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New York City’s stunning skyline, bustling streets, and culture-rich atmosphere make it one of the most captivating places in the USA. From world-renowned sites like the Statue of Liberty and Rockefeller Center and Central Park to Fifth Avenue’s chic shops, Times Square's bright lights, and the Brooklyn Bridge, NYC scenes are unforgettable.
New York is a popular filming location, thanks to its famous attractions like the iconic Empire State Building and big-city aesthetic places like Grand Central Terminal. City locations for filming in New York are abundant.
Thousands of films feature NYC settings. From the glamorous "Breakfast at Tiffany’s" to the sci-fi series "Men in Black," action-packed superhero flicks like “Superman,” “Spider-man,” and “Batman,” post-apocalyptic “I Am Legend,” and “The Day After Tomorrow,” mafia movie “The Godfather,” the spooky comedy classic "Ghostbusters,” plus HBO series like “Sex in the City,” and cult TV shows like “Seinfeld” and “Friends” have been set in The City That Never Sleeps.
The sights and production support New York City has to offer are second to none.
There’s no shortage of production locations in New York. Whether you’re looking for traditional film studios and standing sets, a house in Greenwich Village, a real life NYC park backdrop, or a commercial-style setting on the East River, you’ll find it here.
Whether you’re creating your own masterpiece from scratch or you plan to remake a film by adding your own twist, hiring a pro to help with the process can make a huge difference. There are numerous production companies in New York City. A few associated with famous films, shows, and companies include:
This production company has been in the filmmaking industry for 50 years. It has contributed to the Oscar-winning film "Howards End" and wrote 2017’s "Call Me By Your Name."
Founded in 1997 and based in New York City, this award-winning production company worked on Michelle Obama’s film, "Becoming."
Goodbrother is a video production agency in Brooklyn specializing in commercials, films, and documentaries, including Netflix’s A Little Bit Pregnant.
Producing films in famous movie locations in New York has its perks, though there are a few variables to consider, too.
The Big Apple is the most populous city in the United States, and it features dozens of famous sites perfect for filming backdrops.
This high-class jewelry store is featured in numerous films, including "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Sweet Home Alabama." Re-create luxury vibes in a nearby salon and spa, a pristine penthouse, or a rooftop setting overlooking Herald Square.
King Kong climbed it. Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks finally found each other on its observation deck in “Sleepless in Seattle.” Superman broke its spire while battling a villain in the 1980 “Superman II” movie. This 102-story structural masterpiece towers over Midtown Manhattan and is a NYC icon, drawing visitors, photographers, and producers from all over the globe.
This iconic bridge can be spotted in "Spider-man," "Transformers," “Sex and the City: The Movie,” and "Godzilla," to name a few, and is one of the most popular NYC filming locations. For a classic Brooklyn setting, settle into a historical brownstone, a funky apartment, or a restored Victorian home.
New York’s entertainment hub has been highlighted in films like Mel Gibson’s "Conspiracy Theory," Tom Cruise's "Vanilla Sky," and “Jerry McGuire,” and on TV shows like “Law and Order.” For easy filming access and an entertainment-esque aesthetic, set up nearby in a famous New York nightclub with a rooftop overlooking the West Side. Or capture street-front vibes from an authentic New York ticket booth in the heart of all the action.
A world financial hub, Wall Street runs between Broadway and the East River and houses global finance organizations like the New York Stock Exchange and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Wall Street’s narrow, winding road is punctuated with towering skyscrapers, providing the perfect big-city aesthetic and has been featured in “The Wolf of Wall Street, “ the film “Wall Street,” and as Gotham City in the Batman movie, “The Dark Knight Rises.”
This iconic New York City destination and filming location is one of the most recognizable NYC sites in the region. On the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Katz’s Delicatessen serves up a selection of meats and breads, like its famous pastrami on rye, corned beef, and hot dogs. The deli has been featured in numerous films and TV shows like “When Harry Met Sally” (the Meg Ryan “I’ll have what she’s having” scene), “Donnie Brasco,” “Law and Order,” and “Enchanted.”
The opportunities for filming in New York City are endless. Start planning your NYC film production now.
Few cities are as instantly recognizable on film as New York. Its dazzling skyscrapers, bustling avenues, classic brownstones, and distinctive bridges have been shot in every way conceivable. From the aerial swinging of Peter Parker in the “Spider-Man” franchise and Santa’s careening sleigh in “Elf” to the inside the Museum of Natural History in “Night at the Museum” and the halls of Grand Central Station in “Men in Black.”
