Best Northern California Movies & TV Shows

Seeking redemption and a shortened prison sentence, young convict Bode Donovan joins a firefighting program that returns him to his small Northern California hometown, where he and other inmates work alongside elite firefighters to extinguish massive blazes across the region.

Cruising Santa Cruz's ocean highways, Edmund Kemper appears to be a 6'9" gentle giant who offers hundreds of young female hitchhikers a ride. But behind his charming smile and signature gold-rimmed glasses lurks a brutal and perverted monster. In 1973, while awaiting trial, Kemper was interviewed by psychiatrist Dr. Donald Lunde. Lunde records Kemper's detailed confession on audiotape. For 50 years these tapes were locked away and forgotten, but now they are public for the first time and reveal a tormented childhood, dark sexual fantasies, and a thirst for revenge on the person he despises most, his own mother.

Growing up in post-World War II era Arizona, young Sammy Fabelman aspires to become a filmmaker as he reaches adolescence, but soon discovers a shattering family secret and explores how the power of films can help him see the truth.

An origins story, beginning in 1947, which follows Ratched's journey and evolution from nurse to full-fledged monster tracking her murderous progression through the mental health care system.

The wolves are howling once again, as a terrifying ancient evil emerges in Beacon Hills. Scott McCall, no longer a teenager yet still an Alpha, must gather new allies and reunite trusted friends to fight back against this powerful and deadly enemy.

Just when Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Newton, is feeling especially frustrated by the lack of excitement in her small town in California, she receives wonderful news: Her uncle and namesake, Charlie Oakley, is coming to visit. However, as secrets about him come to the fore, Charlotte’s admiration turns into suspicion.

A film by Dana Dveris and Max Schmitz about a long distance couple falling out of love, set in Northern CA. Charlie and Avery meet once a month in a rural town between them in an attempt to preserve their love. Over the course of six trips to meet one another, long-held secrets bubble to the surface and their relationship will never be the same.

Three artists struggling against the grid of society find spiritual renewal.

Documentary filmmaker Amy Berg investigates the life of 30-year pedophile Father Oliver O'Grady and exposes the corruption inside the Catholic Church that allowed him to abuse countless children. Victims' stories and a disturbing interview with O'Grady offer a view into the troubled mind of the spiritual leader who moved from parish to parish gaining trust ... all the while betraying so many.

Two men, working as professional boxers, come to blows when their careers each begin to take opposite momentum.

A family's camping trip at Big Rock National Park becomes a terrifying fight for survival.

A coming-of-age joyride about Cootie, a 13ft tall young Black man in Oakland, CA. Having grown up hidden away, Cootie soon experiences the beauty and contradictions of the world for the first time. He forms friendships, finds love, navigates awkward situations, and encounters his idol, a real life superhero named The Hero.

At 13 years old and the eldest of three kids, Lane struggles to keep her family together as her iconoclast mother moves without warning through the communes and dusty back woods of Northern California.

In 1973, 7-year-old Steven Stayner is kidnapped by pedophile Kenneth Parnell. Under the belief that Parnell has been given legal custody of him, and that his family has moved away, he stays with Parnell for seven years, enduring repetitive sexual abuse the entire time. Finally, in 1980, when Parnell kidnaps another young boy, Steven finds a way for them both to escape and return home.

A sergeant saves the day when Axis agents plant a bomb on a bus bound for California oil fields.

After a group of convicts escapes from prison, they take refuge in the wilderness. While most of the crew are ruthless sociopaths, Jim Canfield is an innocent man who was jailed under false pretenses. When Canfield and his fellow fugitives reach an isolated farming settlement where the men are all away, it creates tension with the local women. Things get direr when rumors of hidden money arise, and Canfield discovers that the man who framed him is part of the community.

A 1939 test pilot asks his best friend to use him as a guinea pig for a cryogenics experiment. Daniel McCormick wants to be frozen for a year so that he doesn't have to watch his love lying in a coma. The next thing Daniel knows is that he's been awoken in 1992.

