Dewey 791 - Film settings by continent - Eureka! InquiryUnlimited.org - practitioner originally sited at Boston KidWeb at the Joseph Lee Elementary School

Film Settings by Continent

	United States A- M and N - Z		Canada Mexico Central America
	The Caribbean		South America
	Europe		Asia
	Africa		Australia
	Arctic and Antarctic		Outer Space

Canada

2007 - Autumn Hearts: A New Beginning. (99 minutes PG-13) Director: Paolo Barman. Cast: Summary: Three people who bonded in a detention camp during World War II reunite decades later. [Based on the 1995/201 paged Matt Cohen "Emotional Arithmetic" novel.) [CANADA] (Drama)

Mexico

1947 - Out of the Past. (97 minutes) Director: Jacques Tourneur. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Richard Webb. Summary: A private eye allows himself to be duped by the two-faced mistress of a big-time gangster. [CALIFORNIA, NEW YORK, NEVADA, MEXICO] (Crime film/Thriller)

1952 - Viva Zapata!. (113 minutes) Director: Elia Kazan. Cast: Marlon Brando, Anthony Quinn, Jean Peters, Joseph Wiseman. Summary: Focus on Mexican revolutionary learder, Emiliano Zapata. [MEXICO] (Drama film/History)

1953 - Blowing Wild. (90 minutes) Director: Hugo Fregonese. Cast: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Anthony Quinn, Ruth Roman, Ward Bond. Summary: Portrayal of American wildcatters facing bandits to seek riches in the oil fields of South America, Central America, and Mexico while involved in love triangles. [SOUTH AMERICA; CENTRAL AMERICA, MEXICO] (Drama/Romance)

1954 - Vera Cruz. (94 minutes) Director: Robert Aldrich. Cast: Gary Cooper, Burt Lancaster, Denise Darcel, Cesar Romero, Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam. Summary: Two Americans escort a carriage holding a countess and a three million dollar gold treasure from Maximilian's palace in Mexico City to Vera Cruz. [MEXICO] (Action/Adventure/War)

1970 - Two Mules for Sister Sara. (105 minutes) Director: Don Siegel. Cast: Clint Eastwood, Shirley MacLaine. Summary: A man and a nun work complete a job together. [comedy] [MEXICO] (Drama film/Action)

1982 - Barbarosa. (90 minutes PG) Director: Fred Schepisi. Cast: Willie Nelson, Gary Busey. Summary: A pair of outcasts on the run meet in Mexico. [MEXICO] (Action/Adventure/Buddy film)

1988 - The Milagro Beanfield War. (118 minutes R) Director: Robert Redford. Cast: Ruben Blades, Richard Bradford, Sonia Braga, Julie Carmen, Melanie Griffith, John Heard, Daniel Stern, Christopher Walken. Summary: When a small Mexican village is threatened by development, rebellion rouses the pride and spirit of its people. [MEXICO] (Based on the John Nichols Milagro Beanfield War (974/629 ps.) novel) (Comedy-drama/Drama)

2000 - All the Pretty Horses. (117 minutes PG-13) Director: Billy Bob Thornton. Cast: Matt Damon, Henry Thomas, Lucas Black, Penelope Cruz, Ruben Blades, Bruce Dern, Sam Shepard. Summary: In post World War II Texas, two buddies head for Mexico seeking work as cowboys. [based on the Cormac McCarthy novel] [MEXICO] (Based on the Cormac McCarthy novel "All the Pretty Horses 1993/302 ps.) [WESTERN] (Coming of Age/Drama)

2000 - One Man's Hero. (122 minutes R) Director: Lance Hool. Cast: Tom Berenger, Joaquim De Almeida, Daniela Romo, Patrick Bergin. Summary: True tale of Sergeant John Riley and his Saint Patrick Battalion of Irish immigrant soldiers who enlisted to fight in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) because they were maltreated by the U. S. Army for their Catholicism. [MEXICO] (Drama/Action)

2001 - The Mexican. (123 minutes R) Director: Gore Verbinski. Cast: Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Gene Hackman. Summary: While he is trying to pull off a job, a criminal's girlfriend is kidnapped. [MEXICO] (Romance/Adventure)

Central America

1953 - Blowing Wild. (90 minutes) Director: Hugo Fregonese. Cast: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Anthony Quinn, Ruth Roman, Ward Bond. Summary: Portrayal of Americans facing bandits to seek riches in the oil fields of South America, Central America, and Mexico. [SOUTH AMERICA; CENTRAL AMERICA, MEXICO] (Drama/Romance)

