The best films set in Boston

“Good Will Hunting” was one of the first major breakthrough for the patron saint of Boston, one Ben Affleck. While he’s in a supporting acting role in this film about a genius janitor from Boston working at MIT, he also co-wrote it with Matt Damon, who does star as Will Hunting. The duo famously won a screenplay Oscar, and Robin Williams also won an Oscar for acting in the movie as well. How do you like them apples?

Affleck went from screenwriting to directing with “Gone Baby Gone.” This time, Ben just stays behind the camera for his feature-length directorial debut, but his brother Casey is the star. It’s a grimy little crime film that got Amy Ryan some real plaudits for her performance, and it was largely a success. That set the table for…

Affleck jumping up the directing ladder with “The Town.” This is another Boston-set crime film, but this one is a straight-up blockbuster. The action is intense, with Affleck and Jeremy Renner both going all out. You will surely remember the bank robbers in rubber nun masks, which are an indelible image of the year. Affleck would go on to win Best Picture for “Argo,” but that’s not a Boston movie.

Cambridge, home to Harvard, is just outside Boston, so we’re counting it. Hey, you’d call a movie set in Santa Monica a Los Angeles movie, right? “The Social Network” is probably the most palatable movie David Fincher has ever made, as usual, he’s doing something like “Se7en” or “Zodiac.” Many consider “The Social Network,” which tells the story of the rise of Facebook, one of the best films of the 2010s.

As we said, Boston is a big part of American history. “Amistad” is set in the 1800s and tells the story of an uprising on a slave ship, after which the uprising Africans are put on trial. The movie isn’t perfect, but it was directed by Steven Spielberg, who you may have heard of. Every Spielberg movie has at least a little something going for it.

No, we didn’t make a typo on this film title. “BUtterfield 8” is capitalized like that, as it is a throwback to the days of telephone answering services and “KLondike 5” and all that. Elizabeth Taylor stars in this searing drama about a woman floating between one-night stands, and in fact won her first Oscar for this film. In this film, Boston is where Taylor’s character flees to after leaving her New York life behind.

Speaking of New York, that’s the city Martin Scorsese is most associated with, and with good reason. He’s the man behind “Taxi Driver,” “After Hours,” and, well, “New York, New York.” And yet, Scorsese didn’t win an Oscar until he shipped off to Boston for “The Departed.” The twisty crime drama is right up Scorsese’s alley, and while few consider it his best film it is really good and really gripping.

Grace Kelly was considered one of the most glamorous women in Hollywood. We mean, she became the Princess of Monaco! Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kelly won her sole Oscar for deglamorizing in “The Country Girl.” It’s something actresses have done many times over the years, but let’s not let that overlook Kelly’s work as the put-upon wife of an alcoholic has-been actor played by Bing Crosby.

Where do you draw the line when you saw a movie is “set” somewhere. After all, movies don’t always stay in the same location for the entire run. “The River Wild” is a good example of that. Much of the movie takes place on a rafting trip through Idaho. However, Meryl Streep and David Strathairn star as a couple from Boston going on the trip. The movie begins in Boston and is about Bostonians, so for us that is good enough, especially if it means squeezing a taut thriller on this list.

Seth MacFarlane’s comedy isn’t for everybody. We won’t call ourselves “Family Guy” lovers by any means. That being said, there is some fun to be had in “Ted.” Mark Wahlberg stars as a man who is friends with his childhood teddy bear, Ted, who has come to life. Also, Ted is basically an adult now and voiced by MacFarlane himself. That being said, even if you are amused by “Ted” the sequel is for diehard MacFarlane lovers only.

Mark Wahlberg is another patron saint of Boston. He’s in “The Departed,” “Ted,” and now “The Fighter.” Based on a true story, Wahlberg stars as the boxer Micky Ward, aka “Irish” Micky Ward. While Ward is technically from Lowell, the movie has heavy-duty “Boston vibes” running through it. Both Christian Bale and Melissa Leo won Oscars for this movie, and both deserved it.

Both the original “Out-of-Towners” and the remake from 1999 with Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn have sections set in Boston. However, only the original with Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis make the list. The movie is about a couple from a small town in Ohio headed to New York, but they get rerouted to Boston and then have to get from there to New York.

“The Friends of Eddie Coyle” is kind of a precursor to both “Goodfellas” and “The Departed,” though Martin Scorsese has nothing to do with it. That being said, we bet he’s a big fan. The film focuses on Eddie Coyle, played fantastically by Robert Mitchum, a low-level member of the Irish Mob based out of Boston. As a small-time gunrunner, he’s expendable, only Eddie doesn’t exactly want to be expended.

The action-comedy was big in the ‘80s, but it kind of has gone by the wayside. However, “The Heat” is a really good one that shows the genre mashup isn’t dead. Sure, the premise is well-worn. Sandra Bullock is a straight-laced FBI agent from New York. Melissa McCarthy is a brash, plays-by-her-own-rules cop from Boston. They have to work together to solve a series of crimes in Beantown, and McCarthy has a family of broad Boston stereotypes along for the ride as well.

Boston has classic issues, and has had them for many years. “Now, Voyager” focuses on a family that has tied to the so-called “Boston Brahmins,” which includes Bette Davis. Davis is put upon by her dowager mother, who is devoted to her blueblood nature. The romantic drama is about Davis getting out from under her mother’s thumb and getting a chance to get her groove back decades before Stella did it.

Apparently moving from New York to Boston is a thing that has been a trope in movies. Elizabeth Taylor wants to do it in “BUtterfield 8.” Burt Reynolds does it in “Starting Over.” After splitting with his wife, Reynolds’ Phil Potter moves to Boston where his brother lives, gets a job teaching, meets a woman who is also a teacher, and, well, starts over. It’s a pretty solidly realized slice-of-life dramedy.

Of the three “Godzilla” films, “King of the Monsters” is the least of the bunch. That being said, if you like monster movies it delivers on that. Godzilla fights King Ghidorah, after all. The big action climax takes place in Boston, of all places, and includes Fenway Park being destroyed. We’re sure some Yankees fans loved seeing that.

The story of cocaine smuggler George Jung, played by Johnny Depp in the movie, traverses a lot of the globe. The Columbian cartel and Pablo Escobar are involved, after all. However, Jung grew up in Massachusetts and gets into the illicit trade game by dealing marijuana in Boston. It’s only one of his stops, but it’s pivotal in the film, which is a pretty good drug thriller.

“The Last Detail” is quite a good kitchen-sink dramedy from Hal Ashby, who excelled at that sort of film. Noted for its frank language and sexual content for the time, the movie is about two Naval officers who are tasked with taking an 18-year-old Naval newbie from Norfolk, Virginia up to prison in Maine for stealing from a charity fund. The two officers decided to let the kid have some fun along the way, which means a few stops. Their stay in Boston is primarily spent at a brothel, but it’s one of the significant set pieces of the movie.

Paul Newman was still looking for his first Oscar when he starred in “The Verdict.” The Sidney Lumet movie was tailor-made for an Oscar nomination, as it is about an alcoholic attorney on his last legs looking to take one more case to make an impact. Newman plays that attorney, who was fired from a prestigious Boston firm many years ago after being framed for jury tampering. It’s a story of redemption taking place in a Boston courtroom. Newman was nominated for Best Actor, though he did not win. Eventually, he would finally take home his Oscar for “The Color of Money.”