32 Places That Are Famous Due To A Movie (2024)

32 Places That Are Famous Due To A Movie (1)

Film fans often flock to see the locations where their favorite movies were made, like the ones on this list. Whether it's a place crucial to the plot of a movie, like the prison in The Shawshank Redemption, or a seemingly minor spot like the burger place in Dazed & Confused, these 32 locations have become iconic for their use on film.

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Hook & Ladder Company 8 - Ghostbusters

The coolest thing about Hook & Ladder Company 8, located on North Moore Street in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York City is that the firehouse, which is still an active station, has incorporated the Ghostbuster's logo into its crest. The building is not run down at all, as seen in the movie, and at almost any time of day, you'll see fans of the movie taking selfies.

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Quick Stop Groceries - Clerks

Kevin Smith famously made Clerks on a minuscule budget. One way he cut costs was to film overnight in his actual place of employment, the Quick Stop Groceries convenience store in Leonardo, NJ. The store is still in business, all these years later and you can be sure they play up the fact that the movie was filmed there.

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King's Cross Station - The Harry Potter Series

King's Cross Station is one of a few train stations in London, and while it's always been a well-known station, its fame leaped to another level with the Harry Potter series. You see, it's there, on platform 9 3/4, that Harry and the rest of the Hogwarts students catch their train to school. Of course, there isn't really a platform 9 3/4, but there is a photo op for fans at the real station now.

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West 167th Street Stairs - Joker

In the Highbridge neighborhood of The Bronx is an unassuming staircase connecting Shakespeare Ave. and Anderson Ave. There are similar stairs in New York City, but none are as famous as the West 167th Street Stairs, where Joaquin Phoenix famously danced as the titular character in Joker.

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Haystack Rock - The Goonies

The Haystack Rock formation off the coast of Cannon Beach in Oregon has been a famous geological spot for decades. For movie fans, it's immediately recognizable from The Goonies as the beach where the kids emerge after finding One-Eyed Willie's pirate ship. It's been used in other movies as well, like Twilight and Point Break.

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Top Notch Burgers - Dazed & Confused

Dazed & Confused does such an incredible job putting the audience right in the middle of the '70s, it's become one of the most beloved cult classics of all time. One major reason it just oozes 1970s teen car culture is the Top Notch Burgers that the characters cruise through. It's a real restaurant in Austin, Texas, where the movie was set and filmed.

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Fox Plaza - Die Hard

2121 Avenue of the Stars, which is most well known by its former name, Fox Plaza, is most famous for being the building where Hans Gruber and his band of merry men commit their robbery in Die Hard. The building, in Los Angeles, was brand new when it was used for the movie in 1988. Eagle-eyed viewers might also recognize it as one of the collapsing buildings at the end of Fight Club.

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South Seas Apartment Complex - The Karate Kid

The South Seas Apartment Complex in The Karate Kid is a pretty typical apartment building in the LA area. It is a real place, with that name, just like in the movie. It's located in Reseda, but it's actually pretty nice, nothing like it looks in the classic '80s movie.

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The Philadelphia Museum Of Art - Rocky

There are a lot of really famous sites to see in Philadelphia. Constitution Hall, The Liberty Bell, Pat's and Geno's cheesesteak stands, and, of course, the steps that lead up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. They were made most famous by Sylvester Stallone in Rocky when the titular character runs up them and celebrates at the top as "Gonna Fly Now" plays triumphantly.

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Georgetown Stairs - The Exorcist

The Exorcist is one of the scariest movies ever made and one of the eeriest things about it are the steep steps just outside the MacNeil household. They are used a few times in the movie, and it's good when they appear. The real stairs are located in the same neighborhood of Washington DC, Georgetown, where the movie is set, at Prospect St and 36th St NW.

