The recent Oscar nominations and the encouraging news that more and more movie theaters are reopening got us thinking of our favorite films and movie scenes that feature lawn mowers and mowing.
When you combine the joy of mowing with a love of movies, it’s hard to rank your favorites, but we’ll give it a try. Here, we fire up our top five:
#5 Can’t Buy Me Love 
The hero in this classic boy-meets-girl flick is known by high school classmates as that nerdy guy who mows lawns. That’s how he has enough money to hatch an idea: pay the popular girl to pretend she’s his girlfriend, so that he might improve his social status.
It’s the only movie we know where the couple rides off into the sunset on a lawn mower.
#4 Caddyshack
This movie made the list because of Bill Murray. Of course you know that he’s the groundskeeper at a posh golf club, but we don’t see him tending to the grass so much as we see him trying a variety of comedic ways to eliminate a gopher infestation on the golf course.
Many of Murray’s memorable lines were not written in the screenplay — he improvised them while on the set.
#3 Field of Dreams
Remember the scene when Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella (played by Kevin Costner) decides to convert his farm into a baseball field; he’s out on his tractor, the bewildered locals turn out to watch? Only later, they’re no longer bewildered. And it isn’t just the locals coming. One wonders how often we ourselves are real life Ray Kinsellas on our lawn mowers, without even realizing it.
Okay, so maybe we won’t do anything as nutty or dramatic as ripping up a perfectly acceptable landscape so that a bunch of ghosts can play baseball, but imagine: you’re out working in your yard. It looks like this, but you want it to look like that. You have a vision. You can see what others can’t. The neighbors are watching, some might be shaking their heads. But when you’re done, its beautiful and perfect, just the way you saw it, like the symmetry of a baseball field. And then the neighbors will ask you for help on their lawn. Is this heaven? No, it’s my yard.
The father-son catch in the movie’s climax is the clincher.
#2 Forrest Gump 
With all of the funny and clever things that happen to the Tom Hanks character, with him cutting perfect lines at the local football field for free, the movie’s most emotional scene sneaks up on you. And it happens while Forrest is on his lawn mower. (Trivia: what’s the brand and model?) 2
Forrest is cutting the grass at home when his beloved Jenny finally comes back to him.
Enough said.
#1 The Straight Story 
What would you do to repair a family relationship before it’s too late? This movie, based on a true story, tells the story of Alvin Straight (played by Richard Farnsworth), a retired farmer in his 70s, who has just learned that his estranged brother is in declining health. Alvin wants to go to his brother, make his peace with him. Trouble is, he lives 240 miles away. Alvin has bad eyes, bad hips, and no driver’s license.
But he does have a lawn tractor. So begins a journey.
If you haven’t seen this movie, we highly recommend it. You’ll like meeting the people Alvin meets. You’ll like joining him on a stretch of road between Iowa and Wisconsin. Don’t be surprised if it will leave you thinking of your own family, next time you’re out on your lawn mower…
Almost on the list: The Lawnmower Man 
A sci-fi horror movie with a main character who is always cutting grass, manipulated by a doctor (played by Pierce Brosnan) to take part in experiments designed to increase his intelligence. At one point, our hero is cutting the grass with only the use of his mind. Lawn mowers were never props for any evil.
There’s one quote from this movie that is interesting to consider nearly 30 years after the film was made: “Virtual reality holds a key to the evolution of the human mind.”
Answer to the trivia question: It was a 1962 Snapper Hi-Vac rear-engine rider.
Okay, that’s it. What are your favorite movies that have lawn mowers and mowing in them?
Be sure to check out our Top 10 Mowing Songs!.