Jezebel (1938) - The great Bette Davis/Henry Fonda love story takes place in and around New Orleans in 1852. The yellow fever outbreak is historically accurate, but the slaves are more 1930s than 1850s vintage.
Johnny Handsome (1989) - Mickey Rourke is a career criminal with a new appearance (thanks to plastic surgery) trying to make it in New Orleans, with Elizabeth McGovern as the girl who tries to help him. Morgan Freeman has rare appearance as a bad guy.
King Creole (1958) - Along with Jailhouse Rock, this is as close as Elvis ever came to really acting, in a film based on a good novel, directed by Michael Curtiz and featuring some decent music, much of it inspired by the New Orleans location.
Lady from Louisiana (1941) - John Wayne is a Yankee sent to New Orleans to butt heads with the local mob, managing to fall in love with the mob boss' daughter.
Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (1970) - A bizarre film starring James Coburn and directed by Sidney Lumet, with a screenplay by Gore Vidal based on a Tennessee Williams play. Notable here for the fact that, as a backdrop to the action, the Mississippi River is threatening to flood the old plantation where the characters are living.
Let's Do It Again (1975) - Sidney Poitier directed this enjoyable caper film, starring Poitier and Bill Cosby in a follow-up to Uptown Saturday Night, involving a rigged boxing match in New Orleans.
Lulu Belle (1948) - Dorothy Lamour plays the title character and George Montgomery is her love interest in this romantic drama set in New Orleans and Natchez, Mississippi in the early 1900s.
Mardi Gras (1958) - Mediocre Pat Boone musical vehicle that is on this list only because of its title and New Orleans setting.
The Mississippi Gambler (1953) - Tyrone Power stars in this romantic adventure set in New Orleans and on Mississippi riverboats in the 1800s.
My Forbidden Past (1951) - Romantic melodrama set in New Orleans in the late 1800s stars Robert Mitchum, Ava Gardner and Melvyn Douglas.
Naughty Marietta (1935) - Jeanette MacDonald as a French princess and Nelson Eddy as a handsome soldier sing up a storm in colonial New Orleans (including "Sweet Mystery of Life") in their first film together.
New Orleans (1947) - The presence of Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong redeem this otherwise disastrous and politically incorrect film. Buy the soundtrack instead.
Nightmare (1956) - A murder mystery based on a Cornell Woolrich story and starring Edward G. Robinson and Kevin McCarthy evokes the atmosphere of 1950s New Orleans perfectly, with a large number of locations being used.
Panic in the Streets (1950) - A doctor and a cop (played by Richard Widmark and Paul Douglas, respectively) in New Orleans have only 48 hours to locate a killer, played by Jack Palance, who is infected with pneumonic plague. Lots of New Orleans locations, thanks to director Elia Kazan's love for the city.
Pretty Baby (1978) - Louis Malle's disturbing story of a 12-year-old girl, played by Brooke Shields, growing up in Storyville, New Orleans' red-light district. Susan Sarandon and Keith Carradine also star.
Saratoga Trunk (1945) - Starring Ingrid Bergman and Gary Cooper. The first half of the picture is set in New Orleans in the 1890s, the second half in Saratoga Springs, NY. (Thanks to Jeff Tishman for the suggestion.)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) - A beloved classic starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando, written by Tennessee Williams, and directed by Elia Kazan, the film takes place, of course, entirely in the French Quarter of New Orleans just following World War II.
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) - Set in 1930's New Orleans, this is another Tennessee Williams-penned tale, about a wealthy woman, played by Katharine Hepburn, who wants surgeon Montgomery Clift to perform a lobotomy on her niece, played by Elizabeth Taylor. The cast alone is worth the price of admission.
Tightrope (1984) - Clint Eastwood plays a New Orleans detective on the trail of a serial killer, in one of the films that began his transformation from Dirty Harry and the Man With No Name into an auteur. Geneviève Bujold co-stars.
The Toast of New Orleans (1950) - Kathryn Grayson and Mario Lanza are opera singers from two different worlds (he's a fisherman and she isn't), and David Niven is their agent who brings them to New Orleans. Lots of music, not much plot.
Walk on the Wild Side (1962) - A great cast, including Laurence Harvey, Capucine, Jane Fonda, Anne Baxter, and Barbara Stanwyck, appears in one of the quintessential New Orleans films, set in the Doll House, a 1930s bordello. The title song, by Elmer Bernstein and Mack David, was deservedly nominated for an Oscar.