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Seaside, FL - The Truman Show

The fictional town where The Truman Show takes place is both fictional for the movie, and fictional in the movie, as it's really just a soundstage where the TV show is filmed, unbeknownst to Truman (Jim Carrey). It was filmed in a real town, however. Seaside, FL looks pretty much exactly as it does in the movie and the house where Truman lives in the movie is where Congressman Matt Gaetz grew up. How's that for an odd coincidence?

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Katz's Deli - When Harry Met Sally

Katz's Deli, on Houston St. in Manhattan, has long been one of the most famous delis in New York City, but it reached new heights of fame after the legendary scene in When Harry Met Sally after Sally (Meg Ryan) does her famous performance of her faking it in bed.

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Chippewa Square Bus Stop - Forrest Gump

The Baby Boomer fever-dream hit movie Forrest Gump takes place over decades, but it's all told by Forrest (Tom Hanks) from one location, a bench at the Chippewa Square bus stop in Savannah, Georgia. It's where the character sits chatting with different people as he tells them his life story, which for some reason is like a box of chocolates.

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Fox Theatre, St. Louis - Escape From New York

If you ever wondered what city could stand in for a dystopian New York City that has been turned into an island prison, it was late '70s St. Louis, MO. The movie was filmed all over the city, including the Fox Theater, located on Grand Ave. The theater at the time was in disrepair and in desperate need of a renovation. Thankfully it got one and today is in much better shape than it was in the movie.

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Timberline Lodge - The Shining

It may be one of the most famous locations on this list - Timberline Lodge, which is the hotel that stands in for The Overlook Hotel in The Shining. The lodge, Mt. Hood, WA, is still open today and draws not only skiers and outdoor enthusiasts, but fans of the horror classic.

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Hôtel Sidi Driss - Star Wars

The Hôtel Sidi Driss in Matmata, Tunisia is one of the most unique hotels in the world, and so it's fitting it would serve as a home on a planet way out of this world. Movie audiences will immediately recognize it as the home of Luke Skywalker and his aunt and uncle at the beginning of the first Star Wars movie. If you're a fan, and you're in the neighborhood, the hotel is still open and taking reservations.

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7B Horseshoe Bar- The Godfather Part II

It goes by many different names. 7B and Horseshoe Bar are the two most people call it. It's still open, right at the corner of 7th Street and Ave. B in Manhattan. It's been there for years and has been used in a few film productions, but none more famous than in The Godfather Part II. It's where the botched assassination of Frank Pentangeli took place.

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Ohio State Reformatory - The Shawshank Redemption

One of the best movies of the '90s has to be The Shawshank Redemption. While the film is set in Maine, the home state of the book's author Stephen King, it was filmed in the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio. It had closed as a prison just a few years before they filmed it, so that certainly helps bring some authenticity to the movie.

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Bosse Field - A League Of Their Own

With some of the best moments in a baseball movie ever, A League Of Their Own has endured for years. So has the minor league baseball field where it was filmed, Bosse Field in Evansville, IN. Though it's a minor league park, it's still the third oldest baseball stadium in the country, behind Wrigley Field and Fenway Park and it retains all the charm it has in the movie.

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Mountain Lake Lodge - Dirty Dancing

In the 1960s, when Dirty Dancing was set, inclusive vacation spots like the Mountain Lake Lodge in Virginia dotted the American countryside. Most have long closed, but the Mountain Lake Lodge has survived and you can still visit and stay there, just like Baby and her family did in the movie. The actual cabin where the Housemans stayed is even available for rent.

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1 Wall Street Court - John Wick

Most of New York City - Manhattan at least - is a grid. But there are a few spots where the grid breaks down and creates odd-shaped blocks, leading to oddly shaped buildings. 1 Wall Street Court is one of those buildings, which makes it the perfect exterior for the mysterious Continental Hotel in the John Wick series where hitmen and criminals can enjoy a drink and a good night's sleep without one eye open looking for enemies.

