Watching the 1992 Last of the Mohicans, I recognized Chimney Rock Falls (in North Carolina, despite the fact that the story’s in Upstate NY. Taughannock Falls would be more impressive and located more toward in the correct location (frankly, the terrain doesn’t even look right to me in the movie.)
Indeed. 
Though much less nowadays, since most of the film industry has moved westward to Vancouver.
The last “hey I know that place” moment I can remember was while watching the premiere of Fringe. Even though the rest of the show is filmed elsewhere, the pilot was most definitely filmed in Toronto… at one point, Olivia drives through a section of the Gardiner Expressway that I used to drive through on a near-daily basis, and several of the “Harvard” scenes actually take place in my old alma mater, the University of Toronto (I kept giggling at how they were totally mis-using some of the spaces, though I can’t recall any specific examples right now).
The exterior scenes from Rodney Dangerfield’s “Back to School” were shot at the University of Wisconsin-Madison while I went to school there. Several of the exterior shots of the dorms were shot at my dorm.
“Backdraft” was shot in and around Chicago; the office where I worked stood in for the alderman’s offices.
In “The Fugitive”, when Harrison Ford makes a phone call from a phone booth next to the L tracks, that’s at the corner of Wells and Wacker, just across the bridge from that same office. (There wasn’t really a phone booth there; they put one up for the scene.)
The 80’s movie Gleaming the Cube with Christian Slater as a skate punk, was filmed in my old hometown of Irvine, CA. I recognized John Wayne Airport, Woodbridge HS, the ubiquitous orange groves, the Disney Motel, etc.
And on the few occasions I see parts of Kindergarten Cop, I remember the mall where it was shot because I was there during the shooting. West Coast Plaza Mall, I think that was the one. We were so close to the area they were shooting that I was asked if I was an extra by one of the film crew. I said no, which turned out to be a good thing. All the extras had assignments and places to be, had I faked it I would have gotten in big trouble. Arnold’s stunt double looked nothing like him in the face.
The third Indiana Jones film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Right at the very beginning. as always, the Paramount mountain logo blends into some real thing on screen. In this case, it was a pyramidal sandstone outcropping, photographed upwards against a blue sky, then the camera tilted downwards past another outcropping that looked kinda like the bust of Nefertiti, and I felt a pang of recollection. Then it continued down to an alley of sandstone structures , one looking sort of like an Easter Island Moai head, and with red cryptogamic soil and low scrub, and I was certain I knew the place.
It’s Courthouse Towers at Arches National Park near Moab, Utah. I’d spent the previous two summers hiking through it. What’s funny is that the opening shot , although it looks like it’s out in the middle of nowhere, is right off the main road threading through the park. The camera had to be sitting right on the asphalt, and they must’ve stopped traffic, because if anyone had been coming down the road you’d have seen them in the gaps between the sandstone formations. They also took down the stakes and ropes intended to keep the tourists off the crypto.
the next few scenes were also in that park, and I recognized Skull Arch, Balanced Rock, the Three Gossips, and others, although they were strung together in an order that made no sense. The rest of the scenes (except, I guess for the scene in the cave, which was probably a studio set) still looked like Arches, until they start chasing Indy on horseback. Then, suddenly, all the Sandstone monumemnts and arches are gone, and instead of undulating ground he’s on a flat-as-a-breadboard plain that stretches to the horizon, with a railroad track on it. Clearly we’ve been teleported to Arizona, or someplace.
Too many counter-examples, of places I’ve been that they clearly didn’t film there, like the “Boston” of Altered States, or the “Grover’s Mill” and “New Brunswick” (both in NJ) of Buckaroo Banzai.
I’m from Astoria, too- but not the one the OP refers to. The Astoria in New York, where Archie Bunker supposedly lived.
Every week, during the opening of “Archie Bunker’s Place,” I saw a shot of the Steinway Coffee Shop, a defunct place where I used to get a hot dog and a coke on a regular basis.
And I went to high school about 2 blocks from the building that Gary Marshall used for exterior shots of Felix and Oscar’s apartment house, in “The Odd Couple.”
When I saw the Daniel Day Lewis version of “The Last of the Mohicans”, I knew it had been filmed in Western North Carolina somewhere. It looked very familiar to me.
Sure enough, when I watched the credits, I saw it had been filmed in various places in NC, including Linville Falls and around the Biltmore Estate.
There was another movie I saw on Netflix about two English women who had been captured by the Indians in the 1750s (Follow the River), I recognized an area near Highlands, NC that was used in the movies.