1985 - Kiss of the Spider Woman. (119 minutes R) Director: Hector Babencio. Cast: William Hurt, Raul Julia, Sonia Braga. Summary: In a Latin American prison, two cellmates reveal that they are both victims of society. (Based on novel by Manuel Puig 1976/288 ps.) (Drama)

1986 - Salvador. (120 minutes R) Director: Oliver Stone. Cast: James Woods, John Savage, James Belushi, Michael Murphy, Elpidia Carrillo, Tony Plana, Cynthia Gibb. Summary: Events in El Salvador around 1980 - 1981 revealed from the perspective of screenwriter-photojournalist Richard Boyle. (Thriller/Indie film)

1997 - Rough Riders. (182 minutes) Director: John Milius. Cast: Tom Berenger, Gary Busey, Brad Johnson, Illeana Douglas, Chris Noth, Brian Keith, George Hamilton, Sam Elliott. Summary: The American-Spanish conflict of 1898. (Docudrama/History)

The Caribbean

1933 - Emperor Jones. (73 minutes) Director: Dudley Murphy. Cast: Paul Robeson, Dudley Digges, Frank Wilson, Fredi Washington. Summary: A Georgia Pullman porter kills a man, is sent to a chain gang, escapes to a Caribbean island on a ship, and becomes emperor of the island only to be deposed and killed. (Based on 1920 play by Eugene O'Neill) (Drama)

1944 - Lifeboat. (96 minutes) Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Tallulah Bankhead, William Bendix, Walter Slezak, Hume Cronyn. Summary: During World War II, eight survivors from a cross-section of society survive the cramped quarters of a small lifeboat trying to reach Bermuda after their Allied freighter is torpedoed by a German U-boat. [BERMUDA/ENGLAND] (Adventure/Drama)

1944 - To Have and Have Not. (100 minutes) Director: Howard Hawks. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, Lauren Bacall, Hoagy Carmichael, Dolores Moran. Screenplay by Jules Furthman and William Faulkner. Summary: Based on a 1937 Ernest Hemingway novel (272 ps.) set in 1940 Martinique during the Vichy overthrow. (Drama film/Thriller)

1958 - Tamango. (100 minutes) Director: John Berry. Cast: Curt Jurgens, Alex Cressan, Dorothy Dandridge. Summary: A slave ship purchases a cargo in Africa and on the way to Cuba, the crew fights for freedom. (Drama/History)

1971 - Bananas. (82 minutes PG-13) Director: Woody Allen. Cast: Woody Allen, Louise Lasser. Summary: A man gets involved in a Caribbean revolution. (Comedy/Satire)

1988 - Overboard. (106 minutes PG) Director: Garry Marshall. Cast: Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Edward Herrmann, Katherine Helmond. Summary: An heiress falls off her yacht, loses her memory, is claimed by the ship carpenter to be his children's mother. (Drama/Romance)

1989 - Moon Over Parador. (103 minutes PG-13) Director: Paul Mazursky. Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Raul Julia, Sonia Braga, Jonathan Winters, Fernando Rey. Summary: A struggling New York actor is kidnapped and forced to impersonate the late dictator of Parador, a Caribbean nation and gets better and better at it when the dead leader's mistress helps him. (Romance/Comedy)

1990 - Havana. (130 minutes R) Director: Sydney Pollack. Cast: Robert Redford, Lena Oiln, Alan Arkin, Raul Julia, Tomas Milian, Tony Plana. Summary: In 1958 Cuba, a gambler falls in love with a politically involved widow prior to the revolution. (Drama/Romance)

1992 - Captain Ron. (100 minutes PG-13) Director: Thom Eberhardt. Cast: Kurt Russell, Martin Short, Mary Kay Place, Paul Anka. Summary: A Chicago businessman who inherits his uncle's yacht, drags his family to the Caribbean where he hires a skipper to pilot and fix-up the run down boat. (Action/Adventure/Family drama)

1996 - White Squall. (127 minutes) Director: Ridley Scott. Cast: Jeff Bridges, Caroline Goodall, Scott Wolf, John Savage, Balthazar Getty. Summary: Told from the point of view of a Connecticut senior who along with twelve other high school students, has elected to spend the 1960-61 academic year on board the American schoolship Albatross sailing around the world as they learned about sailing and unity from their captain. They mature personally and test their courage and survival skills when they unexpectedly meet a white squall, a sudden, violent, wind-and-lightning storm. [CONNECTICUT] (Disaster Film/Coming of Age)

