Movie buffs can now take a journey on a growing Oregon Film Trail

Home video mainstay “The Goonies’” and the Oscar-winning “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” — with scenes shot in Astoria and Salem, respectively — are core pieces of Oregon movie trivia.

But more than 700 films have been shot across every region of the state. Oregon Film, a state agency dedicated to promoting and supporting filmmaking, is expanding the way it commemorates some of them with a series of markers called the Oregon Film Trail. The group erected its latest marker in La Grande, the shooting location and setting of the new romantic comedy “Breakup Season.”

Jane Ridley, Oregon Film director of strategic initiatives and community programs, said her organization made a concerted effort to spread the markers throughout the state, including several locations in Eastern Oregon.

The markers stretch from the coast to Wallowa Lake, where two dogs and a cat traipsed around Mount Howard in 1993’s “Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey,” and Anthony Lakes in Baker County, one of the locations of the Clint Eastwood’s Western musical “Paint Your Wagon.”

Ridley said the idea was sparked after Oregon Film did a photo and prop exhibit at the Portland International Airport in 2018. After the success of the exhibit, the group decided to pilot the marker project by placing three markers in Astoria, which was used as a location in “The Goonies,” “Kindergarten Cop” and “Free Willy.”

“We realized that we had this really deep and rich history,” she said. “We wanted to commemorate it in a way that kind of made sense and also could potentially help with economic development in some of our more rural communities.

There are now 43 markers spread across every region of the state. Ridley said some officials in rural communities were slightly baffled when Oregon Film first pitched them the idea of commemorating the state’s movie history, but have come to embrace its tourism potential. A 2023 study by the travel website Expedia showed that 39% of travelers booked a vacation to a destination in a movie or TV show they streamed, according to Ridley.

While many of the Eastern Oregon markers highlight movies made decades ago — Athena has a placard for the 1930 silent movie “City Girl” — Ridley said the region is notable for more contemporary movies, too. Harney County, one of Oregon’s most sparsely populated counties, has two Oregon Film markers. They commemorate 2017’s “Lean On Pete,” a coming-of-age drama that was filmed at the local fairgrounds and “Meek’s Cutoff,” a 2010 pioneer drama shot 100 miles south of Burns.

Oregon Film’s plans for the trail to include more historical context. She said the agency is in the midst of collecting oral histories from community members across the state to give visitors a sense of the filming experience from a local’s point of view.

“The whole town sort of rallies in different ways,” she said. “Some people work on it. Some people supply things for it. Some people are just voyeurs of the whole process.”

Even after a production leaves a community, Ridley said, it leaves behind stories that community members continue to share.

“Breakup Season” director H. Nelson Tracey told OPB’s Think Out Loud that he decided to set his movie in La Grande after participating in the Eastern Oregon Film Festival’s residency program in 2019. The community embraced the film’s cast and crew, especially after they screened the movie locally to a packed house.

“We got our first standing ovation and it was pure movie magic,” Tracey said.

Tracey said he plans to explore other settings in his future movies, but thinks La Grande has more creative potential for other filmmakers.