I guess I just like North Carolina.
I mentioned this in the “True Grit” thread; one of the filming locations (the outlaw hideout where they attempt to ambush Pepper’s gang) was Hot Creek.
I’ve been there many times over the years. It used to be a great place to soak after a hike or a long day on the road, but the thermal vents have become unpredictable and too dangerous. Still a popular place for anglers, though, and very scenic with Mammoth Mountain rising up in the distance.
Longditude - features the windmill in my home village, but it’s on the coast all of a sudden. Also they pull up in a long boat in Jamaica but it’s really Wallings Dam and at some point Pigeon Point in Antigua where I live. I’d read the book and was so excited to see the movie, but got completely thrown off by the locations. Very strange to find both in the one movie.
Oxford is my hometown and it’s always popping up in films.
There are several movies like this for me, but one recent one stands out.
Last year my then-GF came to visit me at work, and we went out to lunch. Afterwards we took a long walk around the quad at Harvard Medical School. The next week we went to see 21, and lo and behold, there it was! In fact just about every scene that took place in Boston was somewhere that I was very familiar with.
The first few scenes of Stuck on You took place on Martha’s Vineyard. Except they didn’t. They were filmed in Rockport, MA. Being that those are my two favorite places in the world, they didn’t fool me for a second. And the burger joint where some of the action took place? Wholly uncharacteristic of either place.
The classic Amazon Women and the Avocado Jungle of Death was filmed largely on location at UC Riverside. The botanical gardens subbed for the Amazon jungle, and the Entomology labs served as official buildings of whatever sort were needed. Since the school is one of my alma maters, and I used to date several of the bug researchers, the sets were rather familiar to me.
One of the scenes from George Romero’s Creepshow (the creature in the box) was filmed on the CMU campus. I got to photograph Adrianne Barbeau for the campus newspaper.
Some of the straight-to-video Leather and Iron was filmed at a neighbor’s house. The damn trailers and their generators bothered us for a week.
Paul Blart, Mall Cop. I recognized the Mall as the one in Billerica, Mass. I visited there on business several times, and i was surprised to see them try to pass it off as New Jersey…
Opening scene of “You don’t mess with the Zohan.” Hey – that’s the Beach at Tel Aviv!
I saw a dramatic one in a trailer just recetly. Guy in a red wing suit standing ot the top of a distinctive gold-coloured skyscraper. Camerra looks down. I think, hey, that’s Toronto! The Royal Bank Plaza, Front Street, and Union Station! Guy leaps… and when he reaches the ground, I am extremely disappointed to see a New York cab.
That movie with the little military robot that comes alive was filmed in Toronto. I kept having moments of, “but that building’s not connected to that one!” and “Those two streets are parallel! You can turn from one to the other…”
It’s time Toronto showed up as itself.
About a year and a half ago I was in a certain Boston neighborhood and I saw a film crew. I asked a lighting guy what was going on and he said that they were shooting a movie. A year later, when I actually saw the movie, I was disappointed that it all took place in New York. Bastards.
(And to make it worse, I never did get to meet Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway.)
Burlington Mall, not Billerica. My wife was there while they were filming some scenes, but we couldn’t find her in the movie.
The previews for the new Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz movie clearly have some scenes filmed in Boston - I remember the brewhaha several months ago when they closed down 93 for filming. Though I had to cringe when Cameron referred to it as “the I-93” in the preview.
This movie, I presume?: Bride Wars - Wikipedia
As a graduate of Valley Forge Military Acadmy, the film TAPS was basically the scene for my highschool years. From the school itself to the scenes in town (Wayne, PA).
There have been a few movies over the years that have shown Bardstown Rd. in Loisville. I had an apartment there for a time and I’m always excited to seesome of my old haunts. (I wonder if Twice Told is still there.)
The college comedy PCU with David Spade and Jeremy Piven was partly shot on the University of Toronto campus. It was familiar to any student, or indeed, anybody who has ever been to the campus. But at one point, the zoo fraternity leader is examining a map of the campus with a mind to send its members on errands or something. “You’ll take the freshman dorms,” says the frat leader to a member as he points at the map.
To the film’s credit, the map really is of the U of T campus and surrounding area. Unfortunately, the “freshman dorms” pointed to on the map are Ontario’s provincial legislature buildings.
It did, in 1978’s The Silent Partner, with Elliott Gould and Christopher Plummer.