The Proposalwas set in Stika, AK, where I used to visit frequently. Totally unforgettable movie, and, not actually filmed in Sitka. Or even Alaska.
Chinatown, because it’s filmed all over Los Angeles, Hollywood, Pasadena, Santa Monica - in other words, where I grew up.
A Star is Born (Judy Garland version), ditto.
Fargo. I’ve never been in those areas in Minnesota or North Dakota, but that’s where my mom was born and raised, so I find them interesting. No wonder she hightailed it out of there at age 25 to live in southern California.
Scream 2 was filmed at my alma mater the summer before I started there. We all went to see it. It was very jarring to see the way they cut it together - my freshman dorm and then the “same building” which wasn’t at all.
Dances with Wolves. Lots of it was filmed on the prairie between Rapid City and the Badlands, just a few miles from where my in-laws live, a place I’ve been many times. I thought it only a mediocre movie, but it sure is beautiful country.
I saw Sideways originally because I lived near and spent a lot of time around the Santa Ynez Valley. Turned out the whole film was a travelogue of places I lived in California - Pacific Beach, Oxnard, SF Valley (briefly), Ventura.
Also saw Tremors because it was filmed up along the 395, including the Alabama Hills, an area I loved to visit, camp, and hike around. Ended up liking the film too, against all expectations.
Tried watching the 21 Jump Street movie because it was shot in and around where I went to high school but found it too dumb. Watched McQueen’s The Hunter the first time because the opening scenes were filmed in and around where I grew up.
I watched The Stuntman specifically because it was filmed at the Hotel Del [Coronado] and didn’t really find it all that great, even though there were apparently some fine actors in it.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High was reputedly selected memoirs of a kid from a High School in a region of San Diego called Clairemont. I think the scenery was actually from some other town.
Over the years, I grew up in San Diego, did some charity house-building in some areas outside of Tijuana, and went to grad school in Cincinnati. I didn’t go to see the scenery, but when I watched Traffic I found myself thinking “I’ve been there!” each time they’d use a long shot to set the scene. The movie tries to demonstrate the complexity of the drug war by showing what’s going on in Mexico, the Midwest, and Southern California and skipping around a lot to suggest that the events are happening concurrently. Every time they changed countries, they’d establish the locale with a long shot.
So many have mentioned Sideways. My wife and I rented the DVD shortly after we moved into the area because it was billed as “a zaney comedy” filmed around the Santa Barbara wine country. My wife fell asleep after the first 15 minutes; I thought the men were despicable and the tale was humorless.
—G!
My husband and I went to Chicago and toured the beautiful Cuneo Mansion. We learned that two movies had been filmed there: My Best Friend’s Wedding, and Witless Protection starring Larry the Cable Guy. We’d already seen one of them, so when we got home, we rented Witless Protection.
I do not recommend this.
My husband has watched TLOR trilogy so many times that I completely tune out the story. I just pay attention when the orchestration gets all sweeping and majestic so I can see the beautiful New Zealand scenery.
*St Elmo’s Fire *because they used parts of the University of Maryland as a poor substitute for Georgetown. A truly awful movie. But I went to UMD.
*Firebirds * because it was partially filmed at Fort Hood shortly before I was stationed there. As bad as you think that movie is, you can’t appreciate how bad unless you spent some time in Army Aviation.
I.Q. shot in Princeton and I recognized a lot of the exteriors. Lots of stories about the filming from local residents. Meg Ryan was aloof and standoffish. Tim Robbins was friendly but kept to himself. Walter Matthau acted like he was a long time resident. He frequented the bars and restaurants and spent time with anyone who approached.
Harold an Kumar Go to White Castle because of New Jersey. I was far from home and it was nice to see the highway signs and such. I don’t know how much they actually filmed here. I think just some B-Roll. But what they got wrong was even better.
Man of Steel. The stretch of road in the tornado scene can be seen from my pre-divorce house. In fact we watched some of the filming of that scene. I’ve eaten at the IHOP and my wife and I walked through Plano when it was dressed as Smallville.
I’ll be seeing a movie on Saturday called Duel simply because it was filmed in Ljubljana, Slovenia. I’ve never been there, and the chances of me ever going there are nil to none, but I saw a movie last year that was filmed there, and fell deeply in love with the place. It’s an amazingly gorgeous city.
(And The Stunt Man is one of my all-time favorite films. I do think it’s a great film, and the setting is terrific. It’s one of Peter O’Toole’s best roles IMO.)
Freak Talks About Sex was worth watching only because some scenes were filmed just around the corner from me. Other scenes took place in a mall less than a mile away. Some scenes could have been filmed right in my house - if only I had taken the guys seriously when they came by scouting locations!
After I came back from a trip to Ireland last spring, I rented “Far and Away” and “Ryan’s Daughter.” Both were filmed on some of the same spots on the Ring of Kerry where I had just been and I wanted to see if I could recognize anything. I did, particularly around the village in the latter movie (which was a set constructed on an empty field, btw).
I also rented “The Field,” which was filmed in and around Leenane and the fjord where we took a short boat trip. The nearby waterfall features in this film, which I was glad I didn’t know when I was there–a murder is committed there.
Easy A, which was filmed in, and heavily featured, my home town (Ojai, CA). It amused me that they renamed the local high school to “Ojai North High School” to explain the big "N"s all over the school building (the school is actually called Nordhoff). And they turned the local Carrow’s into a lobster house. 
I came in to say this. My family’s from Albany County. When someone mentioned that this film was shot around there, I said, “I wonder if they did a scene at the Altamont Fair,” and he said, “Guess what – it’s the opening scene!”
There’s a Gwyneth Paltrow/Daniel Craig movie called Sylvia that I want to watch just because it was partially filmed in the tiny seaside village where I grew up (wish I had lived there when it was being filmed). But I haven’t actually done so.
I once watched a movie just because it was playing in the theater I’d wandered into.
I think it was Like Water For Chocolate.
Anyway, I was amused to watch Warm Bodies which was filmed in Montreal and incorporates many recognizable Montreal landmarks while employing some kind of bizarro Mobius-strip use of Montreal geography, i.e. characters start out on foot from an airport far north of the city and eventually approach the stronghold from a highway south of the city, suggesting a rather huge detour.
Oddly, if a zombie apocalypse does occur, Montreal would actually be a pretty good base, given that it’s a large island with several small islands nearby.
I’ll watch any movie that’s filmed in or around Albuquerque. The worst two were “The Hitcher” (a pivotal scene was filmed on the road that leads to my in-laws’ land) and “Wild Hogs” (filmed largely in Madrid, a small town in the mountains east of here). Downtown Albuquerque stood in for downtown Chicago in the second, which was pretty hilarious.
I also saw “Let the Right One In” in large part because the pool scenes were filmed at my kids’ high school, but that one was worth seeing on its merits.