Filmmakers have been drawn to New York City for as long as movies have existed. The first film shot on location in the city is thought to be 1896’s “Herald Square,” a plotless micro-documentary known as an “actuality,” a format common in the earliest days of movie-making. And in 1901, “What Happened on Twenty-third Street, New York City,” one of the first narrative micro-films shot in New York, showed a woman’s skirt being blown upward by a sidewalk vent—a scene which would be recreated by Marilyn Monroe in 1955’s “The Seven Year Itch.”
Today, it is not uncommon to walk down a New York street and see a film or television production in progress. As of June 2022, more than 25 television shows have been filmed in the city, as well as five feature films. The city is also home to the most popular filming location in the world: Central Park, which has made a cameo appearance in 352 movies.
From mid-century classics like “On the Town” to more contemporary favorites like “Do the Right Thing,” Giggster researched New York City filming locations and highlighted 10 spots across the city from famous films—complete with addresses—that you can visit on a cinematic expedition.
- Location: Jackson Hole Diner, 69-35 Astoria Blvd N
Located in Astoria Heights, the Airline Diner served as the backdrop for Henry and Tommy’s truck theft. In “Goodfellas,” the diner is positioned close to Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy International Airport), and the duo waits there, watching for truck shipments going in and out of the airport to pass through. Wearing suits and smoking cigarettes, the two lean against a car with the colorful lights of the diner and a bleak gray sky behind them. As an unsuspecting truck driver pulls into the lot and goes into the diner for some food, Henry and Tommy casually get into the truck and take off, leaving behind the irate driver.
The real diner is about five minutes from Queens’ LaGuardia Airport and is now the location of a small burger chain called Jackson Hole, but the diner’s original retro design and neon Airline Diner sign has been retained. The diner still sees a steady stream of “Goodfellas” fans who come from all over to experience where the movie was filmed, particularly after the death of Ray Liotta in May 2022.
- Location: 58th St. and 6th Ave. intersection, Manhattan
The legendary crosswalk from “Midnight Cowboy” can be found only blocks away from the bottom of Central Park, the Museum of Modern Art, and Radio City Music Hall. The iconic scene follows Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) and Joe Buck (Jon Voight) as they walk together down the crowded, ritzy avenue and into the intersection, where a taxi nearly hits them. In what co-star Voight called an unscripted moment, Hoffman angrily pounds on the hood of the cab while screaming, “I’m walkin’ here!” This scene has become one of the most imitated in film and television history.
In an interview, Hoffman explained that the film’s small budget meant there wasn’t enough money to block off the street and hire extras. Instead, he and Voight walked down the pedestrian-filled street, wearing radio mics and using a hidden camera, trying to line up the timing of their dialogue with the changing traffic signals. According to Hoffman, the taxi ran a light and did, in fact, almost run into them, prompting an ad-libbed (but very earnest) reaction.
- Location: 21 W 52nd St.
The 21 Club opened in 1930 as a speakeasy during Prohibition. Located around the corner from Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall, the restaurant has long been a symbol of old New York glamour and upper-class exclusivity, both in real life and on screen.
In Oliver Stone’s 1987 film “Wall Street,” the low-lit dining room serves as the backdrop for an illicit meeting between Wall Street bigshot Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) and aspiring stockbroker Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen). Gekko chides Fox for not wearing a nice enough suit, telling him, “You can’t come in here looking like this”—a reference to the 21 Club’s strict dress code, which required jackets and ties. Famously, Gekko orders the “off-the-menu” steak tartare topped with a raw quail egg, just before slipping Fox a check for $1 million.
The exclusive restaurant was also featured in the 1993 Woody Allen film “Manhattan Murder Mystery,” when Larry (Allen) and Carol (Diane Keaton) visit the 21 Club with their son on his birthday. The establishing shot of the Club features its famous outdoor wrought-iron railing, which is studded with colorfully dressed jockey figurines. In the lounge, they run into Marcia (Anjelica Huston), who stands in front of a large horse statue. The 21 Club, which officially closed in 2021, can also be spotted in “All About Eve” and “Sex and the City,” and while it doesn’t physically appear in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window,” Grace Kelly orders up a romantic dinner from the famed restaurant for her inamorata, played by Jimmy Stewart.
- Location: 285 Prospect Park West
The First Brooklyn Savings Bank is a fictional bank that serves as the main setting for Sidney Lumet’s “Dog Day Afternoon.” However, based on true events, the bank was built to closely resemble the branch of Chase Manhattan in Brooklyn’s Gravesend neighborhood, which was actually robbed in August 1972.