1997 - Out to Sea. (106 minutes PG-13) Director: Martha Coolidge. Cast: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Dyan Cannon, Gloria De Haven, Brent Spinter, Elaine Stritch, Hal Lenden, Donald O'Connor, Edward Mulhare. Summary: Two brothers-in-law posing as dance instructors on a Caribbean cruise ship hope to meet wealthy women on board. (Romance/Comedy)

1998 - How Stella Got Her Groove Back. (124 minutes R) Director: Kevin Sullivan. Cast: Angela Bassett, Taye Diggs, Whoopi Goldberg, Regina King, Suzzanne Douglas, Michael J. Pagan. Summary: A forty-year-old stockbroker and single mother has a love affair with a twenty-year-old Jamaican while vacationing in the tropics. (Comedy-drama/Drama)

1999 - My Little Assassin. Cast: Gabrielle Anwar, Joe Mantegna. Summary: A young American falls in love with Fidel Castro during the early years of his dictatorship. (Docudrama/Drama)

South America

2007 - A Mighty Heart. (103 min. R) Director: Michael Winterbottom. Cast: Angelina Jolie, Dan Futterman, Archie Panjabi. Summary: Mariane Pearl, the wife of journalist Daniel Pearl of The Wall Street Journal, heads to Pakistan after terrorists capture her husband. In the terrifying weeks that follow, she must cope with international attention and find her way through the dangerous world of underground politics in a desperate effort to find him. (Based on her 2003/288 paged novel.) (Biography, Drama, History) [PAKISTAN]

Europe

2016 - Me Before You. (111 minutes PG-13) Director: Thea Shamrock Cast: Sam Claflin, Vanessa Kirby, Emilia Clarke. Summary: A woman becomes a caregiver for a wealthy young banker left paralyzed from an accident two years earlier. Will's cynical outlook starts to change when Louisa shows him that life is worth living. As their bond deepens, their lives and hearts change in ways neither one could have imagined. (Based on the Jojo Moyes 2012/480 paged novel.)(Drama film/Romance) [ENGLAND]

Asia

China, Tibet, Korea, Japan, Arabian Peninsula (Sinai Peninsula [Egypt]), Southwest coast of Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Persian Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, South Asia [India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Iran], The Middle East (Turkey and Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Jordan), Siberia, CENTRAL ASIA (Afghanistan), SOUTHEAST ASIA (Burma, Thailand, Laos), MALAYSIA (Singapore), Cambodia, Vietnam, INDONESIA (Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Celebes, Moluccas, Lesser Sunda Isles, Philippines,

2014 - Rosewater. (103 minutes R) Director: Jon Stewart Cast: Gael Garcia Bernal, Golshifteh Farahani, Shohreh Aghdashloo Summary: In June 2009, BBC journalist Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-born Canadian citizen, returned to his native country to interview Mir-Hossein Moussavi, the prime challenger to incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. When Moussavi's supporters protested Ahmadinejad's declaration of victory, Bahari smuggled footage of the riots to the BBC. He was soon arrested by the Revolutionary Guard and -- led by a man known only as "Rosewater" -- was interrogated and tortured for 118 days.[IRAN](Drama film/Biography)

Africa

2001 - Agatha Christie's Poirot: Murder in Mesopotamia. (100 minutes) Director: Tom Clegg. Cast: David Suchet. Summary: Poirot visits an ancient site while vacationin in Iraq only to stumble into the murder of the head archaeologist's wife. [Based on an Agatha Christie 1936 novel] [IRAQ] (Drama/Mystery/Crime)

Middle East Films

1949 - Samson and Delilah. (130 minutes) Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Cast: Hedy Lamarr, Victor Mature, George Sanders, Angela Lansbury, Henry Wilcoxon. Summary: Philistines and the power of hair. [PALESTINE] (Drama/Action)

1953 - Dream Wife. (110 minutes) Director: Sidney Sheldon. Cast: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Walter Pidgeon. Summary: East and how to make her man happy meets West and a woman working conflict as an American businessman and his diplomat fiance have differing views of marriage causing him to propose to the princess of Bukistan, a country rich in oil. [BUKISTAN, MIDDLE EAST] (Drama/Comedy/Romance)

