There are a lot of movies with scenes set in Alabama that weren’t actually filmed here — we’re looking at you, “Forrest Gump”. That said, we still have our fair share of places that were either featured in films or served as the inspiration for ‘em.

So with that in mind, we thought we’d highlight a few Alabama places that all movie lovers should check out at least once. After all, walking through a fictional town once featured in “Big Fish” and sitting down to a plate of the signature dish at the place that inspired “Fried Green Tomatoes” are bucket list-worthy in our books.

Jackson Lake Island

In addition to trees covered in sweeping Spanish moss, gorgeous water views and free-range goats, Jackson Lake Island in Millbrook is also home to the town of Spectre — an Alabama town so popular it’s hard to believe it doesn’t actually exist.

What is often referred to as the town of Spectre is actually what remains of a set built for Tim Burton’s 2003 film “Big Fish” on Jackson Lake Island. Consisting of cement trees, a handful of prop structures and a dozen or more pairs of shoes hanging from a line, a visit for to the island would make a family-friendly day trip for movie lovers (and animal lovers too, thanks to those previously mentioned goats).

Read more: 10 ‘Big Fish’ filming locales you can visit in Alabama

The Old Courthouse Museum

If you’ve seen the film adaption of Harper Lee’s beloved novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” you can likely picture the iconic courtroom where many of its pivotal scenes took place. With one step inside the Old Courthouse Museum in Monroeville though, you won’t need to.

The museum houses the courtroom that served as the inspiration and was carefully recreated on a soundstage in Hollywood. So while the movie wasn’t actually filmed in Lee’s hometown of Monroeville, walking into that courtroom, whether its to take a seat behind the judge’s bench or see the view from the balcony, still feels like you’re walking right into the 1962 film.

Read more: Monroeville’s Old Courthouse Museum houses spirits of authors Harper Lee, Truman Capote

Irondale Cafe

While the film “Fried Green Tomatoes” was filmed in Georgia, the places that served as inspiration for “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café” by author Fannie Flagg are in her home state of Alabama, including a beloved cafe with a now iconic signature dish.

In business for 90 years, the Irondale Cafe, known as the “original Whistle Stop Cafe,” is where Flagg’s aunt, Elizabeth “Bess” Fortenberry, worked for 40 years before retiring in 1972. Already beloved by locals, the cafe became even more well known for its fried green tomatoes following the release of the 1991 film. So next time you’ve got a hankering for some fried green tomatoes, let out a “Towanda!” and head to the place that made them a nationally-recognized Southern staple.

Read more: There’s a reason the Irondale Café has been serving fried green tomatoes for more than 90 years

Legion Field

Birmingham filmmakers Jon and Andrew Erwin wanted their 2015 movie “Woodlawn” to be filmed where the story actually took place, including the record-shattering Banks vs. Woodlawn High School football game of 1974.

Luckily for the Erwin brothers, Legion Field was available, and you can now see it as the setting for the major scene in the film. The movie, which covers the story of former University of Alabama and NFL star Tony Nathan, also filmed at several other places in the area, including Hueytown and Bush Middle School.

Pine Flat Church

If you’re a fan of Netflix’s thriller “The Devil All the Time,” there’s a quaint church in the middle of the Alabama countryside that might look awfully familiar to you as it served as Reverend Preston’s church in the 2020 film.

While the film was set mostly in Ohio, it filmed largely in Alabama, including several places in Anniston, Montevallo and Birmingham as well as the grounds of the idyllic Pine Flat Presbyterian Church in Deatsville. Despite its rural location, this is not the church’s first brush with Hollywood — it was also featured in Tim Burton’s “Big Fish.”

Read more: What I learned as an extra on the set of “The Devil All The Time”

Downtown Montgomery

Historic Dexter Avenue in Montgomery is well-known for a lot of reasons. One of those reasons is it served as a setting and filming location in “Just Mercy,” a biographical legal drama starring Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx and Brie Larson.

The 2019 film, which is based on the New York Times bestselling memoir by Montgomery attorney Bryan Stevenson, brought Hollywood to the capitol city by shooting several scenes in locations throughout downtown Montgomery, but the most recognizable is, of course, iconic Dexter Avenue.