comic books, and a villainous mall rat (Ben Affleck). Many die-hard fans feared Smith had sold out (not the least of them being Smith himself who publicly apologized for the film at the 1996 Independent Spirit Awards). But the film, which was supposed to be set in New Jersey (as many of Smith’s films are), was actually shot at the Eden Prairie Center in Minnesota.

While the title comes from a Soundgarden song "Outshined" ("I'm looking California, and feeling Minnesota"), Feeling Minnesota, which stars Keanu Reeves and Vincent D'Onofrio as brothers who betray each other for the same woman (Cameron Diaz), naturally takes place in Minnesota. Although one feels its down-on-their-luck characters and out-of-luck locations is not the best advertising for the state.

While named for a town in North Dakota, much of the action in the Coen brothers’ Midwestern thriller Fargo takes place in Minnesota. (Even the Fargo scene was set in Northwest Minnesota). The film, which garnered seven Oscar nominations, revolves around a botched kidnapping engineered by a beleaguered used car salesman (William H. Macy) with a couple of inept, but vicious, petty crooks (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) and the pregnant sheriff (Frances McDormand) that tracks them down. For the Coens, who’d shot their films all over the country, Fargo was to be a coming home. The brothers’ knowledge of the area made them very sensitive to the story’s locations. Some of the more well known spots  include the King of Clubs bar; Ember’s restaurant; Pillsbury Avenue; the Edina Police station; and the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre. While the film was universally acclaimed, some Minnesotans were upset by the film’s dark portrait of their city. The Twin Cities’ most famous local boy Garrison Kellior wrote, "Watching it was like driving toward Bismarck, N.D., at 10 miles an hour. You had a lot of time to see where you were going -- and wishing you didn't have to."

For the people involved in Scott Smith’s novel A Simple Plan about greed in the Midwest to the screen, the plan was anything but simple. The film went through five directors in over five years to arrive at Sam Raimi. And in the process, one of the few things that stayed the same was the location. While Smith’s novel about how the discovery of a bag of money turns a pair of good-natured brothers against each other was set in Ohio, Mike Nichols (the first potential director) decided early on to make the film in Minnesota. Although the film was shot in Delano, just west of the Twin Cities, the production decided early on to make the location a generic Midwestern town, because none of the primary actors (Bill Paxton, Bridget Fonda, Billy Bob Thornton) could do a really good Minnesotan accent.

Minnesota was perhaps as a big star as the parade of battling beauties in Michael Patrick Jann pageant comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous. Set in the fictional town of Mount Rose, Minnesota, the film follows the killer events in which local pageant contestants (hoping to win a scholarship out of town) are permanently knocked out of the competition. Each of the film’s leading ladies Kirsten Dunst, Ellen Barkin, Allison Janney, Denise Richards, Kirstie Alley, Brittany Murphy and a debuting Amy Adams had to adapt a bright Minnesotan accent for the film. Some local highlights include the giant cow statue the Bongards' Creameries in Bongards, Minnesota, Eden Prairie Center, and a furniture story in Chaska, Minnesota.

Robert Altman’s film about Garrison Keillor’s long-running public radio show A Prairie Home Companion was shot at the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota (where, in fact, the radio show takes place). To recreate the oddball cast of the radio show talents, Altman cast a remarkable who’s who of Hollywood (Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly and teen idol Lindsay Lohan).