San Francisco

It's beautiful here, but we'd prefer you don't move here and raise housing prices any more.

San Francisco's history with film goes back over a century, with some of the earliest footage including a 1905 trip down Market Street on a cable car. Its use in feature films for entertainment began around the time Essanay Studios moved into nearby Niles, California and began filming with stars like Charlie Chaplin and Broncho Billy Anderson. It's very likely that San Francisco would have become the nation's center of film had its weather patterns been more conducive to making movies.

As a setting, filmmakers often employ the city's foggy, tense noir atmosphere, scenic seaside vistas and bustling downtown corporate district. The city's architecture and weather were used to great effect in Alfred Hitchcock's The Conversation, but TV viewers might associate the city best with the Victorian row houses known as the Painted Ladies due to their presence in the opening credits to the sitcom Full House. The city's geography was also put to good use during the climactic car chase in Bullit.

San Francisco has been depicted in its future and past in several films and TV shows. In the Star Trek franchise San Francisco is the location of Starfleet Academy in the future. In the short-lived time travel show Journeyman the city was depicted at various times throughout its recent past. In Terminator Salvation the city is a decimated war-zone and home to Skynet. Actually, San Francisco has been shown in various states of destruction in several films including The Core, It Came From Beneath the Sea, The Towering Inferno and more.