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May 20, 2007 4:24 PM

Please help me find some good small town/quirky character movies

I'm watching "The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain" as I type this. Dogdad and I started talking about other movies in the same vein, and we came up with "Waking Ned Devine" "Mystery, Alaska" "Mumford" and, of course, "Local Hero"

Can the Hive help us add to the list?

posted by dogmom to media & arts (81 comments total)

It's a little older, but The Quiet Man is good. Or, if you want something a little more parodic, Hot Fuzz is perfect.
posted by Paragon at 4:28 PM on May 20, 2007

State and Main?
posted by pablocham at 4:32 PM on May 20, 2007

Cold Comfort Farm
posted by sulaine at 4:39 PM on May 20, 2007

Naked, Withnil and I, Bend it Like Beckham are all such interesting and diverse slices of London it's like a small town. Babette's Feast is super that way.
posted by DenOfSizer at 4:42 PM on May 20, 2007

Maybe The Matchmaker, with Janeane Garofalo. Also, Saving Grace, which is a very funny movie.
posted by diamondsky at 4:44 PM on May 20, 2007

Slingblade
Doc Hollywood
To Kill A Mockingbird
posted by Clay201 at 4:44 PM on May 20, 2007

Waiting for Guffman has to be on the list.
posted by peacecorn at 4:44 PM on May 20, 2007

Men With Brooms.
posted by orange swan at 4:46 PM on May 20, 2007

Oh, and Kung Fu Hustle is about one particular apartment complex in Hong Kong, it's got great kung fu, and there's singing and dancing. But not too much.
posted by DenOfSizer at 4:47 PM on May 20, 2007

Waking Ned Devine
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 4:50 PM on May 20, 2007

Malcolm
posted by pompomtom at 4:59 PM on May 20, 2007

Housekeeping
Blue Velvet
It's a Wonderful Life
Junebug
Our Town
Paradise Postponed (BBC miniseries)
Deadwood (HBO series)
Northern Exposure (TV Series)

variation: Remains of the Day (NYC cast as a small town.)
posted by grumblebee at 5:00 PM on May 20, 2007

The Snapper
The Virgin Suicides
Ramblin' Rose
Hot Fuzz
The Village
posted by grumblebee at 5:03 PM on May 20, 2007

Napoleon Dynamite
Minute Man
posted by grumblebee at 5:05 PM on May 20, 2007

chocolat
big fish
cinema paradiso
fried green tomatoes
the ice storm
the piano
the station agent
american beauty
posted by thinkingwoman at 5:08 PM on May 20, 2007

Green For Danger
My New Gun
Vernon, Florida
Waiting For Guffman
The Good Girl
Spanking the Monkey
Me and You and Everyone We Know

"The Squid and The Whale" feels like it belongs on this list. It's set in NYC, but it's contained to a small neighborhood and deals a few with complex, quirky characters.
posted by grumblebee at 5:13 PM on May 20, 2007

Northern Exposure.
posted by sien at 5:19 PM on May 20, 2007

Fargo and Twin Peaks
posted by hot soup girl at 5:21 PM on May 20, 2007

IMDb has a keyword search function, dogmom. Here are the "small town" results, and here are the "small town" plus "quirky" results (about twenty for the latter).
posted by cgc373 at 5:22 PM on May 20, 2007

The Shipping News.
The Spitfire Grill.
Picnic.
posted by paulsc at 5:23 PM on May 20, 2007

On the small screen - Gilmore Girls.
posted by puritycontrol at 5:24 PM on May 20, 2007

Dancer, Texas Pop. 81

Ruby in Paradise

Lone Star
posted by pineapple at 5:33 PM on May 20, 2007

Amacord
I Vitelloni
posted by grumblebee at 5:35 PM on May 20, 2007

grumble bee mentioned The Snapper which is really excellent... and it's also part of a loosely connected trilogy. The other two movies are The Commitments and The Van. The Snapper is side-sidesplitting funny, and The Commitments had the most commercial success. The Van is not as strong, but is still a charming little movie.

Oh, and then there's The Station Agent
posted by kimdog at 5:36 PM on May 20, 2007

What the Deaf Man Heard
posted by buggzzee23 at 5:38 PM on May 20, 2007

The Dish
posted by buggzzee23 at 5:40 PM on May 20, 2007

Malcolm
posted by buggzzee23 at 5:41 PM on May 20, 2007

What's Eating Gilbert Grape
posted by Johnny Assay at 5:45 PM on May 20, 2007

Funny Farm and seconding Vernon, Florida and The Station Agent.
posted by Frank Grimes at 5:46 PM on May 20, 2007

Ghost World
Broken Flowers
Dead Man
posted by grumblebee at 5:47 PM on May 20, 2007

