For as long as movies have been around, Oregon has been a popular filming location for dramas, comedies, westerns, sci-fi epics and thrillers. Here are our picks for 25 of the best movies filmed in Oregon locations.

1. “The rent”

Dave Franco’s horror project is set in Bandon. Because nothing is as scary as the Oregon coast.

1. “The Boxtrolls”

Phil Knight’s Hillsboro-based Laika produced this Oscar-nominated stop-motion animated film about a human boy and his troll friends.

1. “Without Borders”

Billy Crudup played famous track star Steve Prefontaine and Donald Sutherland played his legendary coach Bill Bowerman in this biographical film, partly shot in Eugene.

1. “Bombers of Kansas City”

Raquel Welch played a member of a Portland roller games (think roller derby) team in this surprisingly dark ’70s drama filmed in Portland.

1. “Loner”

Mel Gibson (hey, remember the days when people actually wanted to see his movies?), Jodie Foster and James Garner starred in a big, lurid movie inspired by the classic TV series. It was smug but ingenious and included scenes shot in the Columbia River Gorge.

1. “Night Movements”

Kelly Reichardt directed and co-wrote with Portland-based novelist Jon Raymond this drama about environmental activists who plan to take the radical action of blowing up a dam. The film stars Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard. Locations include Roseburg, Medford and Ashland.

1. “Personal best”

Robert Towne (who also made “Without Limits,” about Steve Prefontaine) wrote and directed this drama about female track and field athletes and the romantic relationship that develops between two of them. Mariel Hemingway and Patrice Donnelly played the leading roles. Filming included sections shot at Hayward Field in Eugene.

1. “Pig”

Nick Cage won a Critic’s Choice Award for his role as an Oregon truffle farmer. Notable locations in the thriller include the Skyline Tavern, the Broadway Bridge and the Estacada Forest.

1. “ParaNorman”

This stop-motion animation film by Laika also received an Oscar nomination for its story about a boy who can talk to the dead.

1. “Mr. Holland’s Opus”

Richard Dreyfuss received an Oscar nomination for his role as a high school music teacher who longs to compose a great work but finds that life keeps getting in the way. Filming locations in Portland include Grant High School.

1. “The Ring”

In this American version of a Japanese horror film, Naomi Watts played a Seattle reporter trying to solve the mystery of a deadly videotape. Filming locations in Oregon included Newport and the Columbia River Gorge.

1. “River Bend”

Directed by Anthony Mann, this classic western starred James Stewart as a cowboy who leads a group of settlers to Oregon. The cast includes a young Rock Hudson, and the filming locations include Mount Hood and the Sandy River.

1. “Free Willy” – The wonderful world of madness

This touching family film is about a hapless boy who befriends a whale held captive at an Astoria amusement park, and how the boy and his friends hatch a plan to free Willy the orca so he can return to his family in the Pacific. A real orca named Keiko appears in the film. The film’s popularity helped lead to Keiko being freed from an amusement park in Mexico City and brought to the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport. Filming locations for the film include Portland and Astoria.

1. “Wendy and Lucy”

Michelle Williams stars in this heartbreaking story, another collaboration between director Kelly Reichardt and screenwriter Jon Raymond, about a young woman traveling with her dog whose plan to find a job in Alaska falls apart when her car breaks down and she has no money to get it fixed.

1. “Dusk”

The Twilight sequels became increasingly absurd, but the first film offered a sultry romance and was set in Oregon locations, including Portland, Oxbow Park, St. Helens and Carver.

1. “Drugstore Cowboy”

Portland native Gus Van Sant shot several films in Oregon, but his best film is probably still the 1989 Portland-set drama starring Matt Dillon and Kelly Lynch about a drug addict who tries to get clean after robbing drug stores to fund his habit. Van Sant’s other films shot in Oregon include “My Own Private Idaho,” “Elephant” and “Paranoid Park.”

1. “Coraline”

This stop-motion animated film based on the novel by Neil Gaiman established Laika as a world-class production house and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

1. “Into the Wild”

Sean Penn directed this wonderful drama based on the true story of Christopher McCandless and his travels that ended in tragedy. Emile Hirsch plays the lead role and a young Kristen Stewart makes a strong pre-Twilight impression. The Oregon locations included Astoria and the Cascades.

1. “Shining”

OK, The Shining wasn’t filmed much in Oregon. In fact, the exterior shots of Timberline Lodge were meant to show the spooky Overlook Hotel (which was inspired by a hotel in Colorado). But Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel is so memorable that, according to the Timberline Lodge website, guests still ask to stay in room #217 (which is what King wrote in his book), even though Kubrick replaced it with the nonexistent room #237 in the film.

1. “The Goonies”

There’s a reason tourists still drive to Astoria to look for locations from The Goonies: the film’s combination of action and comedy has been popular with generations of fans. The action is set in Astoria, and parts of the film were shot there. The cast includes a young Josh Brolin, Sean Astin and Martha Plimpton.

1. “Wild”

Portland-based author Cheryl Strayed’s best-selling memoir of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail has been adapted into a poignant film starring Reese Witherspoon. Filming locations in Oregon include Bend, Ashland, Cascade Locks and Portland.

1. “Stand by Me”

Another Stephen King novel inspired this sometimes funny, sometimes scary, sometimes melancholy story about four boys who learn about themselves and each other while searching for a missing teenager in the Willamette Valley. Rob Reiner directed, and the cast included Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’Connell. The film was shot in locations including Brownsville, Eugene, Cottage Grove, and Veneta.

1. “I think an animal is kicking me”

Animal House managed to be both smart and dumb, which is quite a feat for a frat comedy. No wonder the film was a huge hit, spawning imitations of toga parties and food fights and launching the film career of the late John Belushi. Anyone who lived in and around Eugene when the film was shot there in 1978 will never forget it, as the cast and crew made quite an impression on the University of Oregon campus and the surrounding area.

1. “The General”

Unless you’re a classic movie fan or a fan of Turner Classic Movies, you probably haven’t seen the 1926 silent classic The General. But it’s one of the best American comedies of all time and stars Buster Keaton, one of the greatest actors in film history. Keaton, who co-directed, plays a Civil War-era train engineer who would do anything to protect his beloved locomotive, The General. The film, which was shot in Cottage Grove, is touring Oregon this summer for its 90th anniversary. Mark Orton has composed a new live score.

1. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”

One of Oregon’s most distinctive writers, Ken Kesey, wrote the novel that inspired this terrific Oscar winner, in which Jack Nicholson plays perhaps his best role ever. The film has its dated elements (Nicholson’s antihero McMurphy was imprisoned for sexually abusing a minor, which hardly makes him sympathetic), but director Milos Forman and a talented cast bring to life the struggle between nonconformity and strict authority that takes place in a mental hospital. Filming locations included the Oregon State Hospital in Salem and the central Oregon coast.

— Kristi Turnquist covers features and entertainment. You can reach them at 503-221-8227, [email protected] or @Kristiturnquist