What are the 10 most important movies ever made in the Wilmington area? Our panel decides

The film and television industry in Wilmington, and nationwide, is nearly at a standstill.

And, with both the Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild of America on strike against the studios represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, it doesn't seem like things will get sorted out any time soon.

Still, Wilmington has a history of being a hub for movie and TV production dating back 40 years. While the intensity of production here has regularly ebbed and flowed, the film industry has been vital to Wilmington, both economically and in terms of the Port City's very identity.

We thought we'd take a look at what movies made in Wilmington have proved the most important to the Port City. This is not a list of the "best" movies made here, but rather, which ones have had the most impact: financially, culturally and in other ways.

To determine the 10 most important movies made here — a subjective enterprise by definition — we assembled a seven-person panel to create a sort of hive mind of Wilmington film.

The panel includes Dan Brawley, director of the Cucalorus Film Festival; independent filmmaker Christopher Everett ("Wilmington on Fire"); entertainment writer and Wilmington historian Hunter Ingram of the Burgwin-Wright House; small business owner and fashionista Jess James, who often works with local productions; independent filmmaker Jon Landau ("The Devil's Stomping Ground"); University of North Carolina Wilmington film professor Dave Monahan; and myself, StarNews reporter John Staton.

The list we came up with follows in no particular order, along with comments from the panelists who chose to submit them.

'Blue Velvet'

One of two unanimous selections by our seven-person committee, UNCW film prof Monahan says that "no other Wilmington-made movie has had as great an impact and influence on global film culture."

A 1986 neo-noir from David Lynch, who got a Best Director Oscar Nomination for his work, it exposes the seedy underbelly of a small town whose pretty face is little more than a thin veneer. Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rosellini had career-defining turns as an unhinged villain and a femme fatale, respectively, with Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern as young lovers whose innocence is gradually obliterated.

Jess James says it's "definitely the most iconic" movie ever made here, inspiring everything from "Blue Velvet"-themed fashion shows and locally written musicals to Cucalorus' annual Bus to Lumberton project, which Brawley said "tries to keep the weirdness growing by commissioning an artist to craft a site-specific installation or experience inspired by the film. We're obsessed."

'Bolden'

This is almost certainly the movie on the list that the fewest people have seen, which is ironic considering that "Bolden," about seminal jazz figure Buddy Bolden, took nearly a decade to make (shooting intermittently from 2007 to 2015) and more than a decade to be released, which it was to near-zero fanfare and/or acclaim in 2019.

And yet, in part because there's no other Wilmington-made film quite like it, "Bolden" lives on in the local imagination.

"It kept so many talented and deserving film people employed during some lean times in the industry," Monahan said, which is a big reason for its importance.

"At one point, it replaced nearly its entire cast due to the lengthy production," Ingram said. "But the boundless vision and bottomless bank account of director/producer Dan Pritzker made the kind of infamous projects industries are built on."

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'The Conjuring'

Arguably the scariest movie ever made in Wilmington, the 2013 horror thriller from director James Wan ("Saw") was the first of a new breed of horror film shot here, a list that includes the much more recent "Scream," "The Black Phone" and "Halloween Kills."

"The Conjuring" "had a major impact in the international industry," Monahan said, with Ingram noting that it "spawned an entire universe of sequels, spinoffs and prequels that now totals 10 films either released or upcoming … The Conjuring House, as it is now known, in Pender County remains a favorite for horror fans."

'The Crow'

Certainly the most notorious movie ever made in Wilmington, "The Crow," director Alex Proyas' 1994 revenge flick about an avenger from beyond the grave, is best known for its link to tragedy.

While shooting in Wilmington in 1993, leading man Brandon Lee, son of martial arts superstar Bruce Lee, was killed when he was shot by a projectile from a prop gun that was supposed to be shooting blanks.

Fair to say that, after "The Crow," safety on Wilmington film sets, and sets everywhere, became a much bigger concern. And while it's beyond sad that it took the death of a rising star, there's no telling how many future accidents were avoided simply because people knew that the worst could, in fact, happen.

