Whistle Stop, Alabama

Fried Green Tomatoes
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jon Avnet
Produced by	Jon Avnet Norman Lear
Screenplay by	Fannie Flagg Carol Sobieski
Based on	Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
Starring	Kathy Bates Jessica Tandy Mary Stuart Masterson Mary-Louise Parker Cicely Tyson
Music by	Thomas Newman
Cinematography	Geoffrey Simpson
Edited by	Debra Neil-Fisher
Production company	Act III Communications Avnet/Kerner Productions Electric Shadow Productions Fried Green Tomatoes Productions
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	December 27, 1991 (1991-12-27)
Running time	136 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$11 million
Box office	$119.4 million

Fried Green Tomatoes is a 1991 comedy-drama film based on the novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg. Directed by Jon Avnet and written by Flagg and Carol Sobieski, it stars Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Mary Stuart Masterson, and Mary-Louise Parker. It tells the story of a Depression-era friendship between two women, Ruth and Idgie, and a 1980s friendship between Evelyn, a middle-aged housewife, and Ninny, an elderly woman. The centerpiece and parallel story concerns the murder of Ruth's abusive husband, Frank, and the accusations that follow. It received a generally positive reception from film critics and was nominated for two Academy Awards.

Evelyn Couch, a timid, unhappy housewife in her forties, meets elderly Ninny Threadgoode in an Anderson, Alabama, nursing home. Over several encounters with Evelyn, Ninny tells her the story of the now abandoned town of Whistle Stop, and the people who lived there. The film's subplot concerns Evelyn's dissatisfaction with her marriage, her life, her growing confidence, and her developing friendship with Ninny. The narrative switches several times between Ninny's story, which is set between World War I and World War II, and Evelyn's life in 1980s Birmingham.

Ninny's story begins with tomboy Idgie Threadgoode, the youngest of the Threadgoode children, whom Ninny describes as her sister-in-law. Idgie's close relationship with her charming older brother, Buddy, is cut short when he is hit by a train and killed. Devastated, she recedes from formal society for much of her childhood and adolescence until Buddy's former girlfriend, the straitlaced Ruth Jamison, intervenes at the request of the concerned Threadgoode family.