20 Christmas movie locations you can visit, including Home Alone

The holiday season is wonderful in its own right. But add a little movie magic by visiting these real filming locations, and you’ll be in Christmas heaven.

“Noelle” (2019)

Disney’s streaming lineup is packed with Christmas films that will make you laugh, including the one in which Santa’s daughter, played by Anna Kendrick, has to save Christmas because the incompetent and aging male members of the Christmas family can’t handle it. It’s another seasonal film that takes advantage of Canada’s year-round cold climate: filming took place in Vancouver, including Saint James Music Academy and the bustling shopping district of Gastown, as well as the Whistler ski resort, which lends the film its inspirational scenery. Production then moved south, all the way to Georgia, shooting the sledding scene at a shopping mall in the town of Woodstock, specially redecorated for the occasion with seasonal stores.

“Falling For Christmas” (2022)

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Ever since she achieved Christmas icon status with her performance of “Jingle Bell Rock” in “Mean Girls”, romantic comedy and holiday movie fans have been eagerly awaiting Lindsay Lohan’s return to the genre. And their patience was richly rewarded. Lohan not only returned to the small screen with this Christmas film in 2022, but capped her comeback with another film, “Our Little Secret”, in 2024.

The story follows Sierra (Lohan), a spoiled heiress to a ski resort who loses her memory after an accident on the mountain. She is rescued by the handsome owner of a mountain lodge, and you can probably guess the rest. The film boasts spectacular locations, including the luxurious Goldener Hirsch hotel in Deer Valley, part of the prestigious Auberge Resorts collection. It’s a modern-design hotel with spacious mountain-view rooms and marble-clad bathrooms. The ski resort referred to in the film as Summit Springs was shot across several locations in Utah, including Salt Lake City and Park City.

“Your Christmas or Mine?” (2022 and 2023)

This feel-good film is about a couple in love, upset about spending Christmas apart. But after an unexpected twist, both end up trying to surprise the other at their respective family homes. Trapped in each other’s family lives, they realize they haven’t been entirely honest about their personal situations.

It’s a light, good-humored film with plenty of recognizable backdrops, from the town of Macclesfield in Cheshire to the picturesque village of Kemble. Marylebone Station also features in “Your Christmas or Mine?”. This central London landmark was built in the late 19th century, and its classic Victorian red brick is instantly recognizable in the background.

“Little Women” (2019)

Technically it isn’t a Christmas film, but the plot, filled with warmth and love, and those scenes of joy and coziness make it perfect holiday viewing (plus, this 2019 version was released on Christmas Day). For “Little Women”, director Greta Gerwig stuck to the original setting from Louisa May Alcott’s work in Concord, Massachusetts. Filming took place across the state, from Harvard to other nearby small towns, including Lawrence and Stoughton. The story is moving for anyone, especially those who grew up watching the many other adaptations or read the book as children, and seeing such beloved actors, including Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, and Laura Dern, feels like spending time with familiar faces.

“The Holiday” (2006)

Plot: LA it-girl Amanda (Cameron Diaz), heartbroken, swaps homes for Christmas with equally heartbroken Surrey girl Iris (Kate Winslet). The result: new romances all around and some very pretty houses. Iris stays in a huge Tuscan-style villa in Brentwood. In reality, it’s a Mission Revival home built in 1928 in San Marino, and she also spends time with composer Miles (Jack Black) in his even more beautiful Japanese pavilion-style house in Silver Lake. Amanda, meanwhile, arrives at Iris’s sweet little English cottage in Surrey.

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The film was shot in the irresistibly picturesque village of Shere (pictured above), which you may recognize from “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason”. You can have a drink at the White Horse pub and walk across the bridge over the River Tillingbourne, but you won’t find the cottage itself. It was built specifically for filming in a nearby field and demolished after the outdoor scenes were finished. However, you can follow in Amanda’s footsteps to the romantic lunch with Iris’s brother Graham (Jude Law), which was filmed at the nearby Cornwell Manor estate.

“Home Alone” (1990)

Nothing says Christmas like a home invasion and a bit of juvenile rebellious spirit, so it’s no wonder “Home Alone” is a perennial favorite. The real house where little Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) is left alone is on Lincoln Avenue in Winnetka, a suburb north of Chicago. Nearby, on Green Bay Road, is Station Park, where Kevin visits Santa and buys a toothbrush at the pharmacy (it was actually a bakery dressed for the film).

