Places you have already seen

Game of Thrones

A fortress stepped up the ridge in three enclosures; the series is what brought much of the current traffic, and the view down over Split and the islands is the reason to stay.

film crews, drawn by the walls themselves

The walled town has pulled in crowds and crews alike. Walk the two kilometres of ramparts early - by midday the walls are a queue.

Game of Thrones, filmed here in 2015

Stepped lanes, coloured river houses and the Arab baths of 1194, which were there long before the camera crews.

Game of Thrones

The town's bullring was the fighting pit, with a quarry outside town for the rest - and the quarry is not always open; the baroque town itself is the reason to stop.

El Cid and Game of Thrones

A Templar castle on a rock with beaches on both sides of the isthmus - it has been standing in for somewhere else since 1961.

Game of Thrones

A waterfall off the standard loops that got a burst of visitors and a small car park. The traffic has settled since.

Game of Thrones

A hot-spring cave whose fame tightened the rules: it is private land and swimming is not permitted, however many photographs suggest otherwise.

repeated film shoots through the 2010s

The easiest blue ice in Iceland to walk up to - until surveys found a large fracture in the mountainside above. Read the page before you plan anything.

the site that stood in for Rivendell

River swimming holes near Upper Hutt in a beech forest. There is nothing built to see - the set went; the valley is the point.

film locations, used extensively

Head of Lake Wakatipu, gateway to the Rees-Dart and Greenstone tracks. Jet boat and 4WD tours market hard on the screen connection; the road to Paradise is worth the drive without it.

the ice planet Hoth

A glacier above Finse, reached by a long walk from a station with no road at all. One long day, and only in high summer.

Star Wars, at Ksar Hadada

Fortified granaries with projecting stone stairs; the films bring a steady trickle, the ksour were built for grain.

Star Wars, the Mos Espa set

A camel-neck rock north of Nefta beside the domed plaster town built for the prequels and left standing; the sand is taking it back and volunteers shore it up now and then.

other planets, in several films

Red sandstone and an arch beside the east entrance. Summer regularly exceeds 45 °C and hikers have died on short trails - this is the rare screen location that can kill you.

Contact

Twenty-seven dishes arranged in a Y on the Plains of San Agustin, with a walking trail out to one of them.

an inspiration for the floating mountains of Avatar

Sandstone pillars explored by cliff-edge walkways, cable cars, a glass-bottomed bridge and the world's tallest outdoor lift.

a set for famous films and series

An earthen ksar against the mountains, climbed to the top for the valley view. Only a few families still live in it - much of it is restored for visitors and film, and tour groups arrive midday, so go early or late.

a film location since the 1960s

Two studio complexes, Atlas and CLA, because the country around can stand in for almost anywhere dry. The museum is the honest way in.

repeated film shoots

A kasbah going back to earth, used as a location again and again, with almost nobody there - which after Ait Ben Haddou is a relief.

over a hundred films from the 1950s

Durango's desert stood in for the American West so often that the sets built for it became an industry of their own.

old westerns

A national park of eroded stone columns and pine islands in Zacatecas that doubled for the American West.

the Winnetou films

Limestone towers on southern Velebit that played the American West for German cinema. A full day, and the access road matters.

over four hundred film locations, signed along Movie Road

Rounded boulders below the Sierra escarpment, with Mount Whitney behind: the standard photograph of the American West.

Doc Martin, filmed here across ten series

The village played Portwenn, and the series transformed its visitor numbers and its economy. A working harbour underneath all of it.

Downton Abbey, six series and three films

Since 2010 the house has been Downton, which is what brings most visitors and what the opening arrangements are built around - check dates before you drive.

The Prisoner, filmed here in 1966 and 1967

An Italianate village in Wales built to make a few hectares look larger, still associated with the series, with a rhododendron woodland behind.

Pride and Prejudice, Cranford, Downton Abbey and the Harry Potter films

No modern materials on the street fronts and no road markings, which is exactly why crews use it constantly. The abbey cloisters did the school corridors.

tall-ship shoots with no set dressing needed

A purpose-built Georgian china clay port, unchanged enough that crews moor ships in it and start filming.

a television drama

A crescent river island of tree avenues, cafes and sculpture that has drawn visitors from across Asia ever since - which shapes the atmosphere as much as the trees do.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 2005

A half-timbered Black Forest town whose town hall becomes an advent calendar every December.

