V.I. Warshawski
Gummo if you can stand it. It was set in Xenia, OH. There’s a really disgusting scene involving a filthy teenager in a bathtub. Gives me the heebie-jeebies, but I knew a lot of odd fellows like the ones represented here.
Tommy Boy was also set in Ohio, but there’s not much Ohioan about it. In fact, there’s a scene where Tommy is in the Sandusky Airport awaiting a flight to Cleveland and he’ll be there in three hours.
A. There is no commercial airport in Sandusky.
B. It’s only about 90 miles from Sandusky to Cleveland.
C. Even if you had to drive, it would take you less than two hours, so why fly when it takes three? Assuming there’s an airport in Sandusky, of course.
Townies which just looks really bizarre and is set in Ohio.
Finally, The Shawshank Redemption is set in Maine, but filmed in Ohio, in my hometown. If you’re interested in what semi-rural Ohio looks like, check out the background shots when the inmates are tarring the roof.
If you want the quintessential midwestern family story, I daresay you can’t do worse than In Cold Blood.
Hoosiers ('50s setting but very midwestern)
Field of dreams
Twister
I thought of mentioning that, but I can’t in good conscience recommend Gummo, even in the spirit of academic inquiry.
One of the most important things in the midwest is College Football, With Michigan football being the pinacle. 
The Big chill uses that obsession as the backdrop.
American Splendor
Road to Perdition takes place in the Quad Cities, Chicago, and the surrounding hinterlands of the midwest during the early 30’s.
Paper Moon (which also takes place during the 30’s) is set in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska.
What did you say? I thought I heard you say that Illinois has the highest academic standards in the Big 10. I hear you’re considering graduate work there. Good job!
(Michigan? Blech!)
American Movie, the “Fargo” of Wisconsin, and REALLY true, to boot.
Nobody’s Fool (Paul Newman) – not sure where it was filmed, but the place and people felt familiar.
Any movie with non-pastoral snow evokes the midwest. Snow melting into dirty slush, angry people (dressed for warmth rather than fashion) drinking coffee in a diner and smoking cigarettes.
Thanks for all of the suggestions, folks. Unfortunately, I’ve seen probably 99% of those films (i’m a bit of a cinephile), but I’ll check out the ones I haven’t.
Also, “Gummo” is one of my favorite films of all time. Top-10. I’m not kidding.
I’m sure I don’t. The entire movie is about taking a day off and enjoying Chicago.
They filmed during “the Von Steuben Day Parade an annual event in the Chicagoland area” (from IMDB). The High School scenes were actually from John Hughes’ school. You get to see the Chicago river. They go to a Cubs game, the art museum. You see the view from the sky scraper (I assumed Sears Tower), the joy ride, the water tower. . .
Now, it might have been the Chamber of Commerce version of Chicago, but how can you say “there’s nothing Chicago about it” while you trot out “The Breakfast Club”, a movie that was filmed in an anywhere high-school library with a cast of characters intentionally chosen to be universal high-school archetypes. What the hell was “midwest” or “Chicago” about that movie?
The quiet desperation and pointlessness of their lives?
Just kidding.
That’s just it—they aren’t universal archetypes; they’re very typical of midwestern suburbs, but I’ve heard that people who went to high school in other parts of the country, with different densities and ethnicities, find Breakfast Club completely alien to their experience.
My beef with Ferris Bueller isn’t that they don’t show Chicago landmarks, but that none of the characters strike me as being at all typical or indicative of real Chicago-area people. The movie was a cartoon that would have worked exactly the same had the locale been Seattle, Boston, or most any other largish Northern city.
I’m not much of a movie guy, living 25 miles from the nearest movie house and being cheap to boot, but Bridges of Madison County is so much schlock. There is a real Madison County in Iowa. It is South of Des Moines and does indeed have some covered bridges – it had more until some idiot decided to set fire to one. The story, however, is hardly a Midwestern story and its setting arises only from the fact that the guy who wrote the book taught at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Fall. He taught in the business school, I think. As soon as the book (also a piece of tripe) made it big our author gave up the teaching racket and removed himself to, for the love of all that is holy, Texas where there are no personal state income taxes.
My first vote is The Christmas Story – it could have been set in any of fifty or sixty gritty industrial towns along the Pittsburgh – Rock Island /LaCrosse/ Saint Paul / Saint Louis corridor in the years following WWII. Hell, I could be Ralphie. Anybody who enjoyed the movie needs to read the book, one of Jean Shepherd’s collections of short stories and essays. His stuff is a delight.
Second vote is for Fargo, just for the voices and the landscape. I don’t care what anybody else says, for my money both are authentic.