Seven of the World’s Most Iconic Filming Locations
Discover 7 of the world’s most iconic filming locations from popular movies and take tours to visit them all.
From the seven wonders of the world to some of the seven most iconic filming locations, there are thousands of movies and TV shows out there. But only a few are so iconic that the filming locations they feature have been forever immortalised and are instantly recognisable to fans of their franchises.
Seemingly innocuous places that are now so well-known and have become tourist attractions because of the films to famous places that have been used as filming locations many times over the years.
From Harry Potter to Lord of the Rings and Tomb Raider, we’ve got the seven most iconic filming locations we could muster, all of which you can visit!
King’s Cross Station
Located in Central London, King’s Cross station is the setting for one of the most famous scenes in the Harry Potter franchises. Platform 9 ¾ is the train platform used by student wizards and witches in order to travel to Hogwarts on the Hogwarts Express. The actual platform itself was filmed on platforms 4 and 5 of the station, but the more iconic area is the space between platforms 9 and 10, the entrance to 9 ¾.
You can’t visit the actual wall separating platform 9 and 10 because, unfortunately, in the real King’s Cross Station, the platforms are separated by train tracks. There is, however, a wall with the Platform 9 ¾ sign on it prominently displayed in the station. The wall also features a luggage trolley that’s half ‘embedded’ into the wall, which you can take photos with.
Visit King’s Cross Station’s Platform 9 ¾ in London as part of a walking tour to see the magic for yourself.
Alnwick Castle
As one of the many filming locations used to depict Hogwarts Castle from the Harry Potter Franchise, Alnwick Castle is arguably one of the best. Featured in the first two films as both the location used for exterior shots and the filming location of Madame Hooch’s flying lessons, you’ll be able to easily recognise this iconic castle as the exterior setting for the fictional school of wizardry.
Self-walking tours of Alnwick Castle take you around the grounds where you can spot flying locations.
Angkor Wat
The beautiful and historic location of Lara Croft’s Tomb Raider from 2000, Angkor Wat is a stunning complex of ruins, temples and forgotten history, religion and ancient culture. A lot of the first movie was filmed in areas of Angkor Wat, with one of the most iconic being Ta Prohm, affectionately and colloquially known as the “Tomb Raider temple”.
The Ta Prohm temple may not be the only location in Angkor Wat that was used in the Tomb Raider film, but as a Mahayana Buddhist monastery with construction that dates back as far as 1186, as well as its prominent role in the film, it’s certainly the most iconic in our book.
Mt Ngauruhoe
The stronghold of the dark Lord Sauron, Mt Ngauruhoe was digitally transformed into Mordor’s Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings film. For fans of the franchise, or almost anyone who has seen, read or heard of the films, this is an incredibly iconic filming location.
Situated in New Zealand’s Tongariro National Park, one of the largest and now most famous national parks in the country, the active stratovolcano is a testament to the great cinematography and epic fantasy thrills we know and love.
You can take walking tours of the volcano region, bus tours that include Mordor and even climb to its peak if you dare face Sauron.
Hobbiton
You might not believe it, but Hobbiton is an actual real place in New Zealand. Okay, so the hobbit holes are man-made for the purposes of the film, but scenes here were filmed on location rather than in a staged studio set. Based in the Waikato region of New Zealand in a small town, Alexander farm was transformed into Hobbiton in 1999 for the LoTR movies and then again in 2011 for The Hobbit trilogy. The now permanent set is a popular attraction and features the iconic hobbit holes.
The Sistine Chapel/Vatican City
A wholly religious area of Italy and governed by the catholic church, the Vatican has a ban on filming so you won’t have seen the real thing in any of your favourite films. Okay, so we’re cheating a bit, but the film Angels & Demons, a sequel to the popular Da Vinci Code, got about as close as they could to recreating Vatican City.
By taking a series of covert photographs of the city, as well as many pictures of the exteriors of buildings, they were able to recreate the magic of Vatican City without actually being there, which is pretty impressive considering no one is allowed to film actual movies there.
The Sistine Chapel, obviously, wasn’t actually used for filming, with the Caserta Royal Palace the venue to be transformed instead. However, tourism is allowed in Vatican City and if you visit, you can easily spot just how eerily well they recreated and recaptured the architecture and history of the area.
The Empire State Building
Certainly iconic and definitely well-known, almost anyone could identify the Empire State Building by sight alone, especially considering all the films it’s been a part of. One of our favourites, and probably the one where it features the prominently is King Kong.
The King Kong film used CGI to create an oversized primate on the Empire State Building, but the shots themselves were of the real building in New York.
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Do you want to know about our seven wonders of the filming world? Perhaps you’d like to take a trip to visit your favourite Harry Potter locations, or live a day in the life of a hobbit? Check out our Harry Potter tours, Lord of the Rings tours and many more locations to explore all of the wonders of the cinematic world.