Czech fairy-tale films

A ruined castle with a garden at its foot, used repeatedly, and a courtyard that hosts summer concerts.

a regular film location

The standard image of a Flemish water castle: three round brick towers, a moat with carp in it, grounds open around.

Tomb Raider

Fig roots engulfing stone galleries - famous the world over from the film, and crowded accordingly. Early or late.

The Third Man

The Riesenrad still turns slowly over Vienna, and the view from it is the film's view.

The Seventh Seal, filmed here in 1956

A boulder shore of caves and fallen rock on the Bjare peninsula, with the coastal path running through.

a film location in 1971

A Sicilian hill village whose bar still trades under the name it was given on screen.

Mamma Mia, 2008

The chapel on a rock reached by steps; the wedding scenes were partly shot elsewhere, and the page says so.

The Vikings, 1958

A fortress on a headland above the Emerald Coast, crossed by two drawbridges over natural clefts.

Braveheart

The largest Anglo-Norman castle in Ireland, standing in for medieval Scotland - which is how most visitors first saw it.

Ryan's Daughter and The Playboy of the Western World

A sand spit with a fragile dune system behind it. The tide comes in fast and the page is blunt about it.

a landing sequence at the Ballinesker end

Nothing physical remains of the shoot: dunes, boardwalks and pine woodland at the northern end.

the television series Vikings

A dark lake under a cliff with a white sand beach at one end - and a parking problem on fine weekends.

Waking Ned

Thatched cottages on a cove; on the shore below, two continents' worth of rock meet along a visible join.

the first Harry Potter film

An 1881 glass-roofed arcade that stood in for Diagon Alley - busy before and after work, near-empty at weekends.

a Harry Potter film

An eighty-metre curved limestone amphitheatre with a pavement on top, where an RSPB watchpoint runs in season.

a 1991 quarterstaff fight at the Middle Force

Three falls in stepped limestone through Dales woodland, with hazel coppice still cut under commoners' rights.

the final scene of Shakespeare in Love

A vast north Norfolk sand flat backed by pines, wide enough to absorb a summer crowd without feeling full, with pink-footed geese in tens of thousands in winter.

the Twin Peaks opening

Eighty metres of falling water, higher than Niagara, and heaviest between November and April.

the final scene of Thelma and Louise

A mesa six hundred metres above the Colorado, standing in for the Grand Canyon, and an International Dark Sky Park after dark.

The Goonies

The oldest American settlement west of the Rockies, with steady traffic from the film and a serious maritime museum.

The Goonies, partly

A 72-metre sea stack on the sand, reachable only at low tide, on a shore the state never let anyone privatise.

ninety years of Hollywood shoots on the terraces

Entry is free, forever, by the founder's condition - though parking on the hill is the tax. Telescopes open to the public after dark, and the city laid out below.

The Piano, filmed here in 1992

A wide black bleak expanse that looks exactly like the film on an overcast day. The surf here is not for casual swimming.

a television series about lifeguards

Filmed there for a reason: the rips are strong, persistent and have killed people. Swim between the flags or not at all.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

A hall bridging a gorge on two stone arches, Ming and Qing in its present form.

part of Mission Impossible III

A kilometre of roofed canal-front arcades and the narrowest lane in the region. Stay overnight or come early.

Kurosawa's Dreams, 1990

The waterwheels built for the film were left in place; the wasabi beds around them are a working farm.

The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957

The river is a rafting and birding stop; the bridge site is pointed out, though nothing of the set remains.

L'Amant

The 1895 family house of the man the novel is about, in a mixed French and Chinese manner, on the Sa Dec waterfront.

parts of Conan the Barbarian

Limestone eroded into shapes with names - the Elephant, the Crocodile - on an easy, largely flat route.

the first season of Survivor

Cold mud volcanoes on an island that most foreign visitors have heard of only through the series.

international survival series, repeatedly

The shoots brought the roads and some of the accommodation, and the place never turned into a resort strip.