1956 - The Ten Commandments. (220 minutes G) Paramount Pictures. Director: Cecil B. Demille. Cast: Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, Edward G. Robinson, John Derek. [PALESTINE] (Jewish Experience) (Drama film/Action/History)

1959 - Ben-Hur. (212 minutes G) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Director: William Wyler. Cast: Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet. [PALESTINE] (Jewish Experience) (Academy award Theme: Independent Men) (Drama film/Action/History)

1960 - Exodus. (213 minutes) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Director: Otto Preminger. Cast: Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Ralph Richardson, Peter Lawford, David Opatoshu, Lee J. Cobb. [EUROPE] [PALESTINE](Jewish Experience) (Drama/Action/History)

1972 - Portnoy's Complaint. (101 minutes) Director: Ernest Lehman. Cast: Richard Benjamin, Karen Black, Lee Grant, Jack Somack, Jeannie Berlin. Summary: Based on Philip Roth's 1969 novel, this follows the life of an American Jewish man trying to separate his life from Judaism. [ISRAEL] (Drama/Comedy)

1980 - Masada. (131 minutes) Director: Boris Sagal. Cast: Peter O'Toole, Peter Strauss, Barbara Carrera. Summary: In 70 A.D. the Romans sacked Jerusalem and a group of 980 fighting Jews fled to Herod's winter palace on the mountain of Masada where they remained for three years under siege by 10,000 Roman soldiers until the day when the Romans broke through the walls of the citadel only to find that the Jews had taken their lives rather than be mastered by Rome. [JERUSALEM/MIDDLE EAST] (Drama film/History)

1985. Shoah. (503 minutes) New Yorker Films. Director: Claude Lanzmann. [EUROPE] [MIDDLE EAST] (Jewish Experience) (Drama film/War)

1987 - Every Time We Say Goodbye. (97 minutes) Director: Moshe Mizrahi. Cast: Tom Hanks, Cristina Marsillach, Benedict Taylor. Summary: An American World War II pilot falls in love with a young Jewish girl in Jerusalem. [ISRAEL] (Drama/Romance)

1993 - Cast A Giant Shadow. (142 minutes) Director: Melville Shavelson. Cast: Kirk Douglas, Senta Berger, Angie Dickinson, James Donald. Summary: Israel's heroic 1947-1948 struggle for independence with a strong, compassionate American Jew and World War II hero who "got involved" by becoming a volunteer military advisor to the new state of Israel and the country's first general in 2,000 years. [Based on a novel by Ted Berkman] (Drama/Action)

Pacific Islands

2003 - Whale Rider. (101 minutes PG-13) Director: Niki Caro. Cast: Keisha Castle-Hughes, Rawiri Paratene, Vicky Haughton, Cliff Curtis, Grant Roa, Mana Taumaunu, Rachel House. Summary: Follows the birth of the surviving girl twin, Pai, as she is brought up by Whangara people in New Zealand. They believe their ancestor Paikea was saved from drowning by riding home on the back of a whale Whangara people. The tribal group has since granted leadership positions to the first-born males, believing them to be descendants of Paikea. But when Pai's young mother dies in childbirth, Pai is brought up by her grandparents. Learning the skills of chiefdom from her uncle, Pai shows that she possess a natural leadership ability. [NEW ZEALAND; MAORI] (Drama film/Family)

Australia

1960 - The Sundowners. (113 minutes) Director: Fred Zinnemann. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Deborah Kerr, Peter Ustinov, Glynis Johns, Dina Merrill, Chips Rafferty. Summary: Australian sheepherders in the 1920s. [AUSTRALIA] (Drama/Action/Adventure)

1982 - Man from Snowy River. (115 minutes PG) Director: George Miller. Cast: Tom Burlinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Thompson, Bruce Kerr. Summary: This Australian western develops the growth of a mountain man (Tom Burlinson) as he gets involved with a rancher's family. (Based on 1890 poem by Banjo Paterson) [AUSTRALIA] (Drama/Romance)

1985 - Wacky World of Wills and Burke. (97 minutes) Director: Bob Weis. Cast: Garry McDonald, Kim Gyngell, Nicole Kidman, Colin Hay. Summary: Parody of the 1860s true story of explorers crossing Australia by camel. (Drama/Parody/Comedy)