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The church Culkin visits is Trinity United Methodist Church in Wilmette, another northern suburb, although the interiors were filmed west in Oak Park at Grace Episcopal Church. And those awful parents fly out of Chicago O’Hare and also land there, as it doubled for Paris’s Charles de Gaulle.

“Die Hard” (1988)

The debate over whether this peerless 1988 action film is a “Christmas movie” has long been settled: that reception at Nakatomi Tower at the beginning is a Christmas party. Fans will know that the Tower, where Bruce Willis and his undershirt single-handedly save everyone, is actually the 34-story Fox Plaza in Century City, Los Angeles.

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Once part of the 20th Century Fox studio complex, it was sold off to developers in the 1960s, but it frequently appears in films (it was part of the dystopian ape future in “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes” from 1972, for example). Disappointingly, the scene where Bruce jumps through a window with a fire hose tied around his waist was shot on a five-story parking structure around the corner.

“Love Actually” (2003)

“Love Actually” unfolds over the busy month leading up to Christmas, interweaving multiple characters and storylines, all involving some form of love. In one scene, Rowan “Mr. Bean” Atkinson nearly derails Alan Rickman’s adulterous plans when he can’t wrap a necklace quickly enough at the jewelry counter in Selfridges, the luxury London department store.

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Selfridges will always be waiting for you in London, though there’s no guarantee the mysterious employee will toss rose petals into your gift bag or top it with chocolate pralines.

“Elf” (2003)

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This film tells the story of Buddy, a grown child who travels from the North Pole to New York City in search of his biological father. As a result, we get to see both NYC and Christmas as a whole through the wide-eyed, optimistic gaze of a would-be elf.

When Buddy sets off to find the biggest Christmas tree in the city, he ends up at Rockefeller Plaza, staring up at Manhattan’s treasured annual attraction. The sparkling tree is world-famous for a reason.

“Last Christmas” (2019)

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This saccharine romantic comedy, a collaboration between actual “Love Actually” star Emma Thompson and “Bridesmaids” director Paul Feig, is a postcard of 21st-century London. Kate (Emilia Clarke) works in a Christmas shop in Covent Garden Market and meets customer Tom (Henry Golding), who parks his bike on the area’s Victorian shopping street Cecil Court (as seen in “84 Charing Cross Road” from 1987 and “Miss Potter” from 2006). Kate performs in the colonial St Mary’s Church in Marylebone, disguised as a homeless shelter, and the pair enjoy a date in Phoenix Garden, a community-built space behind the Phoenix Theatre on Stacey Street. For a little urban edge, we also see Brick Lane, where Tom has his flat, and the recently hipsterized Brixton Market, before heading to the ice rink at Alexandra Palace in Muswell Hill in the north of the city.

“The Princess Switch 3” (2021)

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The final installment of this modern fairy tale casts Vanessa Hudgens in yet another new role: alongside Margaret of Montenaro and princess-turned-baker Stacy, there is now the glamorous aristocrat Lady Fiona. As in PS2, we’re in Scotland: Hopetoun House returns as the grand palace, but the 12th-century Newbattle Abbey near Edinburgh was added as a monastery, and the 15th-century Borthwick Castle, southeast of the city, serves as the home of Fiona’s ex.

“The Knight Before Christmas” (2019)

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Medieval knight Sir Cole (Josh Whitehouse) travels through time to modern-day Ohio during the holiday season. There, he meets the unlucky-in-love Brooke (Vanessa Hudgens) and festive hijinks ensue. For hard-to-fathom reasons (okay, not that hard, they’re probably financial), this version of Ohio is actually Canada, with scenes shot in Orillia and Bracebridge. The latter is especially important, as it’s the real home of Santa Claus, a year-round celebration of all things Christmas. Meanwhile, for that all-important medieval part of the story, production traveled to Tullamore in Ireland to film at Charleville Castle. This 18th-century Gothic Revival building has an impressive screen résumé, including “Northanger Abbey” (2007) and “Becoming Jane” (2007), but it’s best known as one of the most haunted castles in Europe, a regular feature on shows like “Most Haunted”.

“Scrooged” (1988)

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This New York version of “A Christmas Carol” is enough to soften even the most cynical among us, just as it does with awful TV producer Frank Cross, played by Bill Murray. His glass-paneled office in a skyscraper is the Seagram Building, designed by none other than Mies van der Rohe, at 375 Park Avenue. It’s where the Ghost of Christmas Past holds him outside the window.