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The Best Little Chapel - The Hangover

Las Vegas is famous for a lot of reasons, including all the tiny wedding chapels all over town. One famous chapel isn't actually a chapel, though. There are a lot of famous locations in The Hangover, most notably Caesar's Palace (Caesar didn't actually live there). One place you'll have a hard time finding unless you know where to look is The Best Wedding Chapel, as it's really just a youth hostel on Las Vegas Blvd. that was dressed up to look like a wedding chapel. Still, you can see the parking lot and all the hilarious signs behind the location as you quote all your favorite lines from The Hangover.

Matamata, New Zealand - Lord Of The Rings

This is a unique entry on this list as it's now famous for what the Lord of the Rings series did for the town. It's where The Shire was built and much of the set remains today as a tourist attraction for the millions of fans of the movies. It really does feel like you're stepping into the movies.

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Christmas Story House - A Christmas Story

"Ah, there it is. My house, and good old Cleveland Street," is how A Christmas Story begins. The house is almost a character all itself, with the sketchy furnace and the leg lamp, etc... The real house is in the City of Cleveland, but it's at 3159 W 11th St, not on Cleveland St. It's also worth noting that while most of it was filmed in Cleveland, it's set in the fictional town of Hohman, Indiana.

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The Dakota Building - Rosemary's Baby

The Dakota, at 72nd and Central Park West in New York, is one of the most famous apartment buildings in the world, and one reason for that is that it's the setting for the terrifying Roman Polanski film, Rosemary's Baby. It's the perfect building to set the film, with his is dark neo-gothic architecture and large, lavish apartments. The Dakota is also infamous for being where John Lennon was shot and killed in 1980, while he lived there.

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Forks, WA - Twilight

For fans of the Twilight series, the town of Forks, Washington is the homeland. Both the books and the movies are set in a small town in a remote part of the state west of Seattle. It's now a tourist hot spot, though most of the movie was filmed in locations other than Forks.

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El Coyote - Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

El Coyote is a legendary Mexican restaurant in LA that dates back to the 1930s. It's also where Sharon Tate and her friends ate their final meal on August 9th, 1969 before they were murdered by the Manson Family. For his movie Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino filmed the scene of the friends eating not only in the same restaurant but in the very same booth where they sat all those decades ago.

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Lighthouse Café - La La Land

The Lighthouse Café is a great jazz spot that sits in Hermosa Beach, California near LA. It was the location for one of the most famous scenes that movie critics often call a "love letter to Los Angeles," La La Land.

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Drayton House - Saltburn

The English countryside is filled with amazing, ornate homes that are often used for filming, sometimes they are the location for TV shows, like Downton Abbey, and other times it's for movies like Saltburn. For the latter, the makers of the film used the stately Drayton House in Lowick, Northamptonshire.

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Kualoa Ranch - Jurassic Park

Kualoa Ranch in Hawaii has to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. It makes sense it would be the setting for quite a few TV shows and movies, including Lost, Magnum P.I., Pearl Harbor, and maybe the most famous movie filmed there, 1993's Jurassic Park.

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The Tasty - Good Will Hunting

Sadly, this is a location you can no longer visit, as it closed a few years ago. For decades, however, The Tasty Diner in Harvard Square was a late-night favorite for drunk college students from all over Boston. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck made sure it found its way into their movie about Boston, Good Will Hunting.

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Görlitz Department Store - Grand Budapest Hotel

The exterior of the titular Grand Budapest Hotel might have been a model, but the interior and lobby were actually a beautiful - and vacant - department store in Görlitz, Germany. Sadly, while the building is still standing, it is still unused.

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Hugh Scott

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Hugh Scott is the Syndication Editor for CinemaBlend. Before CinemaBlend, he was the managing editor for Suggest.com and Gossipcop.com, covering celebrity news and debunking false gossip. He has been in the publishing industry for almost two decades, covering pop culture – movies and TV shows, especially – with a keen interest and love for Gen X culture, the older influences on it, and what it has since inspired.He graduated from Boston University with a degree in Political Science but cured himself of the desire to be a politician almost immediately after graduation.

