# Movies filmed on a location you know well **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [September 13, 2022, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515 "2022-09-13T19:56:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/1 "2022-09-13T19:56:55Z")
New Yorkers, Los Angelenos and Vancouverans probably don’t need to reply. What are the films or shows that you connect with strictly because of the location where they are filmed? Nothing to do with where the plot says they are set but where they did the filming. The film could be good or bad but you get some satisfaction just by recognizing what’s in the background. This thread inspired by seeing the barbershop I’ve been going to off and on since childhood turned into a movie set this weekend. There are a couple off the top of my head. _I.Q_ with Tim Robbins, Meg Ryan and Walter Matthau as Albert Einstein. At the time it was filming in Princeton I was driving through the town pretty regularly. I recognized many locations like Palmer Square and Carnegie Lake where they filmed the rowing scenes. I also heard some stories about the cast when filming. Matthau was as great as you would hope. _St Elmo’s Fire_ was a pretty bad movie but it was partially filmed at University of Maryland where I went. Georgetown wouldn’t let them film there so UMD had to act like a more expensive school. _Fire Birds_ was an awful movie but it was filmed on Fort Hood not long before I was there. And I was in Army Aviation so I knew all the facilities and even recognized some of the training areas. I went to Basic Training at Fort Knox. Sure I recognized the Gold Depository from _Goldfinger._ But more importantly _Stripes_ was filmed there. I ran on that obstacle course. The room where they meet Hulka was the actual room they brought in new recruits from the bus. All different now but it was exactly as I saw it. ---
**Author:** ![SwissMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@SwissMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SwissMan)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/2 "2022-09-13T20:02:35Z")
_Logan’s Run_ prominently featured the Fort Worth Water Gardens, which I visited several times in my youth. ---
**Author:** ![SwissMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@SwissMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SwissMan)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/3 "2022-09-13T20:04:05Z")
The original _Robocop_ was also filmed largely in Dallas. The ground level of the OCP building is actually Dallas City Hall. ---
**Author:** ![rippingtons\_fan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rippingtons_fan/32/11767_2.png) [@rippingtons\_fan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rippingtons_fan)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/4 "2022-09-13T20:06:26Z")
**An Officer and a Gentleman** was filmed at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend, Washington, where we held the annual Fort Worden Kitemaker’s Conference. ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/5 "2022-09-13T20:10:55Z")
Torontonians can also probably excuse themselves from this competition, as we’d swamp the place. The TV show _Nikita_ was a great game of Spot Toronto. Opening episode climaxes behind City Hall, there’s an alley two blocks from my office that’s used repeatedly, and I recognize a ton of the neighborhoods used. They’d go out of town once and a while for more “exotic” locations. There’s a stairway by the river in Cambridge, Ontario, that they used twice as a location (once it was Budapest, I think, I forget what it was doubling the other time). I recognized it because I’ve done a cosplay photoshoot on that same staircase. _The Boys_ is filmed here but they do remarkable things with CGI. The Vought headquarters is Roy Thompson Hall, but they’ve extended the curved walls up to skyscraper height. The interiors are used early on in the first _X-Men_ movie; it’s where Magneto and Professor X have their first onscreen conversatrion. And The exterior of Hannibal’s house is across the street to the east. Back to _The Boys_…early in season one, there was a scene set in a electronics shop. Karl Urban exits the store, and we see Yonge Dundas Square …and then the pan flows right into Times Square. It was pretty trippy to see. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/6 "2022-09-13T20:20:25Z")
_Gumball Rally_ had a lot of the cross country scenes filmed all in Arizona. It’s really obvious (and really ridiculous) to see scenes supposedly in Illinois on state highway 89A. Does this look like central Illinois to you? [![](https://live.staticflickr.com/6043/6339961994_1418e703d6_b.jpg) ](https://live.staticflickr.com/6043/6339961994_1418e703d6_b.jpg) _Escape From NY_ had the climactic escape bridge scene filmed in St Louis on the Chain of Rocks Bridge, a route 66 must-see. I’ve visited it several times, and walked across. My favorite is _Used Car_s, filmed in Mesa, AZ back when I lived in WI and though Arizona was the place the sun went down into. I bought a car from the dealership that “played” Roy L. Fuchs dealership. I think I went to the junkyard where the “mile” of used cars came from. The whole place has changed since then. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/7 "2022-09-13T20:24:21Z")
The movie version of _The Fault in Our Stars_ was filmed in Pittsburgh for the tax benefits, but the novel was based in Indianapolis, and the scene in which one of the kids threw up in his car was on 86th and Ditch, probably in the parking lot that once belonged to the Village Pantry convenience store when I lived in Indy, before its parent company Marsh Supermarkets went under. I worked at the Marsh Supermarket in that shopping center, as well as the Blockbuster, and at one point lived within walking distance. The kids went to my high school, too. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/8 "2022-09-13T20:24:26Z")
My kids have played at most of the courts shown in _King Richard_. It made a fun game while watching it to see who could recognize each location first. (Yeah, we’re in Los Angeles, but most of the courts are not usually open to the public.) ---