If you liked Local Hero, pretty much anything by Bill Forsyth. Watch "Comfort & Joy" at Christmastime.
posted by sixpack at 5:56 PM on May 20, 2007

Two charming seaside tales on opposite sides of the globe: The Secret of Roan Inish and Whale Rider
posted by rob511 at 5:56 PM on May 20, 2007

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dreams House
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:59 PM on May 20, 2007

The Straight Story (1999, David Lynch - not what you'd expect!)
posted by starman at 6:04 PM on May 20, 2007

La grande séduction / Seducing Dr. Lewis. The gag is very similar to the one in "Waking Ned Devine."
posted by Orinda at 6:07 PM on May 20, 2007

Groundhog Day
posted by cocoagirl at 6:12 PM on May 20, 2007

In the Paul Newman/small town in upstate New York canon:

Slapshot
Nobody's Fool
posted by psmealey at 6:13 PM on May 20, 2007

You might be interested in this book: Small Town American in Film, by Emanuel Levy.
posted by dog food sugar at 6:18 PM on May 20, 2007

Oh, you could also try In the Bedroom, though its view of small-town coastal life struck me as bothersomely outsiderish in a way I couldn't quite put my finger on.

Maybe it was the presentation of lobstering as a hobby. For well-off people. Who speak with faked accents.
posted by Orinda at 6:21 PM on May 20, 2007

Garden State
Thumbsucker
Milwaukee, Minnesota
posted by fire&wings at 6:31 PM on May 20, 2007

More upstate New York, and if you watch the others that psmealey so rightly suggested, you won't want to miss: Empire Falls
posted by vers at 6:42 PM on May 20, 2007

Trees Lounge
Milagro Beanfield Wars
posted by slow, man at 6:45 PM on May 20, 2007

Look Both Ways

Bread and Tulips
posted by LoriFLA at 6:47 PM on May 20, 2007

Nthing The Station Agent and What's Eating Gilbert Grape. While we're on pre-titanic Leonardo DiCaprio, This Boy's Life.

The Spitfire Grill was good. Nthing The Good Girl.

I have to disagree with the Shipping News. I LOVED the book but hated the movie. I thought they took the life out of it. I can honestly say that I'm not one of those people who insists on movies being identical to the books that spawned them. I just thought the Shipping News missed the spirit of the book. I didn't get a sense that the director was a fan of the book at all.

Big Night

Chocolat

The Full Monty

Napoleon Dynamite

A River Runs Through It

Sling Blade

Pieces of April isn't strictly small town, but it seems like it could go here.

Circle of Friends
posted by jiiota at 7:04 PM on May 20, 2007

David Byrne's True Stories.
posted by mykescipark at 7:05 PM on May 20, 2007

The Motel

American Splendor. This is another not-exactly-small-town movie, but it has that feel. And it's absolutely excellent and a joy to watch.
posted by jiiota at 7:09 PM on May 20, 2007

Any movie based on a Carson McCullers story.
Paris, Texas
U-Turn
The Man Who Wasn't There
posted by rhizome at 7:14 PM on May 20, 2007

Babe

Fly Away Home

In America

Bottle Rocket

Roxanne

Ghost World

I know I'm pushing my luck here, but also Raising Arizona.
posted by jiiota at 7:20 PM on May 20, 2007

Powwow Highway. Gary Farmer (from Dead Man) is awesome in this.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 7:36 PM on May 20, 2007

Danny Deckchair
posted by buggzzee23 at 7:43 PM on May 20, 2007

The Bank Dick
posted by buggzzee23 at 7:45 PM on May 20, 2007

Welcome to Woop Woop

and one of my all-time faovrites, the timeless Le Roi de coeur
aka "King of Hearts"
posted by buggzzee23 at 7:53 PM on May 20, 2007

Out of Rosenheim (aka Bagdad Café)
posted by jamaro at 7:56 PM on May 20, 2007

Happy, Texas
Monsters Ball
Il Postino
posted by jeanmari at 7:56 PM on May 20, 2007

True Stories
posted by amyms at 8:45 PM on May 20, 2007

Grosse Pointe Blank
posted by lou at 9:53 PM on May 20, 2007

How about "To Wong Foo: Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar"?

or the vastly superior Australian drag queen movie, "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert".

Though not set in a town, exactly, "A Prarie Home Companion" has a simliar feel to the movies I think you're describing. Quirky ensemble cast, cozy feeling, homespun, folksy (but intelligent) humor, etc.

Widow's Peak is a good one based on your enjoying the "Englishman".

Practical Magic, while God Awful, fits the description.

