The Atlanta Syllabus

Courtesy of our 2020 Local Arrangements Committee, here’s a list of some of the best music, movies, podcasts, and books Atlanta has to offer. We hope you’re as excited to get to know the city as we are!

THE ATLANTA PLAYLIST

Atlanta’s one of the top music cities in the world, and our Local Arrangments team has put together a playlist to get you in the spirit for your visit. (Please note that some of these songs come with a content warning; clean/radio versions of many of them are available.)

  1. Welcome to Atlanta – Jermaine Dupri feat. Ludacris
  2. Atlanta, GA – Shawty Lo feat. Ludacris, The Dream, and Gucci Mane
  3. No Scrubs – TLC
  4. Closer to Fine – Indigo Girls
  5. Crazy – Gnarls Barkley
  6. Stay – Sugarland
  7. Yeah! – Usher feat. Lil Jon and Ludacris
  8. Jump – Kriss Kross
  9. Hey Ya – OutKast
  10. Legend Has It – Run the Jewels
  11. Make it Right – The Coathangers
  12. Revival – Deerhunter
  13. Atlanta Zoo – Gucci Mane feat. Ludacris
  14. Stir Fry – Migos
  15. Old Town Road – Lil Nas X
  16. Chicken Fried – Zac Brown Band
  17. My Stupid Heart – Shawn Mullins
  18. Redbone – Childish Gambino
  19. First Off – Future feat. Travis Scott
  20. Ride Wit Me – T. I.
  21. Rule the World – 2 Chainz feat. Ariana Grande
  22. Southern Hospitality – Ludacris & Pharrell Williams
  23. Dirty South – Goodie Mob feat. Big Boi
  24. Tennessee – Arrested Development

Movies set and filmed in Atlanta

Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

Set in Atlanta’s Druid Hills neighborhood, the film follows the relationship of Daisy Werthan and her chauffeur Hoke Colburn from 1948 – 1973. Many scenes were filmed around Atlanta, including those at Miss Daisy’s home, which is located at 822 Lullwater Road. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Alfred Uhry, an Atlanta native who grew up in Druid Hills. 

ATL (2006)

Stars Atlanta hip hop artist T.I. and is loosely based on the experiences of music producer Dallas Austin and TLC’s “T-Boz” while growing up in Atlanta. The movie was filmed in Atlanta and features appearances by several Atlanta hip hop artists.

Baby Driver (2017)

Action film set in Atlanta about a getaway driver. Filmed in and around Atlanta, the movie features high-speed chases in Atlanta’s central business district and on Interstate 85. There are glimpses of several local landmarks, including the Candler Building at 127 Peachtree Street (used as the fictional First Bank of Atlanta) and Criminal Records on Euclid Avenue in the Little Five Points neighborhood. 

What to Expect When You’re Expecting (2012)

Set in Atlanta, this multi-storyline film follows five couples in the Atlanta area and features many local landmarks such as the Georgia Aquarium, Piedmont Park, Inman Park, Smith’s Olde Bar on Piedmont Avenue, the High Museum of Art, and Little Five Points. 

Life As We Know It (2010)

Set in Atlanta, the house featured in the movie is in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood. The lead female character owns a bakery, the location of which was filmed in the Virginia-Highland neighborhood. The lead male character’s workplace was filmed at Turner Broadcasting System (TBS). Philips Arena is also featured. 

Drumline (2002)

Set at the fictional Atlanta A&T University, but filmed at the real Clark Atlanta University and Morris Brown College. Many of the marching band performers were from metro Atlanta high schools and universities. 

Sharky’s Machine (1981)

The Westin Peachtree Plaza hotel features prominently in this action movie about a sergeant in the Atlanta Police Department, played by Burt Reynolds. The film is noted for having the highest free-fall stunt from a building, 220 feet, from the Hyatt Regency Hotel (265 Peachtree Street), which doubled as the Peachtree Plaza for that stunt.

Ride Along (2014)

Ice Cube is a detective with the Atlanta Police Department. And Kevin Hart wants to be, too. Filmed around Atlanta, you can spot local landmarks like the Sweet Auburn Curb Market, Underground Atlanta, State Farm Arena (as Highlands High School), and Grady High School.

Ride Along 2 (2016)

The sequel features a night club scene filmed inside Georgia’s State Capitol.

Trouble with the Curve (2012)

Partially set in Atlanta, this movie about an Atlanta Braves baseball scout filmed scenes at Turner Field (now Georgia State Stadium), former home to the Braves, as well as in the Virginia-Highland neighborhood, and at local high schools and colleges, including Georgia Tech. 

Stomp the Yard (2007)

Part of the film takes place at a fictional HBCU, Truth University, in Atlanta. The movie was filmed at Clark Atlanta University in addition to Morris Brown College, Morehouse College, and Georgia Tech.

Podcasts

Archive Atlanta
A weekly podcast that shares the history of Atlanta’s places and people. 

Buried Truths
Not set in Atlanta per se, the podcast by award-winning Atlanta-based journalist Hank Klibanoff explores the legacies of racial injustice in post-WWII Georgia. 

Excavating Atlanta
This podcast, produced by the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, takes a hard look at “structural inequality in the ‘City too Busy to Hate.’” 

Freaknik: A Discourse on a Paradise Lost 
Explore the history of Atlanta’s Freaknik, an important part of Atlanta’s African American youth culture in the late twentieth century and much more. 

BOOK LIST

Wendy Hammond Venet’s A Changing Wind: Commerce and Conflict in Civil War Atlanta

William A. Link’s Atlanta, Cradle of  the New South:  Race and Remembering  in the Civil War’s Aftermath

Paul Thompson’s Most Stirring & Significant Episode: Religion & the Rise & Fall of Prohibition in Black Atlanta 1865-1887

Theda Perdue’s Race and the Atlanta Cotton States Exposition of 1895

David Godshalk’s Veiled Visions: The 1906 Atlanta Race Riot & the Reshaping of American Race Relations; Clifford M. Kuhn’s Contesting the New South Order: The 1914-1915 Strike at Atlanta’s Fulton Mills

Jay Driskell’s Schooling Jim Crow: The Fight for Atlanta’s Booker T. Washington High School & the Roots of Black Protest Politics

Clarence N. Stone’s Regime Politics: Governing Atlanta, 1946-1988

Ronald H. Bayor’s Race and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century Atlanta

Tomiko Brown-Nagin’s Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement 

LeeAnn Lands’s The Culture of Property: Race, Class, and Housing Landscapes in Atlanta, 1880-1950;

Kevin M. Kruse’s White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism

Winston A. Grady-Willis’s Challenging U.S. Apartheid: Atlanta and Black Struggles for Human Rights, 1960-1977

Matthew Lassiter’s The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South

Maurice J. Hobson’s The Legend of the Black Mecca: Politics and Class in the Making of Modern Atlanta. 

Gary M. Pomerants, Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn: A Saga of Race and Family

Steve Goodson’s Highbrows, Hillbillies, and Hellfire: Public Entertainment in Atlanta, 1880-1930