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32 Places That Are Famous Due To A Movie (2024)

FAQs

What is the most filmed movie location in the world? ›

It might come as no surprise that the home of Hollywood is the setting for most movies, with 543 films shot in Los Angeles. These include the Back to the Future trilogy and the Fast and Furious franchise. London comes in at a close second place, with an impressive 529 movies being made in the UK's capital.

What state has the most movies filmed? ›

1 Los Angeles, California

Far and away the most popular location in the world for filming movies and television shows, Los Angeles has been the cultural center for the film industry since the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s.

Why are most movies filmed in Hollywood? ›

History of Hollywood - Beginnings of the Hollywood

They were created there by the numerous filmmakers who moved their business from New York in search of a more consistent climate for round-the-year film shooting and, of course, to escape fees imposed by Tomas Edison, who owned many patents on the movie-making process.

What is the most popular city for filming movies? ›

Generally speaking, the best and most obvious places for filmmakers to live and work are Los Angeles and New York City.

What is the most filmed street in America? ›

Hollywood Boulevard is the Most Filmed Street in the US

Renamed from 'Prospect Avenue' at the dawn of Hollywood history, the boulevard was soon lined with picture palaces and glamorous stores, becoming 'seedy' and 'funky' in the 1970s – right as New Hollywood drew filmmakers out of the studio and into the real world.

What city is known for film? ›

Los Angeles

The city synonymous with cinema boasts some of the best film schools and production companies in the world. Aspiring actors can train at notable studios like 3-2-1 Acting Studios and Speiser Sturges Acting Studio, and find a community of like-minded people to support them on their path to stardom.

What state has the most actors? ›

The U.S. state producing the most actors and actresses is California, with over 6,100 top stars born there. This includes over 3,300 actors, such as Leonardo DiCaprio, who was born in the city of Los Angeles and has starred in films including Titanic, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Revenant, ...

Where is most TV filmed? ›

Shows: Too many to count

By far the most frequent filming location for TV series and a frequent stand-in for shows set elsewhere around the state, country, and even the world, Los Angeles County offers a little bit of everything for television tourists.

Which Hollywood actor did most movies? ›

Whenever he appeared on screen, you knew the plot was going to take a negative turn. John Wayne has played in the most movies, with his filmography spanning 57 years. He has been in more than 170 movies and earned 5 Oscar nominations for Best Actor.

Where was Titanic filmed? ›

Many iconic scenes from the 1997 movie Titanic were filmed primarily at Fox Baja Studios, now known as Baja Studios, located in the resort town of Rosarito in Baja California, Mexico. The production house built a life-size exterior set of the RMS Titanic in an expansive tank that cost $40 million.

What is the first movie in the world? ›

The earliest surviving film, known today as the Roundhay Garden Scene (1888), was captured by Louis Le Prince and briefly depicted members of his family in motion.

Where is the biggest film city in the world? ›

Ramoji Film City is an integrated film studio facility located in Abdullahpurmet, Hyderabad, India. Spread over 1,666 acres (674 ha), it is the largest film studio complex in the world and as such has been certified by the Guinness World Records. It was established by Ramoji Rao in 1996.

Where is the largest film industry in the world located? ›

Hollywood in the USA is considered the largest film industry globally based on its influence, revenue, and production quality.

Is Central Park the most filmed location in the world? ›

Since 1908, over 200 films have shot scenes in Central Park, making it the most filmed public park in the world. Several tours from On Location will take you all throughout this wonderful park, including our Central Park TV & Movie Sites Tour.

What building has been in the most movies? ›

Because of its recognizability, symbolism and romanticism, the Empire State Building has been featured in over 250 films. From box office smashes to documentaries and experimental art films, the Empire State Building has “acted” in background-to-starring roles in many movies.

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