12 Movies Set in Hollywood

TILLIE'S PUNCTURED ROMANCE (1914)

WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD? (1932)

The first version of A Star is Born (which was, once again, remade in 2018), starring Constance Bennett and Lowell Sherman, it’s one of the earliest movies to portray the film industry (which was still fairly new then), as well as being a classic amongst movies set in Hollywood.

By the early 1930’s Hollywood had recovered from the Wall Street Crash and was entering what was to become known as its Golden Age, dominated by the big studios in the area, like Paramount, Warner Brothers, RKO, Universal Pictures, MGM, United Artists and Twentieth Century Fox. Watch What Price Hollywood? to see how fame-obsessed culture had become even in the 1930’s – and to see what Hollywood looked like back then.

SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950)

Another film in which Hollywood is a state of mind as much as an industry or area, this is a stone-cold classic that never gets old. William Holden visits several famous Hollywood landmarks, including the legendary Schwab’s Drug Store, which was on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Laurel Avenue (it was torn down in the 1980’s), Paramount Studios and his apartment building, on N Ivar Street. The mansion in which Norma Desmond lives isn’t actually on Sunset Boulevard in reality, but in Hancock Park, and its swimming pool was built just for this movie.

Sunset Boulevard is the ultimate Hollywood cautionary tale, the idea of the faded movie star, living a life now completely isolated from the world by their money and fame, has passed into our cultural lexicon.

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955) – TOP PHOTO

The last movie James Dean made, before his untimely death later that year, Rebel Without a Cause (also starring Sal Mineo and Nathalie Wood) used a host of locations in Hollywood and Los Feliz. The abandoned mansion Dean and his friends break into is actually the one in which Norma Desmond lives in Sunset Boulevard (see above) and they play around in the empty pool that Joe Gillis falls into in that movie (a couple of years later the mansion was actually demolished).

One of the most famous sequences in the movie was shot at the Griffith Observatory, which has a bust of James Dean from which you can get a great photo of the Hollywood Sign.

LETHAL WEAPON (1987)

The quintessential 1980’s buddy-buddy, loose-cannon cop action movie, Mel Gibson and Danny Glover chase criminals and create mayhem all over the city, but where would the villain’s lair be? A nightclub on Hollywood Boulevard of course! Lethal Weapon is also emblematic of many movies set in Los Angeles, in the sense that the city is presented as a place where bad things happen – violent crime, natural disasters, alien invasions etc.

PRETTY WOMAN (1990)

One of the most popular romantic comedies of all time, Julia Roberts’ apartment is on Las Palmas, right off the Walk of Fame. You can see how Hollywood Boulevard has really cleaned up since the 1980’s (prostitutes don't line the street now, but then neither do movie stars, like Richard Gere, meet their dates there). Who can forget the opening lines: “Welcome to Hollywood! What’s your dream? Everybody comes here; this is Hollywood, land of dreams. Some dreams come true, some don’t; but keep on dreamin’ – this is Hollywood”.

You knew Pretty Woman would be high on the list of movies set in Hollywood, right?

CHAPLIN (1992)

A love letter to the early pioneering days of the film industry, when Los Angeles, and Hollywood, was first becoming the movie capital of America (and the world). Chaplin uses several locations in Hollywood that still exist, including Chaplin’s own studio complex (on Sunset and La Brea, although its unfortunately closed to the public) and other historic spots like the Musso and Frank Grill, near Hollywood and Highland. Still Robert Downey Jr.’s finest hour? He was Oscar nominated for his performance, which seems unlikely to happen for his role as Iron Man.

This is a sub-section of movies set in Hollywood, that is about movies being made in Hollywood.

THE PLAYER (1992)

A darkly comic tale set amongst the Studio backlots, industry watering-holes and million-dollar mansions of Hollywood – and Los Angeles never comes out of these films looking good (at least morally, on a surface level it’s beautiful). Hollywood Center Studios, Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard itself, all make appearances in this satire about a Studio producer (Tim Robbins) who just can’t seem to concentrate on covering up a crime he committed.

The Player is also famous for the dozens of cameos from famous actors and Hollywood “players”, mostly appearing as themselves, in this late Robert Altman classic.

SPEED (1994)

Another popular action movie set in Los Angeles, this time from the 1990’s, Speed was Keanu Reeves’ most successful movie until the Matrix Trilogy. The movie filmed all over the city, including in downtown, but the famous denouement, when the subway train shoots out of the tunnel and into the street, was filmed at Hollywood and Highland, where construction was taking place at the time on the Metro Red Line subway.

L.A. CONFIDENTIAL (1997)

Beautifully shot movie that’s set in 1950’s Los Angeles, starring Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce and Kim Basinger, L.A. Confidential uses a wealth of Hollywood locations including the Frolic Room at the Pantages Theater (which we visit for a cocktail on our Hollywood Speakeasy Bar Tour), Café Formosa and Boardners.

Also look out for the historic Crossroads of the World, on Sunset Boulevard, which was the location of the office of Sid Hudgen’s scandal rag, Hush Hush. The Crossroads of the World was also the location of the Screenwriter’s agent’s office in Argo.

THE AVIATOR (2004)

Martin Scorsese’s biopic about the billionaire Howard Hughes (played by Leonardo Di Caprio) uses several Hollywood locations that date from the 1930’s, including the Pantages Theater, Graumann’s Chinese Theater (as it was then) and the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Sowden House, in Los Feliz.

Although Howard Hughes was many things, and the title of the movie refers to his work as an airplane designer and pilot, The Aviator mostly focuses on his career as a Hollywood mogul.