<Tr> <Th> Box office </Th> <Td> $119.4 million </Td> </Tr> <P> Fried Green Tomatoes is a 1991 comedy - drama film based on the novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg . Directed by Jon Avnet and written by Flagg and Carol Sobieski, it stars Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Mary Stuart Masterson, and Mary - Louise Parker . It tells the story of a Depression - era friendship between two women, Ruth and Idgie, and a 1980s friendship between Evelyn, a middle - aged housewife, and Ninny, an elderly woman . The centerpiece and parallel story concerns the murder of Ruth's abusive husband, Frank, and the accusations that follow . It received a generally positive reception from film critics and was nominated for two Academy Awards . </P> <P> Evelyn Couch, a timid, unhappy housewife in her forties, meets elderly Ninny Threadgoode in an Anderson, Alabama, nursing home . Over several encounters with Evelyn, Ninny tells her the story of the now abandoned town of Whistle Stop, and the people who lived there . The film's subplot concerns Evelyn's dissatisfaction with her marriage, her life, her growing confidence, and her developing friendship with Ninny . The narrative switches several times between Ninny's story, which is set between World War I and World War II, and Evelyn's life in 1980s Birmingham . </P> <P> Ninny's story begins with tomboy Idgie Threadgoode, the youngest of the Threadgoode children, whom Ninny describes as her sister - in - law . Idgie's close relationship with her charming older brother, Buddy, is cut short when he is hit by a train and killed . Devastated, she recedes from formal society for much of her childhood and adolescence until Buddy's former girlfriend, the straitlaced Ruth Jamison, intervenes at the request of the concerned Threadgoode family . </P>

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