Beantown, Baby!
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Sometimes you’ll hear the phrase “The city is really a character in the movie.” But what does that mean?
For example, what makes a movie set in Boston, Massachusetts truly feel like a Boston movie? There’s got to be more to it than just the location. Is it simply seeing the lead character wear a Red Sox cap? Or knowing the love interest is a student at Harvard? Maybe all it takes for a movie to be a Boston movie is a Dropkick Murphys needle drop?
Let’s take a look at some of the most quintessential “Boston” films of all time and see if there’s anything they have in common.
Celtic Pride
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Is this a great movie? No, not by any stretch of the imagination. But it deserves to be on this list because it captures the specific kind of provincial sports insanity that runs through the heart of Boston. Written by a young Judd Apatow and starring Dan Akyroyd, Daniel Stern, and Damon Wayans, this comedy is about two hapless losers who seem to only own Larry Bird jerseys. Stern and Akyroyd’s characters decide to kidnap the star player for the Utah Jazz (Wayans) to boost the chances of the Celtics in the NBA Finals. What ultimately hurts the movie is that the funniest part about it is the idea that the mid-90s Celtics would make any kind of NBA Finals run, but still it’s worth a watch.
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
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The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a woefully underrated crime drama starring Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle. The film follows a small-time crook with connections to the Irish Mob. On its own, the film is something of a lost classic, but for anyone with ties to Boston, it’s also an interesting glimpse at the grittier side of the city in the 1970s. For the handful of scenes that were shot in and around the Government Center, for example, it is fascinating to watch the movie and see how much has changed — and how much hasn’t. The movie also features some of the creepiest masks ever worn by criminals in cinema history.
Fever Pitch
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Fever Pitch. The movie is so quintessentially Boston that when the Red Sox finally broke the so-called Curse of the Bambino in 2004 to win the World Series after an 86-year drought, the entire ending had to be re-shot.
Despite being based on a memoir about the author’s lifelong connection to the Arsenal Football Club (Pitch, get it?) this 2005 Farrelly Brothers film starring Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore is not only a delightful rom-com but also a love letter to being a die-hard Red Sox fan (or any fan of baseball, really). Even a Yankee fan will be disarmed by its charm.
The Town
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The Town, directed by Ben Affleck (a name that will unsurprisingly come up on this list again), ticks so many “Boston” boxes that it is genuinely shocking that protagonist Doug MacRay and his crew don’t end up knocking over a Dunkin’ Donuts before it’s all said and done. They do attempt to rob Fenway Park, though we won’t spoil whether or not they manage to get away.
Borrowing occasionally from previous entries The Friends of Eddie Coyle, the set pieces are well-directed and exciting, and the performances/accents are mostly great. While the movie does get bogged down a bit in its melodrama, it isn’t as nihilistic as other Boston crime films.
The Verdict
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One of the great courtroom dramas of all time. The Verdict follows Paul Newman’s Frank, an ambulance chaser in Boston with a drinking problem and a chip on his shoulder. Frank ends up involved with a case that could be his one chance to redeem himself. Impeccable direction from Sidney Lumet and an unsurprisingly stellar script from David Mamet means it should come as no surprise that the film earned five Academy Award nominations.
Boston isn’t necessarily a character here in the way that it is in other films on this list. But there’s just something about the characters and subject matter that feel right at home in the Hub.
Spotlight
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Spotlight, the story of the long-serving investigative journalism unit at the Boston Globe and their tireless work uncovering child abuse by priests in the Catholic church features arguably the best writing and acting of any film on this list. Not only is the cast stacked, but everyone who attempts “the accent” does an admirable job. There’s an authenticity and attention to detail here that doesn’t let down the seriousness of the subject matter. It’s not as “fun” or action-packed as other Boston films, but it tells a story that is as important to the city as any other.
Also, we will give the director Tom McCarthy and his team a pass for filming some scenes in Toronto.
Good Will Hunting
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The film put Ben Affleck and Matt Damon on the map and won them an Academy Award for screenwriting. Here, we zero in on two very different parts of Boston: the world of academia, with visits to MIT, Harvard, and Bunker Hill Community College; and the working-class neighborhood of Southie. Matt Damon’s Will Hunting finds himself in a liminal state between the two, pulled in one direction by inertia, crime, and his childhood friends and in the other by a zealous professor who sees the infinite potential within him.
The center of the film is Damon’s scenes with Robin Williams, playing the therapist and picking up a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Their scene together in the Boston Public Garden is among the best of either man’s career and you can still find the bench they sat on while filming it there today.
The Departed
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Silly accents. State Troopers. The Irish Mob. Mark Wahlberg. Dropkick Murphys.
No film feels more quintessentially Boston than The Departed. A remake of Infernal Affairs (a Hong Kong thriller that is excellent in its own right), Martin Scorcese finally won his Best Director Academy Award with this gripping and pulpy story of two men deep undercover working to smoke out the other. It is violent, heart-pounding, tragic, and gets more big laughs than most comedies.
Jack Nicholson, playing his not-so-subtle version of notorious Boston gangster Whitey Bulger, gets a pass for his miserable attempt at a Boston accent because he misses the mark so spectacularly that it becomes high comedy. I could listen to this legend chew through the word “microprocessor” from now until the end of time.
The Fighter
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Technically this story is set in Lowell, Massachusetts, but the accents are the same. If you asked anyone from Lowell about where they’re from and you’re outside of the Commonwealth, they’ll just say Boston anyway.
The true story of boxer Micky Ward and his half-brother Dicky Ecklund, this stunning David O. Russell film earned seven Oscar nominations (winning two) and features incredible performances from Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, and Amy Adams. Bale in particular goes above and beyond, drastically changing his physique to portray someone struggling with an addiction to crack cocaine. With his ties to the area, Wahlberg also helps lend authenticity to the production like few other actors can.
