Short List: Best movies filmed in Tampa Bay area

Welcome to The Short List. Each week we'll pick a topic and share our favorite – or, in some cases, maybe our least favorite – things about the Bay area.

In anticipation of the Academy Awards on Sunday, we're talking movies. The Tampa Bay area has been used in several movies for a setting or two but you'd be surprised at the list of movies filmed primarily in our beautiful backyard. Here are our top five:

Edward Scissorhands (1990) – Director Tim Burton and actor Johnny Depp teamed up for the first time in this fantasy film about a man who has scissors for hands. The quirky suburban neighborhood was filmed in Lutz, where each house was painted one of four different colors. Additional filming took place at Southgate Shopping Center in Lakeland and outside of Dade City.

Cocoon (1985) – St. Petersburg was in the spotlight for this Academy Award winning movie (Best Supporting Actor and Best Visual Effects), starring Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, Jessica Tandy and directed by Ron Howard. A group of senior citizens use a secret pool containing alien cocoons, which gives them unusual powers. St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club, The Coliseum, Suncoast Manor retirement community and Snell Arcade buildings all were featured prominently in the film.

My Girl (1991) – Eleven-year-old tomboy Vada Sultenfuss (Anna Chlumsky) is obsessed with death in this coming-of-age story. She has an awkward relationship with her father (Dan Aykroyd), who runs a funeral parlor, and her mother died giving birth to her. While the film was set in Pennsylvania in the summer of '72, it was shot at several Florida locations, including Bartow and Plant City.

Dolphin Tale (2011) – Not only was this movie filmed in Clearwater, it also starred one of our local celebrities, Winter the Dolphin. Harry Connick Jr., Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd descended onto the Clearwater Marine Aquarium for this family movie centering on the friendship between a boy and a dolphin whose tail was lost in a crab trap. Other locales: Admiral Farragut Academy, Honeymoon Island and Tarpon Springs.

China Moon (1994) - Detective Kyle Bodine (Ed Harris) falls for Rachel Munro (Madeleine Stowe), who is stuck in a destructive marriage. This neo-noir film, often compared to "Body Heat" (1981), was filmed in Bartow, Lakeland, Tampa and St. Pete Beach. Benicio del Toro costars as Harris' conniving partner.