San Diego Movie Tour

San Diego is the perfect place for film makers to capture natural beaches, historic cites, original homes, parks, and not to mention the sunny weather. There are beautiful sunsets, cliffs, and trendy restaurants that film makers dream of. San Diego has been featured in many films over the years, that you might not even know about. Movies might have your favorite spot in it, without you even knowing it.

In 1976 the Disney film Freaky Friday filmed a water skiing scene at Mission Bay. This film follows around a mother and daughter who have swapped bodies, and are trying to figure out how to switch back. Mission Bay has beautiful natural lighting, and is a beautiful spot to relax in San Diego. This scene in the movie adds beautiful scenery, and personality to the overall film. See the scene here.

Top Gun is the most popular movie that has many San Diego locations in the film. The first one that is known is the Miramar Naval Air Station. Miramar is the neighborhood located in the northern part of San Diego, that has a residential presence surrounding it, making it the perfect place to film. The infamous Top Gun bar, Kansas City BBQ is located in San Diego as well. This bar even has the nickname, “Top Gun Bar”, and has the reputation of having many bar scenes filmed here. Along with these famous scenes, another important scene that was filmed in our beloved city, was the volleyball scene and the airplane hanger scenes are in San Diego.

Another entertaining film that has used our cities natural backdrops is Bruce Almighty, which was made in 2003. San Diego is represented as Buffalo New York in the film, while filming a night time scene at Harbor Island. The crew had to talk to the local businesses to make sure that there were no lights on, so that they could properly shoot the last minute scene.

The infamous Geisel Library was featured in the film Killer Tomatoes Strike Back, and there was a replica made of this building for the film Inception. The film Kaboom also used this beautifully constructed building as a set piece. The students at UCSD are walking by this important building every day, and are a part of a place that has been featured in so many popular films.

Marilyn Monroe also had San Diego featured in some of the films that she was a part of. Some Like it Hot featured the famous Hotel Del Coronado, which put this particular hotel on the Hollywood film maker map. Her husband would come and visit her while she was filming here, along with having Coronado police at her service of protection. The beach at this luxurious hotel was also used in the film, along with the influences of the history that surrounds the hotel.

There have been a plethora of other films that featured this location, such as Anchorman, American Sniper, and Almost Famous. Anchorman was based on San Diego, but the only scene from the city that was used was the modern downtown. The pier and bar that are used in American Sniper also take place in San Diego.