But perhaps one of the best ever small-town quirkfests ever filmed is The Witches of Eastwick. You'll never look at cherries the same way again.
posted by Lieber Frau at 10:19 PM on May 20, 2007

You can't get much quirkier or smaller-town than Gummo, but it, uh, might not be exactly what you're looking for.
posted by squidlarkin at 10:33 PM on May 20, 2007

Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune. Not his best work but very, very good. I felt all warm and fuzzy after watching it.
posted by brundlefly at 10:53 PM on May 20, 2007

not a movie but one of my favorite tv shows, Northern Exposure, you can get the dvd's and they are great

movie wise I say "who's afraid of Virginia Woolfe"
posted by travis08 at 11:02 PM on May 20, 2007

buggzzee23 said The Dish, which is a good suggestion. It made me think of The Castle, which probably also fits the bill.
posted by robcorr at 1:04 AM on May 21, 2007

I always loved Beautiful Girls- great performances from Timothy Hutton as a guy returning to his small home town, Matt Dillon and a young Natalie Portman.
posted by Rufus T. Firefly at 4:17 AM on May 21, 2007

"The Last Picture Show" and "The Year My Voice Broke" are also good examples of small town life, I think.
posted by h00py at 5:18 AM on May 21, 2007

Simple Men
Unbelieveable Truth
posted by macadamiaranch at 6:56 AM on May 21, 2007

Rufus, yes- Beautiful Girls was excellent.
posted by jiiota at 7:10 AM on May 21, 2007

Many excellent selections here, but there are quite a few that miss the mark. Tony suburbs with sophisticated residents like New Canaan (Ice Storm) and Grosse Pointe (GPB), as well as the fictitious towns featured in American Beauty and Garden State are not at all "small towns" as the OP posted the question.
posted by psmealey at 7:27 AM on May 21, 2007

Why isn't the small town in "American Beauty" a small town?
posted by grumblebee at 8:26 AM on May 21, 2007

I can't believe I forgot about "Breaking Away"! It was filmed in the small town I grew up in, Bloomington Indiana. (It was a small town back then, anyway.)
posted by grumblebee at 8:28 AM on May 21, 2007

Why isn't the small town in "American Beauty" a small town?

Necessary attributes of "Small towns" such as the ones in Englishman and Local Hero, are a level of rural insularity, self-sufficiency and an essence of being lost in time that sophisticated American bedroom communities lack. The town in American Beauty, while I suppose it could have been anywhere, seemed to be overwhelmingly populated by urban city slickers whose day-time lives existed elsewhere.
posted by psmealey at 8:42 AM on May 21, 2007

Well, if you live in New York, "American Beauty" FEELS like a small town. The people in it actually care about what goes on in the house next door.
posted by grumblebee at 8:45 AM on May 21, 2007

There's no doubt it shares attributes in common, grumblebee, but the examples the OP gave were definitely of a specific type of small town. Quirky, "trapped in time" places that existed outside the fabric of any external urban area. Suburbs can't really exist as standalone entities.
posted by psmealey at 8:48 AM on May 21, 2007

If you want to keep the Welsh theme going (albeit in a totally different experience), I'd strongly recommend Twin Town.

It's not for those who dislike colourful language or violence, though.
posted by Lionel d'Lion at 8:58 AM on May 21, 2007

I liked Eulogy
posted by ijoyner at 8:59 AM on May 21, 2007

Running with scissors (quirky characters, yes - small town, maybe not...shrug)
About Schmidt
Me and you and Everyone we know
The Station Agent
posted by puddleglum at 9:03 AM on May 21, 2007

Spring Forward, an overlooked Ned Beatty indie film.
posted by jalexei at 9:34 AM on May 21, 2007

Breaking the Waves
posted by Orinda at 10:04 AM on May 21, 2007

A Simple Curve
The Rage in Placid Lake
Monster Thursday
Wilby Wonderful
Marion Bridge
All available here and, I think, from Netflix.
posted by bricoleur at 10:11 AM on May 21, 2007

Oh, and the BBC series Ballykissangel.
posted by bricoleur at 10:14 AM on May 21, 2007

The Love Letter
posted by dizzycow at 10:42 AM on May 21, 2007

Oh My!
I went away for a day, and when I checked in, there were all of these lovely responses! I suspect that I will be wearing out my DVD player over the next few weeks. And, to the debate as to whether or not American Beauty counts- for my purposes.... it sort of counts. I counts in the sense that there are just enough characters that we get a bit of backstory about all of them, and while they may live in the "big city" they are isolated enough into their own world. It doesn't count in that I am looking for more of the small town feel of things. Like The Full Monty. The town itself wasn't a charachter in that movie, but it had that small town feel to it where everyone seems to know each other and be in each other's business.

Thank you again, Hive! I knew you you wouldn't let me down!
posted by dogmom at 1:08 PM on May 21, 2007

My two cents: American Beauty is not what I would consider a small town movie. It's an explicit dissection of suburbia. Small town America and Suburban America are two very, very different things!
posted by Lieber Frau at 8:33 PM on May 21, 2007