I found myself on a Fishers Island ferry not long ago ― an interesting, spare winter sojourn ― and the shingle-style mansion on a point near the ferry landing at Silver Eel Pond caught my attention.

The grand house, which dominates its own waterfront point of land, had a starring role in the 1982 film “The World According to Garp,” and seeing it forlorn and closed up made me want to revisit its moment of glory, with stars like Robin WIlliams and Glenn Close lounging on the front porch.

So, this being the age of stream whatever you like, I fired up the movie when I got home.

That led me down memory lane and a rewatching of some of the movie greats from what I’ll call the eastern Connecticut genre, all the glamour and attention of Hollywood brought to bear on some of our finest, local places that lit up on the big screen.

It was my own winter movie series, kind of what the Garde Arts Center does so well, with its winter session featuring Oscar contenders. The theme of my series was all local.

I breezed quickly through “Mystic Pizza,” a favorite but one I know well. My favorite scene is always the spiteful dumping of dead fish in a beloved Porsche convertible parked outside the Misquamicut Club in Watch Hill.

It was sad, though, to see in “Mystic Pizza” the scenes of the colorful traps hanging across the shed at Ford’s Lobster in Noank, given the recent news about the famed restaurant being summarily given the boot.

I especially enjoyed revisiting “Great Hope Springs.” How great is it be able to watch Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones stroll down Water Street in Stonington Borough?

Of course, Streep is almost one of our own, since she used to visit her parents at their retirement home on Mason’s Island. Indeed she was married there.

But “Great Hope Springs” puts the screen actress legend forever in our midst.

I know. I know. She’ll never replace Julia Roberts as our movie star diva here.

I’ve never seen a tourist take a picture of Noah’s in Stonington, the Nor’easter Diner in “Great Hope Springs,” where Streep dined. But you almost can’t pass by Mystic Pizza without seeing a picture-taking tourist out front, almost certainly another Julia Roberts fan.

Only we locals know that the building wasn’t even in the movie.

The Best Picture for me in a local Oscars would be Steven Spielberg’s 1997 “Amistad.”

There are not a lot of local scenes, although it is fun to catch glimpses of the waterfront at Mystic Seaport Museum. The ship in the movie was Pride of Baltimore II. Our own Mystic-built Amistad had not been launched yet.

But the story and history depicted in “Amistad,” so interesting and compelling, belong to Connecticut.

The movie is a triumph in the way it graphically reminds us how barbaric and inhumane the slave trade was and how much heroism it took to end slavery, indeed a horrible war.

The movie remains an important lesson today with so much racism percolating and white supremacy rising to the political surface.

Even Nikki Haley, increasingly the relief valve for a Republican party courting hate by former President Donald Trump, had to be publicly scolded recently before acknowledging that slavery was the cause of the Civil War.

She did correct herself, but if I might suggest a screening of “Amistad,” especially if she’s never seen it, would be a good refresher on American history.

It is certainly an important part of Connecticut history.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.colllins@theday.com