We also see him beside the famous Christmas tree in front of Rockefeller Center, but once the ghosts arrive, he’s all over the city. The A&M Club he visits is actually the Atlantic Grill on West 64th Street, but later he’s in Queens, Long Island, and even Ontario.

“Trading Places” (1983)

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With a drunken Santa played by Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy in African dress exuberantly wishing “Happy New Year”, this 1983 take on “The Prince and the Pauper” is more festive than fritule at an ice rink.

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Most of the locations can be found in Philadelphia, from the mansion of broker Louis Winthorpe III (Aykroyd) on the elegant Delancey Street and the Duke and Duke bank (actually Fidelity) on South Broad Street, to Rittenhouse Square, where it’s revealed that con man Billy Ray Valentine (Murphy) is panhandling. The Art Deco station from which the group departs for New York is 30th Street Station, also seen in Antonioni’s “Blow Out” and Harrison’s classic “Witness”.

“In Bruges” (2008)

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True, it isn’t a traditional Christmas film, we admit, but you certainly can’t complain about the locations. Martin McDonagh’s darkly comic story of hitmen on holiday during the Christmas period shows tough guys Ken (Brendan Gleeson) and Ray (Colin Farrell) as fish out of water in the beautiful medieval setting of Bruges, and how the place affects them.

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They visit the Jerusalem Church on Jerusalemstraat, stroll through Koningin Astridpark, and take in a top-tier Bosch at the Groeningemuseum. Later, Ken climbs the 13th-century belfry on the Grote Markt, though he probably regrets it, while Ray takes a quick tour of the Vismarkt (fish market) with his rather excited boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes).

“Miracle on 34th Street” (1947)

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Every year during Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Santa and his crew march from Central Park to the main department store on Herald Square. The event marks the beginning of the holiday season in New York City, as well as the plot of the 1947 film “Miracle on 34th Street”.

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It’s no secret that Macy’s, the store that introduced the cynically grown-up Susan Walker to Kris Kringle, exists in the real world (even if the huge crowds can sometimes be unpleasant). Thousands of visitors stop by each year to see the famous window displays and visit the real Santa on the eighth floor.

“It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946)

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Capra’s 1946 classic is so deeply rooted in Christmas culture that it’s hard to imagine December without watching it at least once. The town of Bedford Falls is the film’s heart and soul, radiating charm and nostalgia. As it turns out, the town may be more accessible than you might think at first. “It’s a Wonderful Life” may have been filmed on a soundstage in Los Angeles, but residents of Seneca Falls, New York, claim that their five-square-mile upstate community was the inspiration for Bedford Falls.

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Every December, they organize a series of old-fashioned activities to prove it. This year’s festivities included special screenings of the film, holiday lighting contests, and appearances by the adult actors who played Zuzu and Janie Bailey.

“National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” (1989)

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The Chicago-based Griswold family is no stranger to the simultaneous joys and hardships of spending time with relatives, especially during the holidays. This 1989 comedy covers everything that could go wrong over Christmas.

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Besides its world-famous observatory, perched 1,000 feet above Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, the John Hancock Center is where Clark W. Griswold spent his days designing food additives (like his inedible cereal varnish and sled wax) and prematurely spending his Christmas bonus.

“Bridget Jones’s Diary” (2001)

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Films love to present Christmas in shimmering shades of magic and romance, but “Bridget Jones’s Diary” takes a different, and perhaps more realistic, approach. Most of us can probably relate to Bridget’s awkward family brunches, ugly Christmas sweaters, and her love triangle with Hugh Grant and Colin Firth. Okay, maybe not the last part…

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At one point in the film, Daniel Cleaver takes Bridget away for a weekend break. They go to Stoke Park, an estate with more than 900 years of history, including starring roles in two James Bond films (“Goldfinger” and “Tomorrow Never Dies”).

“White Christmas” (1954)

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After the fictional Columbia Inn first appeared in “White Christmas” in 1954, people have been searching for that same rustic countryside setting that looks like a holiday snow globe when it’s covered in snow. And while the town of Pine Tree exists only on paper tape, Vermont has plenty of charming towns and hotels that Bing Crosby and Irving Berlin would easily approve of.

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Vermont is the perfect place to spend the holidays, and not just because the chances of a true white Christmas are higher. We have many favorite hotels in the state, including Stowe Mountain Lodge and Woodstock Inn & Resort.

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