With Academy Awards predictions kicking into high gear (the Oscars air this Sunday, February 24, at 7 p.m. EST), I have to admit I have a soft spot for Beasts of the Southern Wild. Nominated for Best Picture, the film tells the fantastical tale of six-year-old Hush Puppy, who lives in the backwoods bayous of Louisiana, in a fictional community locals call "the bathtub." (The movie was filmed in the very real Montegut, Louisiana.)

In addition to the film's best picture nomination, breakout actress Quvenzhané Wallis (age six when she filmed the movie) is up for best actress in a leading role, and writer-director Benh Zeitlin has been nominated for best director as well. In case you haven't seen Beasts yet, it's available for rent on Netflix and Apple TV, and for sale here.

If Beasts wins, it will take its place among some other very Southern films to nab the Best Picture statue since the awards began in 1929. Here's a look back through the archives at five Dixie-inflected Best Picture winners, along with some of my favorite quotes from each film.

Forrest Gump—1994

Forrest: Jenny, I don't know if Momma was right or if, if it's Lieutenant Dan. I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time. I miss you, Jenny. If there's anything you need, I won't be far away.

Driving Miss Daisy—1989


 

Daisy: Hoke?

Hoke: Yes'm.

Daisy: You're my best friend.

Hoke: No, go on Miss Daisy.

Daisy: No, really you are... [Takes Hoke's hand.]

Daisy: You are.

Hoke: Yes'm.

In the Heat of the Night—1967



Chief Gillespie: I got the motive which is money and the body which is dead.

All the King's Men—1949

Jack Burden: Anne, Burden's Landing is a place on the Moon. It isn't real. It doesn't exist. It's me pretending to live on what I earn. It's my mother trying to keep herself young and drinking herself old. It's you and Adam living in this house as though your father were still alive. It's an old man like the judge dreaming of the past. ...

Gone with the Wind—1939

Scarlett O'Hara: [Pleads with Rhett as he is about to leave to join the Confederate Army.] Oh, Rhett! Please, don't go! You can't leave me! Please! I'll never forgive you! 


Rhett Butler: I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'll never understand or forgive myself. And if a bullet gets me, so help me, I'll laugh at myself for being an idiot. There's one thing I do know ... and that is that I love you, Scarlett. In spite of you and me and the whole silly world going to pieces around us, I love you. Because we're alike. Bad lots, both of us. Selfish and shrewd. But able to look things in the eyes as we call them by their right names.