To avoid discontinuities between shots of entering the building from the outside, the film crew transformed an empty warehouse into a bank between Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery. The warehouse-turned-film set no longer exists, but an aptly-named hot dog shop called “Dog Day Afternoon” half a block away commemorates the film set’s close proximity. The barbershop across the street from the bank where the police set up headquarters in the film is still a hair salon.
- Location: 173 Stuyvesant Ave
Filmed almost entirely on a single block in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” has since been immortalized through the renaming of that block: Do The Right Thing Way. Mookie and Jade’s brownstone still exists at 173 Stuyvesant Avenue, but both Sal’s Famous Pizzeria and the Korean grocery store were constructed sets on small empty lots on the corner of Stuyvesant and Lexington Avenues and were torn down after filming was finished.
Additionally, the Yes Jesus Last Baptist Church was created by adding a fake front to an apartment building. The production and costume design of the film is known for its warm colors, which contribute to the overwhelming sense of building heat and, eventually, fire, which drives the film.
- Location: 26 Wall St
Although the musical “On the Town” takes place over 24 hours in New York City, only about seven minutes of the movie were actually filmed there. The majority of the scenes filmed on location unfold in the first five minutes of the film, during the opening number, “New York, New York.” The scene features Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, and Jules Munshin visiting an array of iconic New York landmarks, including Federal Hall, as well as Brooklyn Bridge, and the Statue of Liberty.
Located in the financial district, Federal Hall’s front steps, imposing columns, and bronze statue of George Washington have been featured in many other films—including “Ghost,” “Wall Street,” and “Kramer vs. Kramer”—as a visual marker of New York’s Wall Street.
- Location: Dinosaur playground in Riverside Park, 6681 Riverside Dr.
The opening gangs’ evening conclave in the cult film “The Warriors” is supposed to take place in Van Cortlandt Park in the northern Bronx, but was actually filmed at the dinosaur playground in Manhattan’s Riverside Park. Although the playground is home to two large fiberglass dinosaurs—a triceratops and a hadrosaur—they are not visible in the scene, which takes place in the oval-shaped, fenced area of the park.
Stone archways form the backdrop for the hundreds of gang members who gather there just before the police arrive and violence erupts. The scene is dimly lit with flaming torches and streetlights, and Cyrus (Roger Hill), the leader of the most powerful gang, addresses the crowd from a raised platform.
- Location: North Cove Marina, 250 Vesey St.
The iconic FBI interrogation scene on Jordan Belfort’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) yacht was filmed in New York’s North Cove Marina, located on the southern tip of Manhattan near Rockefeller Park. The flashy, reflective windows of Tribeca and financial district skyscrapers frame DiCaprio as he stands on his over-the-top boat and greets the federal agents with a glass of wine in hand. From other angles, other yachts and the harbor can be seen in the background. The yacht itself is outfitted with a top-deck landing pad and helicopter and was inspired by the real Jordan Belfort’s yacht “Nadine,” which was originally owned by Coco Chanel.
- Location: Water St. and Washington St. intersection, Brooklyn
The glimpse of the Manhattan Bridge caught between warehouse buildings in Brooklyn’s Dumbo was so emblematic of “Once Upon a Time in America” that it was used for the film’s promotional poster and DVD cover. The bridge is featured in the iconic scene in which Noodles (Robert De Niro) and his friends, young Jewish gangsters, are ambushed by a rival, Bugsy (James Russo).
As the gang hurries down the street and rounds the corner, the bridge comes into full view against a bleak, foggy gray sky, and police on horseback trot by. Tragedy unfolds only seconds later when the youngest gang member, Dominic (Noah Moazezi), runs into the Dumbo Archway only to find Bugsy there.
Today, the architecture of the neighborhood remains nearly the same. The Archway, which has not changed much aesthetically, now houses part of the Brooklyn Flea Market, while the warehouses now mostly house office spaces.
- Location: Shakespeare Steps, 1161 Shakespeare Ave.
Located in Highbridge in the Bronx, the Shakespeare Steps, now colloquially referred to as the “Joker Stairs,” connect two avenues. At a turning point in the 2019 film “Joker,” Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck dances chaotically down the stairs wearing a bright red suit and clown makeup, representing his descent into madness. The steps in the film are grungy and dilapidated, contrasting with Fleck’s colorful suit.
Since the film’s release, the “Joker Stairs” have become such a popular tourist destination that residents of Highbridge have complained that their lives have been disrupted by visitors coming to the steps just for photo ops. Tensions between tourists and residents became so heated that U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez issued a statement asking tourists to respect residents of the neighborhood by steering clear of the stairs.