1986 - Crocodile Dundee. (98 minutes) Director: Peter Faiman. Cast: Paul Hogan, Linda Kozlowski, John Meillon, Mark Blum, David Gulpilil, Michael Lombard. Summary: A New York reporter travels to Australia to meet a crocodile hunter and bring him to New York. [NEW YORK] (Drama/Comedy/Adventure)

1990 - Quigley Down Under. (106 minutes PG-13) Director: Simon Wincer. Cast: Tom Selleck, Laura San Giacomo, Alan Rickman. Summary: In the 1860s, a sharp-shooting American cowboy travels to Australia to work for a British rancher. (Drama/Action/Adventure)

2002 - Rabbit-Proof Fence. (94 minutes PG) Director: Phillip Noyce. Cast: Everlyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury, Laura Monaghan, David Gulpilil, Ningali Lawford, Myarn Lawford, Deborah Mailman, Jason Clarke, Kenneth Branagh. Summary: In 1931 Australia, three half-caste children from Western Australia, Molly and her younger cousins, Gracie and Daisy, were taken from their parents under government edict and sent to an institution where they would be taught to forget their families, their culture, and re-invent themselves as members of "white" Australian society. The three girls begin an epic journey back to Western Australia, travelling 1,500 miles on foot with no food or water, and navigating by following the fence that has been build across the nation to stem an over-population of rabbits. (Drama film/History)

2002 - The Tracker. (56 minutes) Director: Rolf DeHeer Cast: David Gulpilil, Gary Sweet, Damon Gameau, Grant Page, Noel Wilton. Summary: This movie explores a controversial moment in the Australian justice system, of the racist relationship between Aboriginals and locals. An Aboriginal tracker (David Gulpilil) leads the manhunt for a fugitive native, with a Fanatic, Veteran, and Follower, all part of the search party. Who has the power and how the power changes between individuals. [AUSTRALIA] (Drama film/Crime fiction)

2003 - Finding Nemo. (100 minutes) Director: Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich. Voices: Albert Brooks, Ellen Degeneres, Alexander Gould, Willem Dafoe, Brad Garrett, Allison Janney, Austin Pendleton, Stephen Root, Vicki Lewis, Geoffrey Rush, Elizabeth Perkins. Summary: In the underwater world of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, clownfish Marlin is a widower who is overprotective in raising his son, Nemo, causing Nemo to swim away, get caught by a Sydney dentist, and end up in his fish tank. Marlin follows. Nemo and tank friends escape into the ocean. [AUSTRALIA; PACIFIC OCEAN] (Drama/Adventure/Comedy)

Antarctica and Arctic Regions

1931 - Pardon Us. (56 minutes) Director: James Parrott. Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson, Walter Long. Summary: prison for selling home brewed beer. [ordeal in the ARCTIC] (Drama/Comedy)

2002 - Ice Age. (81 minutes PG) Director: Chris Wedge. Voice cast: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary. Summary: A group of migrating misfit creatures head south to avoid frostbite with a mission to reunite a human baby with his tribe. (Drama/Adventure/Comedy)

2002 - Shackleton. (190 minutes Television film) Director: Charles Sturridge. Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Lorcan Cranitch, Matt Day, Ken Drury. Summary: Ernest Shackleton's 1914 Antarctic adventures when his ship, "Endurance", was trapped in the ice of Weddell Sea for ten months. (Drama)

2002 - Shackleton's Voyage of Endurance. (120 minutes) Narrator: David Ogden Stiers. Summary: Follows the British polar explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton with his twenty-eight crew aboard his ship "Endurance" into the Antarctic. Based on 1959 Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. (Documentary/History)

Outer Space

1995 - Apollo 13. (140 minutes PG) Director: Ron Howard. Cast: Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, Kathleen Quinlan, David Andrews, Clint Howard, Joe Spano. Summary: Real-life adventures of the Apollo 13 astronauts during their mission. (Drama film)

Resource tools:
Basinger, Jeanine. A Woman's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women, 1930-1960. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.
Bernheimer, Kathryn. The 50 Greatest Jewish Movies. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing Group, 1998.
Bogle, Donald. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks. NY: Continuum, 1973.
Crowther, Bruce. Captured on Film: The Prison Movie. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1989.
Martin, Mick and Porter, Marsha. Video Movie Guide 2001 Ballantine Publishing, 2000.
Roquemore, Joseph. History Goes to the Movies: A Viewer's Guide to the Best (And Some of the Worst) Historical Films Ever Made. NY: Doubleday, 1999.

Last modified: April 3, 2017.