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'Firestarter'

The other unanimous selection of our panel, 1984's "Firestarter" has long been credited with being the movie that brought the film industry to Wilmington in 1983. Producer Dino DeLaurentiis later started the first movie studio here, in the current location of EUE/Screen Gems on 23rd Street.

Based on a Stephen King novel, the first of several King-spawned movies to shoot in Wilmington in the '80s, "Firestarter" had a star-studded cast (George C. Scott, Martin Sheen, David Keith and Heather Locklear, for starters) led by an 8-year-old Drew Barrymore as a little girl who could start fires with her mind.

"Wilmington was so small back then that everyone in the whole city was touched in some way by 'Firestarter,'" Brawley notes. "Drew Barrymore came to my third-grade class several times, tagging along with her stand-in."

Ingram points out that while "Firestarter" "isn’t a particularly good movie," a sentiment that's all but universal, "it is proof that the perfect storm of creativity, a scrappy crew base, a few big dreamers and a little blind faith in the Cape Fear is the kind of stuff history is made of."

'Iron Man 3'

With a take of more than $1.2 billion worldwide (and counting), the 2013 Marvel movie starring Robert Downey as inventor-turned-superhero Tony Stark is by far the biggest-grossing movie in Wilmington film history.

"It put us on the map in a way other movies hadn't," Monahan said, and Ingram agrees that "Iron Man 3" "shot the local film industry into a new stratosphere of possibility."

'Sleeping with the Enemy'

Voted the best movie ever made in Wilmington in 2012 by StarNews readers, this dramatic 1991 thriller starring Julia Roberts as an abused wife who fakes her own death to escape her crazy ex is possibly the most-watched film on this list, thanks to decades of endless reruns on cable.

"One movie I can watch again and again and never get sick of it," said Jess James, who agrees it's "one of the best" ever made here.

But there's another reason "Sleeping with the Enemy" belongs on this list, and that's because it was indirectly responsible for Wilmington's TV-movie boom of the 1990s.

"The '90s in Wilmington were largely defined by made-for-TV movies, and the reason a lot of them even looked this direction was, in part, because of ('Enemy')," Ingram said. "Showcasing the beauty of Wrightsville Beach and the region’s ability to play just about everywhere else, it is a cable classic that continues to show off the Cape Fear."

'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'

Rightly called "a cultural phenomenon" by UNCW prof Monahan, this 1990 live-action movie, based on comics and an animated series, became a cultural touchstone for a generation of (mostly male) millennials. Its impact continues to this day, and the animated "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" was released earlier this year.

Brawley notes that "our friends got paid real well to build lots of cool things like radioactive turtles" on "TMNT," and while it's light on area locations, it was one of the early Wilmington films to show the viability of shooting almost entirely in a studio setting.

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'A Walk to Remember'

The first of a quartet of movies based on books by the novelist Nicholas Sparks, this 2002 tearjerker starred pop singer Mandy Moore as a teen with cancer who just wanted to love once before she died.

"It perfectly intertwined the beauty of Wilmington with the romanticism of Sparks," Ingram said, "a relationship that kept on giving" in the form of other Sparks projects shooting in the area.

'Wilmington on Fire'

The only documentary on this list, and the only independent film, Christopher Everett's 2015 movie is pretty much the definition of important. The first documentary to take an in-depth look at Wilmington's 1898 coup and massacre, when armed whites killed dozens of Blacks, overthrew a biracial local government and drove hundreds more Blacks out of town, it earned a write-up in The New Yorker. "Wilmington on Fire: Chapter II" is set for release later this year.

Honorable mention

A few films that didn't quite make the top 10 are the Rex-Manning-Day-spawning "Empire Records"; independent films "Ding-a-Ling-Less," "To.Get.Her" and "The Grave"; and horror films "I Know What You Did Last Summer," "Scream" and "Halloween Kills."

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: The 10 most important movies made in Wilmington NC