As the BFI London Film Festival celebrates its 70th edition, Chris Johnson takes a tour of capital’s greatest film locations – from wizarding gateways to Regency splendour.
London’s film sets hide in plain sight. A railway platform becomes a portal. A riverside path turns into a racetrack. A Georgian courtyard slips back two centuries with the arrival of a carriage. Few cities can change genre from one street to the next with quite such ease. And that versatility makes the capital irresistible to filmmakers and visitors alike.
As the BFI London Film Festival returns for its 70th edition from 7 to 18 October, here is London cast in some very different roles.
Action
Start on the Thames, London’s ready-made action corridor. In Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Ethan Hunt’s breathless dash through the capital takes him over the domed roof of St Paul’s Cathedral, across Blackfriars Station and into Tate Modern – a sequence that treats the city as one massive obstacle course.
Further along Bankside, The Anchor has its own movie history: the riverside pub appears in the final moments of the first Mission: Impossible.
Bond territory lies further west. Viewed from Vauxhall Bridge, the unmistakable SIS Building at Vauxhall Cross recalls a run of 007 drama including GoldenEye, The World is Not Enough, Skyfall and Spectre.
For a more contemplative Bond encounter, visit The National Gallery and seek out JMW Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire. Bond and Q contemplate the painting, and the march of time, in one of Skyfall‘s quietest and most revealing scenes.
London can switch franchises in a heartbeat. Tower Bridge comes under a spectacular drone attack in Spider-Man: Far From Home, while the disused Jubilee line platforms at Charing Cross doubled for Waterloo Underground during The Bourne Ultimatum‘s frantic station pursuit.
Above ground or below it, the capital certainly knows how to quicken a pulse.
Magical
The Harry Potter films transformed everyday London into a map of secret entrances. King’s Cross Station supplies the essential Platform 9¾ photo, although platforms four and five performed the trick on screen.
In the City, the ornate Victorian arcades of Leadenhall Market provided Harry and Hagrid’s route towards Diagon Alley in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Look out for the optician’s shop in Bull’s Head Passage: its blue doorway became the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron.
Cross Millennium Bridge and recall its digitally engineered destruction by Death Eaters in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Then head to Piccadilly Circus, where Harry, Ron and Hermione narrowly avoid both Death Eaters and a bus in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.
Discover behind-the-scenes secrets of the Harry Potter film series at the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter. Step on to authentic sets, discover the magic behind spellbinding special effects and see props including the potions classroom and Dumbledore’s magical memory cabinet.
Historical
When a production calls for historical grandeur, London has no shortage of ready-made backdrops.
Lancaster House, close to Buckingham Palace, has often doubled for royal residences. Its gilded rooms stood in for Buckingham Palace throughout the early seasons of The Crown.
In Greenwich, Ranger’s House provides the grand exterior of the Bridgerton family home, complete with digitally added wisteria, while the Rose Garden behind it has also appeared.
Nearby, the Old Royal Naval College is one of London’s most versatile screen backdrops. Its colonnades and squares have appeared throughout Bridgerton, while Ridley Scott’s Napoleon turned the site into revolutionary Paris and staged military scenes inside the Painted Hall. You can follow in the footsteps of your favourite characters with its Film & TV Tour, exploring the iconic spots seen in these classic series and more.
These places offer more than costume-drama recognition. Their architecture carries genuine history, allowing visitors to see how filmmakers frame, crop and redress a living city until one century convincingly becomes another.
Romantic
No London film tour, however, would be complete without a little love, longing and romantic misunderstanding.
Notting Hill turned Portobello Road’s market, pastel-painted houses and the blue door on Westbourne Park Road into shorthand for big-city romance with village charm. The bookshop that inspired William Thacker’s workplace can still be found on Blenheim Crescent, although the shop seen in the film occupied another premises nearby.
Bridget Jones extends the map eastwards. Her fictional flat sits above the Globe Tavern on Bedale Street beside Borough Market. Over in Kensington Gardens, the Italian Gardens hosted the gloriously undignified fountain fight between Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.
Love Actually scatters its stories across the capital. Millennium Bridge appears after Peter and Juliet’s wedding reception; the former City Hall near London Bridge stands in for a record-company office; and the pink house on St Luke’s Mews in Notting Hill provides the setting for the film’s much-imitated cue-card declaration.
These locations endure because they’re not sealed-off sets. Browse a market, cross the Thames or wander down a cobbled mews and the cinematic memory slips easily into London life.
Family Favourites
Paddington Bear may be the capital’s most enthusiastic location scout.
Begin on Platform 1 at Paddington Station, where a bronze statue of the bear sits beneath the clock marking the place where the Brown family first found him. Portobello Road brings the bustle of Paddington’s neighbourhood to life, while Chalcot Crescent in Primrose Hill stands in for Windsor Gardens, the fictional home of the Brown family.
For a gentler journey into the films, The Official Paddington Bear Experience on the South Bank sends kids and families from a fictional Paddington Station to 32 Windsor Gardens and on to the Peruvian jungle. Along the way, they’ll meet familiar characters, solve fun puzzles and help the Brown family to prepare for the Marmalade Day Festival.
For another classic family-film image, look towards St Paul’s Cathedral, the landmark at the emotional heart of Feed the Birds in Mary Poppins. The scene itself was created in the studio, but its wistful vision of the cathedral steps remains inseparable from the London of the film.
Discover statues of Mary Poppins and other screen icons, including Mr Bean, Paddington Bear, Gene Kelly and Harry Potter, at Leicester Square’s Scenes in the Square trail. Kensington Gardens is beautifully serene. Sir George Frampton’s bronze statue of Peter Pan has stood beside the Long Water since 1912, on the spot where Peter lands his bird-nest boat in JM Barrie’s The Little White Bird.
Roll the credits
The worlds we see on screen are spilling out into the capital, too. In Bermondsey Street, the Peaky Blinders Underworld experience invites visitors into the Shelby criminal empire through live performances, character encounters and interactive challenges, beginning in a recreation of the Garrison Tavern.
Finally, end where London celebrates the moving image itself. BFI Southbank sits beneath Waterloo Bridge in the heart of a riverside cultural quarter, opposite the National Theatre and moments from the Southbank Centre. Originally opened on its present site as the National Film Theatre in 1957, it remains one of the city’s must-see venues for movie lovers.
That is London’s greatest special effect: the capital is simultaneously a living film set, a cinema-going city and an invitation to wander. The credits may roll, but outside, the story is always ready for another take.