Organizing a Christmas wedding is a true treat for bridal boutique owner Madeline Krug. She loves the challenge of finding the perfect dress for the bride and orchestrating an exquisite event. What Madeline didn’t expect was to be swept off her feet by the bride’s gorgeous brother, movie star, Jonny Blaze. Jonny came to the quirky town of Fool’s Gold to support his sister -- not to fall in love. Yet Madeline is the most extraordinary woman he’s ever met, and she finds the real Jonny even more captivating than her celebrity crush. Will the action star be brave enough to take on the role of a lifetime?

A look at the hunt for California's Zodiac Killer, who murdered at least five people in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s and early '70s.

A big city cop from LA moves to a small town police force and immediately finds himself investigating a murder. Using theories rejected by his colleagues, the cop, John Berlin, meets a young blind woman named Helena, who he is attracted to. Meanwhile, a serial killer is on the loose and only John knows it.

After his mother's death, Jed Perry and his father move to northern California, where Jed enrolls at Evergreen Academy. Along with Jed, only two other boys attend the formerly all-girls school.

A shy California farm girl falls head-over-heels in love with Barry Burnett, a fugitive from a chain gang building a road through the wilderness.

With her California hometown in the rearview mirror, Belle heads north on business to catalog the sale of a large mansion. While the job is a dream, the client, Hunter Lowell, is not. But, as the two spend more time together, his icy demeanor begins to melt. Although their relationship is budding, Belle’s long-time suitor, Tony, arrives, sending mixed signals to Hunter while adding chaos to the holiday season.

Real estate rising star Molly, who breaks up with Jackson, a smitten but seeming underachiever, on Valentine’s Day because he may have lied to her. Molly moves to New Mexico for a high-profile promotion and soon finds herself close to being engaged to the generous but immature Greg. In a twist of fate, a proposed business deal for a trendy winery puts Molly face-to-face again with the remorseful Jackson, who has a few more surprises for the woman he still loves.

Two brothers and a stray dog stumble upon some jewel thieves in a lighthouse.

Adolf Schwartz has been killed. Who did it? No-one knows or cares, as they're too busy being distracted by busty Margo Winchester, who hitch-hikes into town and gets involved with all the local men.

Three laborers on a Northern California marijuana plantation become increasingly paranoid when they learn that their boss has been murdered. They know enough to run, taking with them enough of the crop to pay them for services rendered. Hooking up with go-between Lucy in the next town, they plot their next move.

Sparks fly between a romance novelist and a blacksmith as they try to save a charming village during the holidays.

An adolescent believes that his widowed mother's suitor may have murdered his father.

Three navy war heroes are booked on a morale-building "vacation" in San Francisco. Once they manage to elude their ulcerated public relations officer, the trio throw a wild party with plenty of pretty girls.

An axe murderer terrorizes a small Northern California mountain community, while two young computer-obsessed adults attempt to solve the killings.

A former war journalist now writing for a paper in Northern California is drawn into conflict at home.

Dr. Daniel Challis and Ellie Grimbridge stumble onto a gruesome murder scheme when Ellie's novelty-salesman father, Harry, is killed while in possession of a halloween mask made by the Silver Shamrock mask company. The company's owner, Conal Cochran, wants to return Halloween to its darker roots using his masks -- and his unspeakable scheme would unleash death and destruction across the country.

One night at a secluded farmhouse deep in the Northern California woods, a small group of hardened young bikers and their girlfriends are tormented when one of the girls becomes savagely possessed and a gang of "Rockabillies" seemingly from the 1950's descends upon them to collect what is growing inside her.

A railroad worker accepts a colleague's offer to stay in his home, but when his friend is called out one night to stop a runaway train, he makes a play for the man's wife.

Independent film by early New Hollywood figure John Korty

Several families in the farmland of Northern California navigate universal themes of class, immigration, culture and family.

Master craftsman and woodworker Eric Hollenbeck is in the restoration business, taking historic homes and forgotten treasures around his hometown of Eureka, California, and giving them new life.

Columbia's Spirit of Stanford is built around the talents of a real-life college football star, in this instance all-American quarterback Frankie Albert.

A pregnant single mother, with two children in foster care, embraces her Bay Area community as she fights to reclaim her family.