15 movies shot in Missouri — and where to stream them

Missouri might not be the movie capital of America, but the Show Me State often shows off when filmmakers shoot their work here. A wide array of films have been made in Missouri over a remarkable span of time.

To perhaps spy a familiar scene, and see it in a new way, it's worth giving these films a watch. Here are just 15 of the many films to be shot within our state, and how you can find them at home.

Streaming information is, of course, subject to change.

'Adam at 6 a.m.' (1970)

Director: Robert Scheerer

Cast: Michael Douglas, Lee Purcell, Joe Don Baker

Missouri locations: Excelsior Springs, Cameron, Orrick

Does the story involve Missouri? Yes. Douglas plays a college professor who treks from California to Missouri for a relative’s funeral.

Rating: R

Where to stream: Amazon Prime or Apple TV

'Paper Moon' (1973)

Director: Peter Bogdanovich

Cast: Ryan O'Neal, Tatum O'Neal, Madeline Kahn

Missouri location: St. Joseph

Does the story involve Missouri? St. Joseph is the eventual destination for a con man who reluctantly volunteers to deliver a recently-orphaned girl to a relative's home.

Rating: PG

Where to stream: Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Paramount Plus

'Escape From New York' (1981)

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes

Missouri location: St. Louis

Does the story involve Missouri? No. While, as the title suggests, Russell's Snake Plissken takes a presidential rescue mission to Manhattan in the then-near future (1997), many of the film's urban scenes were filmed on both the Missouri and Illinois sides of St. Louis.

Rating: R

Where to stream: Apple TV, Amazon Prime

'Koyaanisqatsi' (1982)

Director: Godfrey Reggio

Missouri location: St. Louis

Does the story involve Missouri? This experimental film examines the relationship between people and their surroundings, whether urban or wild. The film prominently features footage of the demolition of St. Louis' infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing project.

Rating: Unrated

Where to stream: Amazon Prime, Apple TV

'National Lampoon's Vacation' (1983)

Director: Harold Ramis

Cast: Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Anthony Michael Hall

Missouri location: St. Louis

Does the story involve Missouri? Momentarily. Clark Griswold and his family's Great American Vacation takes a detour through St. Louis, in which the family "truckster" is vandalized in a scene which plays to stereotypes about the city.

Rating: R

Where to stream: Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Netflix

'Planes, Trains and Automobiles' (1987)

Director: John Hughes

Cast: Steve Martin, John Candy

Missouri location: St. Louis

Does the story involve Missouri? Briefly, but oh so memorably. One of the classic modern road-trip movies — and the definitive Thanksgiving film — stages one of its most iconic scenes in the Show Me State. After their train breaks down in Missouri, Martin and Candy are bussed to St. Louis where Martin's airport freakout takes place at Lambert International Airport.

Rating: R

Where to stream: Amazon Prime, Apple TV

'White Palace' (1990)

Director: Luis Mandoki

Cast: Susan Sarandon, James Spader

Missouri location: St. Louis

Does the story involve Missouri? Yes. Spader and Sarandon's star-crossed lovers live in St. Louis, with Sarandon's work as a waitress depicted at a real diner in the city.

Rating: R

Where to stream: Amazon Prime

‘Ride with the Devil’ (1999)

Director: Ang Lee

Cast: Tobey Maguire, Skeet Ulrich, Jewel

Missouri locations: Pattonsburg, Kansas City, Lexington

Does the story involve Missouri? Yes, the Civil War drama revolves around the skirmishes between Missouri Irregulars and Kansas Jayhawkers.

Rating: R

Where to stream: Amazon Prime, Apple TV

‘Fever Pitch’ (2005)

Directors: Peter and Bobby Farrelly

Cast: Drew Barrymore, Jimmy Fallon

Missouri location: St. Louis

Does the story involve Missouri? Yes. In this rom-com, Boston Red Sox obsessive Ben (Fallon) and girlfriend Lindsey (Barrymore) visit Busch Stadium for the fourth game of the 2004 Red Sox-Cardinals World Series. A scene of Fallon and Barrymore’s characters celebrating on the field happened in real-time.

Rating: PG-13

Where to stream: Disney+, Amazon Prime, Apple TV

'Killshot' (2008)

Director: John Madden

Cast: Diane Lane, Thomas Jane, Mickey Rourke, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rosario Dawson

Missouri location: Cape Girardeau

Does the story involve Missouri? Yes. In this mafia thriller, a pair of witnesses seeking protection are relocated to Missouri.

Rating: R

Where to stream: Amazon Prime

'Up in the Air' (2009)

Director: Jason Reitman

Cast: George Clooney, Anna Kendrick, Vera Farmiga, Jason Bateman

Missouri location: St. Louis

Does the story involve Missouri? Yes, the film features scenes set at Lambert airport, but St. Louis also stands in for a number of Middle American cities throughout the narrative.

Rating: R

Where to stream: Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Netflix, Paramount Plus

'Winter's Bone' (2010)

Director: Debra Granik

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Garret Dillahunt

Missouri locations: Locales within Taney and Christian counties

Does the story involve Missouri? The film which made a then-20-year-old Jennifer Lawrence is indeed set within an insular Ozarks, where a teen girl fights for her family's future and tries to track down her father.

Rating: R

Where to stream: Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Peacock

'You're Next' (2011)

Director: Adam Wingard

Cast: Sharni Vinson, Nicholas Tucci, Wendi Glenn, A.J. Bowen

Missouri location: Columbia

Does the story involve Missouri? Written by Columbia native Simon Barrett, this home invasion horror flick is set within Show Me State borders.

Rating: R

Where to stream: Amazon Prime, Hulu

'Gone Girl' (2014)

Director: David Fincher

Cast: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry

Missouri location: Cape Girardeau

Does the story involve Missouri? Based on Kansas City native Gillian Flynn's smash novel, this marital drama-and-missing woman thriller travels to the fictional Missouri town of North Carthage.

Rating: R

Where to stream: Amazon Prime, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu

'American Honey' (2016)

Director: Andrea Arnold

Cast: Sasha Lane, Shia LaBeouf, Riley Keough

Missouri location: Kansas City

Does the story involve Missouri? The road-trip movie involves passage through Kansas City.

Rating: R

Where to stream: Showtime Anytime, Amazon Prime, Apple TV

To learn about more films made in Missouri, visit the Missouri Film Office at https://mofilm.org/about/filmed-in-missouri/, among other sources.

Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com or by calling 573-815-1731. Find him on Twitter @aarikdanielsen.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: These 15 movies were made in Missouri — and you can watch them at home