Award-Worthy Film Locations You Can Visit This Year

These 8 award-nominated films were shot in some unusual locations. Find out how you can visit them.

By: Felicia Feaster

Related To:

Shop This Look

Photo By: Warner Bros Pictures

Photo By: 20th Century Fox

Photo By: Universal Pictures

Photo By: Netflix/Carlos Somonte

Photo By: 20th Century Fox Film/Yorgos Lanthimos

Photo By: Annapurna

Photo By: Walt Disney Studios

Photo By: Focus Features

A Star Is Born

Bradley Cooper's award-nominated directorial debut A Star Is Born, about a country legend Jackson Maine (Cooper) on the rocks, who helps guide a promising new singer—and lover— Ally (Lady Gaga) on her rise to stardom is the fourth remake of this classic Hollywood tale. One of the key locations for the film is a rustic Calabasas home that doubled for Jackson Maine’s hip, lo-fi retreat and was recently featured as a sexy piece of real estate on the Curbed site. It has since sold, so Lookie-loos won't be able to tour the home, but there are some other locations throughout Los Angeles featured. Real-life locations you can visit include the iconic Chateau Marmont hotel and bungalows, the historic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the Short Stop Bar in Echo Park, the Millennium Biltmore Hotel and Griffith Park, Greek Theatre and the Regent Theater, all accessible stops on a City of Angels tour. The Indio, California site of the Coachella Festival, England's Glastonbury music festival and the Stagecoach Festival were also used for the film's engaging concert scenes. The Virgil in East Hollywood where Lady Gaga performs "La Vie En Rose" and the Super A Foods where Gaga and Cooper's lovestruck characters connect are also great places to stop in A Star Is Born tour of the city.

Bohemian Rhapsody

The galvanizing, incredible performance by Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek) at England's Wembley Stadium for 1985's Live Aid concert caps the career and life of music superstar and Queen lead singer documented in the award-nominated film Bohemian Rhapsody. However, the makers of the film could not get permission to shoot at Wembley so they instead shot the scene at the Bovingdon Airfield in Hemel Hempstead, a historic town in Hertfordshire, England on the film's very first day of shooting. Set in London, New York and Amsterdam, in reality, all of Bohemian Rhapsody was shot in the United Kingdom including the London borough of Bromley whose Old Town Hall doubled as the now-defunct art school Ealing Art College, where Mercury studied. The Southwark district of London was used throughout the production, serving as the location for an Amsterdam record store and a Manhattan street at various points. Mercury's Garden Lodge home in Kensington, London, which has become a mecca for Queen fans, was replicated in the suburb of Surbiton, Surrey where the production donated money to various neighborhood groups in thanks for the inconvenience the production caused for local homeowners.

Green Book

Green Book centers on a road trip taken by a working class Italian-American nightclub bouncer Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen) who agrees to chauffeur and protect a highbrow black pianist Dr. Donald Shirley (Mahershala Ali) as he plays concerts throughout the Fifties-era Jim Crow South. Though the film's story weaves from New York to Pennsylvania to the Deep South, amazingly, this based-on-fact story was shot almost entirely in Louisiana (including a snowstorm scene that took advantage of a rare and unexpected Louisiana snowfall just outside the town of Amite) with only one day used to grab New York City exterior shots. The production made use of a number of historic New Orleans theaters for the many performance scenes in Green Book where Shirley plays including the Saenger Theatre, the Orpheum Theater and the Carver Theater, which actually doubled as the interior of New York City's Copacabana Club where Tony Lip worked. The exterior of the famous NYC club was shot at New Orleans' International House Hotel and the glorious Roosevelt Hotel was used to stand in for the fancy Memphis Hotel where the pair stop on their journey down South. The Clover Grill in the French Quarter stood in for the New York site of a hot-dog eating contest won by Lip and the Romanesque Revival W. P. Brown House subbed for the site of a Pittsburgh private party in Green Book. Mortensen has said he also ate his way through New Orleans to keep on the 45 pounds he added to his lean frame to play the heavier Tony Lip.

Roma

A frontrunner for best picture, director Alfonso Cuaron's heartwrenching semi-autobiographical black and white opus Roma looks back at his childhood growing up in a well-to-do but broken Mexico City family in the 1970s. At the emotional center of the drama is his family's nanny and housemaid Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) who rivals his mother (Marina de Tavira) in importance. The American and Mexican co-production centers on a family living in the Colonia Roma neighborhood of Mexico City. Locations in Mexico City where the film was shot include the Avenue Ribera de San Cosme where a student demonstration takes place in Roma and the historic Art Deco Teatro Metropolitan in Mexico City where Cleo goes with her boyfriend. One of the country's best known movie theaters, now used principally for concerts, it was also the location for the premiere of Cuaron's 2001 breakthrough film Y Tu Mama También. The home depicted in Roma where much of the film's action takes place was actually located at Tepeji 22, directly across the street from the actual home where Cuaron was raised, at Tepeji 21. The interiors were shot at a different home, also from the 1930s that was located close-by. For realism, Cuaron even added furniture from his childhood to the home where the film was shot. The film's climactic scene at the beach where Cleo plays an instrumental role was shot in Tuxpan and for the New Year party rendered so atmospherically by Cuaron, the production moved to La Marquesa national park.