**Author:** ![Yodalicious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yodalicious/32/8195_2.png) [@Yodalicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yodalicious)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/9 "2022-09-13T20:27:04Z")
A LOT of stuff is filmed in Atlanta. It’s fun to recognize the shooting locations. There’s currently a Netflix show filming in the lobby of my office building. ---
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/10 "2022-09-13T20:28:15Z")
For the movie _Vertigo_, the scenes at the mission in San Juan Bautista and on the highways as Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak drive to SJB are all quite close to where I live. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/11 "2022-09-13T20:31:50Z")
Rodney Dangerfield’s _Back to School_ filmed its exterior campus shots at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the fall of 1985, during my junior year there. Several scenes were shot just outside of my dorm. I spent a fair amount of time that fall watching movie production, rather than studying. When I was working at Helene Curtis in Chicago in the early '90s, a few scenes in _Backdraft_ were filmed in our offices (which were used as stand-ins for an alderman’s office). Edit: I also remembered that a few scenes from the Samuel L. Jackson / Kevin Spacey film _The Negotiator,_ involving a helicopter, were filmed in the vicinity of my office at Quaker Oats, also in downtown Chicago. One scene had the helicopter making close flybys of our building, which was very distracting the afternoon that they were filming it. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/12 "2022-09-13T20:31:55Z")
M Night Shamalan loves Philly. Unbreakable has scenes that were obviously genuinely shot in Philadelphia. As did Glass. ---
**Author:** ![swampffox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampffox/32/11951_2.png) [@swampffox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampffox)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/13 "2022-09-13T20:32:26Z")
I hear _State of Play_ (with Russel Crowe and Ben Affleck) was all shot inside-the-beltway in and around DC and Arlington (more specifically Crystal City, where I live) and supposedly pretty accurate because it captures all these little places that people who actually live in DC like to frequent. But I’ve actually never seen it. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/14 "2022-09-13T20:35:30Z")
A tiny independent film called _[Another Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Earth)_ was filmed in and around New Haven, so as I was watching it, I was looking for familiar settings. (Like one scene that was clearly shot on the New Haven Green.) ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/15 "2022-09-13T20:37:08Z")
_Battlefield Earth !_ Parts of it were filmed in an abandoned sewing machine factory in my home town. So they took this derelict site and painted it to look even more derelict, and left it that way. Also, [Amnesia: The James Brighton Enigma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesia:_The_James_Brighton_Enigma) . Much of the movie takes place in Montréal, but at one point they’re driving around the guy’s home town in the States, filmed from inside the car. Of course they didn’t bother to fly a crew down to the U.S. just for that scene, they just drove around the main street of my old suburb, avoiding the most obvious signs in French; I was like “Hey wait a minute, that’s my shoe store!”. They also filmed an outdoor scene about 5 minutes from my current house. ---
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/16 "2022-09-13T20:38:17Z")
About 15 years ago my wife and I visited Skellig Michael, a tiny island just off the southwest coast of Ireland. I don’t know what it’s like now, but at the time very few people were allowed on the island each day. There are hundreds of old stone steps up to some very old beehive huts where monks once lived. A gorgeous, really remote place, one of my top vacation highlights of all time. So imagine my surprise when I saw from the newest Star Wars trilogy that Luke Skywalker was hiding out there all those years! ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/17 "2022-09-13T20:42:47Z")
Las Vegas. I have yet to see a movie or TV show that doesn’t worship at the throne of Television Geography. Even in places way off the Strip and Downtown they still screw up where things are in relation to everything else. The only movie that got semi-close that I have seen is The Hangover. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/18 "2022-09-13T20:46:21Z")
I had been living in Benešov, Czechoslovakia, for several months when I saw _ **Drop Dead Fred** _ (no comma), which was filmed in Minneapolis and St Paul. I was immediately transported back to the cities I had left behind. Of course, I can’t see any movie filmed in Moscow without recognizing lots of landmarks, since I lived there full-time from 1992 to 2008 (and another 11 months as a student). I’m often amused at how filmmakers rearrange the geography of the city, Val Kilmer’s _ **The Saint** _ being the most egregious example. (“Oh, wow! The dude just ran two miles in five seconds, and the American Embassy looks like the Peking Hotel!”) ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/19 "2022-09-13T20:48:08Z")
_Slapshot_ was filmed in my hometown of Johnstown, PA. The hockey scenes were shot in the Cambria County War Memorial, where I spent many a night rooting on our local hockey team, the Jets. _All the Right Moves_ was also filmed in Johnstown. I had moved away by then, but I still recognized many locations. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/20 "2022-09-13T20:55:25Z")
I’ve visited Las Vegas, New Mexico several times because it’s been a filming location for many productions. To name a few: Easy Rider, No Country For Old Men, Longmire, Outer Range, Red Dawn, and Paul. The town makes an effort to maintain the main drag with a late 50s/early 60s vibe. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515.md?page=2)