The Favourite

Rachel Weisz (left) and Olivia Colman (right) star in The Favorite, a drama of political and sexual intrigue among three women, Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) and the queen's attendents Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) and Abigail Hill (Emma Stone). Hampton Court Palace, where Queen Anne actually spent time, was one of the shooting locations for the film and through March 10 is hosting an exhibition of costumes from The Favourite. Along with Hampton Court Palace, the Jacobean mansion Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, England also stood in for Queen Anne's royal residence in 85 percent of Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos's award-nominated film. Hatfield House can be seen in a number of film and television productions, including Wonder Woman, The King's Speech, Paddington and "The Crown." You can visit both Hampton Court Palace all year round and Hatfield House the 1611 property set on 42 acres when it opens for the season in April. Substituting for the House of Commons in the film were Oxford University's Divinity School, Convocation House and Bodleian Libraries.

Vice

Christian Bale (left) stars as Dick Cheney and Sam Rockwell (right) as George W. Bush in director Adam McKay' s bio-picture Vice about arguably the most powerful vice president in American history. Christian Bale gained 40 pounds for the role, rendering himself virtually unrecognizable. Southern California did its own undercover work in the film. Says Vice executive producer Jeff Waxman, "where would you shoot a film that covers five decades, has over two hundred sets with locations ranging from small towns in Wyoming to a café in Italy - from the wide-open spaces of Texas to Vietnam, Cambodia and a Middle Eastern desert, plus the United Nations in New York, the White House and several other iconic Washington, D.C. locales?" And in all of those instances, the answer was Southern California. Interiors (including the White House, West Wing and the Oval Office) for the film were shot, mostly on Sony sound stages in Culver City, Los Angeles so crew could move from set to set easily. The power restaurant where Cheney meets with Rumsfeld and others to discuss the invasion of Iraq was also shot at an L.A. location: Cicada, an Art Deco restaurant in downtown Los Angeles. Other California locations included the Jefferson Park neighborhood which doubled for Cheney's home state of Wyoming and the Blue Cloud Ranch in Santa Clarita which stood in for post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.

Black Panther

The majority of this year’s Marvel comic book blockbuster Black Panther was shot at Pinewood Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks to generous tax incentives, many films are now shooting in Georgia, garnering it the nickname of Hollywood South or Y'allywood. More movies were shot in Georgia in 2017 than in any other nation, says Motion Picture Association of America Chairman and CEO Charles H. Rivkin. You can visit the inspiration for this rousing tale of the fictitious African utopia of Wakanda at multiple locations in Atlanta that stood-in for key Black Panther settings including the fictitious Wakanda; South Korea; New York’s United Nations; London (at Atlanta's High Museum); and Oakland, California. The visual inspiration for Wakanda came from a pastiche of African countries including the tiny nation of Lesotho, Ghana, Ethiopia and South Africa. Aerial shots were taken of South Africa, Zambia, Uganda and South Korea. Want to check out the real-life film locations of a variety of Atlanta-shot movies and TV shows including "The Walking Dead" and Baby Driver? Take an Atlanta Movie Tour.

BlacKkKlansman

BlacKkKlansman, Spike Lee's latest film, centers on Ron Stallworth (played by John David Washington)—an African-American detective in the Colorado Springs, Colorado, police department in the 1970s who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan through a series of bizarre and true events. Ossining, New York and several Westchester County towns including Briarcliff Manor and Mount Vernon, served as a stand-in for Colorado Springs in the film. About an hour commute by train from Manhattan, the charming Hudson River village of Ossining was also home to author John Cheever and to the fictional Mad Men character Don Draper.

Shows

Hosts

Trending

Top Videos

Digital Exclusives

From Our Shows

Trending

Top Domestic

Top International

Trending

Explore By Region

Trending

Top Interests

By Trip

By Traveler

Travel Tips

Trending

Award-Worthy Film Locations You Can Visit This Year

Related To:

Shop This Look

A Star Is Born

Bohemian Rhapsody

Green Book

Roma

The Favourite

Vice

Black Panther

BlacKkKlansman

We Recommend

Best Gay Beach Destinations 20 Photos

This Spooky English Castle Is a Hot Horror Film Location

9 London Hotels for Your Royal Wedding Trip 13 Photos

Most Romantic LA Hotels

London’s 6 Newest Luxury Hotels

America's Most Notorious Hotel Ghosts

More From Travel