Hollywood in San Diego

Hollywood in San Diego: The Famous Movies Filmed Around America’s Finest City

From Marilyn Monroe at the Hotel del Coronado and Tom Cruise at Miramar to killer tomatoes at UC San Diego and rock stars wandering through Ocean Beach, San Diego has quietly been one of Hollywood’s favorite backlots for more than a century.

Los Angeles may be the center of the movie business.

But Hollywood has been sneaking south to San Diego almost since movies were invented.

And we're not talking about a handful of obscure productions.

Top Gun.

Some Like It Hot.

Almost Famous.

Bring It On.

Traffic.

Citizen Kane.

The Stunt Man.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!

And many more.

According to the San Diego History Center, more than 500 movies and television productions have used the San Diego region as a filming location since the late 1800s.

Sometimes San Diego plays itself.

Sometimes Coronado becomes Florida.

Sometimes Balboa Park becomes an exotic foreign estate.

And sometimes Hollywood apparently decides our city needs a dinosaur running through it.

San Diego’s Movie History Goes Back to 1898

San Diego's connection to film predates Hollywood itself.

In 1898, the Edison Company filmed a short street scene in downtown San Diego featuring a double-decker trolley.

The San Diego History Center describes that production as part of the very beginning of the motion-picture industry on the West Coast.

Then, in 1910, filmmaker Allan Dwan's Flying A Studios established operations in La Mesa and produced more than 100 short westerns and documentaries.

For a moment, San Diego had a legitimate chance of becoming one of Southern California's major filmmaking centers.

Hollywood eventually won that contest.

But filmmakers never stopped coming back.

Some Like It Hot — 1959

Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon

Famous San Diego location: Hotel del Coronado

If there is one San Diego movie location that belongs in film history, it may be the Hotel del Coronado.

Billy Wilder's comedy Some Like It Hot used the famous Victorian hotel for exterior scenes representing a luxury resort in Florida.

Filming took place in 1958.

Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon spent time at the property while some of the movie's most recognizable scenes were created along Coronado Beach and around the hotel.

More than six decades later, the Hotel del Coronado still embraces its connection to the film.

And amazingly, the hotel looks recognizable enough today that you can stand there and immediately understand why Hollywood chose it.

Top Gun — 1986

Starring: Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Anthony Edwards and Val Kilmer

Locations: Miramar, downtown San Diego, Oceanside, Point Loma, Mission Beach and the former Naval Training Center

No movie is more closely associated with San Diego than Top Gun.

The original Navy Fighter Weapons School — better known as TOPGUN — was based at what was then Naval Air Station Miramar.

That made San Diego the natural home for the movie.

Filming locations included:

Naval Air Station Miramar
Kansas City Barbeque downtown
The former Naval Training Center, now Liberty Station
The Mission Beach Plunge
Point Loma
Oceanside

The famous Victorian cottage used as Charlie's house still survives in Oceanside.

Kansas City Barbeque remains one of the city's most popular movie-location stops, with the piano and extensive Top Gun memorabilia still part of the restaurant.

And Liberty Station — which we recently explored in our Hidden Gems series — appears briefly before its transformation from Navy training base to today's restaurants, parks and arts district.

Almost Famous — 2000

Director: Cameron Crowe

Locations: Ocean Beach, Balboa Park, San Diego Sports Arena and local schools

This one is particularly San Diego.

Writer-director Cameron Crowe grew up here and based much of Almost Famous on his own extraordinary experience becoming a teenage rock journalist.

San Diego locations include:

Ocean Beach
Balboa Park
San Diego Sports Arena
University of San Diego High School

Ocean Beach was an especially inspired choice.

Crowe needed somewhere that could plausibly retain the slightly countercultural feel of Southern California in the 1970s.

OB didn't need much help.

Newport Avenue and the beach community appear early in the film.

For longtime San Diegans, watching Almost Famous can feel like watching pieces of the city’s own musical history.

Bring It On — 2000

Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku and Gabrielle Union

One of the defining teen movies of the early 2000s was heavily filmed around San Diego County.

Local filming locations included schools and athletic facilities around the region, with portions associated with San Diego State University and North County.

The movie's fictional high schools weren't really in some generic California suburb.

Much of that Southern California backdrop was San Diego.

Traffic — 2000

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Starring: Michael Douglas, Benicio del Toro, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Don Cheadle

Steven Soderbergh's Oscar-winning drama about the drug trade was a natural fit for the San Diego-Tijuana border region.

Portions were filmed around San Diego, including downtown and border-area locations.

Unlike movies where San Diego pretends to be somewhere else, geography is central to Traffic.

The city’s proximity to Mexico becomes part of the story itself.

Citizen Kane — 1941

Director and star: Orson Welles

Famous location: Balboa Park

Yes — one of the most celebrated films ever made includes San Diego.

Balboa Park appears in Citizen Kane, where portions of its Spanish Colonial Revival architecture helped represent the extravagant world surrounding Charles Foster Kane.

This was far from the only time Hollywood used Balboa Park as a stand-in for somewhere more exotic.

Its architecture has allowed filmmakers to turn San Diego into:

Spain.

Latin America.

A millionaire's estate.

And various fictional foreign locations.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! — 1978

Locations: UC San Diego, San Diego Harbor, local schools and other San Diego locations

If we're doing a San Diego movie list, we cannot ignore this masterpiece of intentional cinematic ridiculousness.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! was filmed around San Diego County.

The plot is exactly what the title promises.

Tomatoes attack people.

San Diego fights back.

Locations included UC San Diego and other recognizable parts of the region.

The San Diego Tourism Authority notes that when filmmakers needed lab coats for scenes shot at UCSD, production reportedly borrowed coats from campus offices.

That tells you almost everything you need to know about the budget.

The movie became a cult classic anyway.

The Stunt Man — 1980

Starring: Peter O'Toole, Steve Railsback and Barbara Hershey

Location: Hotel del Coronado

Before Hollywood had CGI for everything, stunt work could be spectacularly real.

The Stunt Man turned the Hotel del Coronado into one of its primary locations.

The movie is particularly interesting because it is itself about filmmaking.

That gives the Hotel Del the unusual role of both a real-world movie location and a fictional movie set inside the story.

My Blue Heaven — 1990

Starring: Steve Martin and Rick Moranis

Location: Hotel del Coronado and other regional locations

The Hotel Del makes another appearance here.

My Blue Heaven follows a mobster relocated through the witness protection program.

Once again, Coronado's unmistakable architecture provided Hollywood with exactly the visual character it needed.

Freaky Friday — 1976

Starring: Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster

Location: Mission Bay

The original Disney Freaky Friday — decades before the Lindsay Lohan remake — includes a memorable waterskiing finale filmed on Mission Bay.

Mission Bay is almost purpose-built for filmmaking involving water sports.

Wide-open water.

Palm trees.

California sunshine.

And far more control than trying to film the same scene in the open Pacific.

Antwone Fisher — 2002

Director: Denzel Washington

Locations: Coronado and Point Loma

This biographical drama follows a young Navy sailor confronting a traumatic childhood.

San Diego's naval presence made the region a natural filming location.

Coronado and Point Loma helped provide the authentic military setting.

Hot Shots! — 1991

Starring: Charlie Sheen

This parody of military aviation films naturally followed Top Gun into Southern California military territory.

Portions of Hot Shots! were filmed in San Diego along with other California locations.

There is something wonderfully appropriate about San Diego first helping create Top Gun and then helping parody it.

Demolition Man — 1993

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes and Sandra Bullock

Parts of futuristic Los Angeles were actually San Diego.

Downtown San Diego locations included areas near Harbor Drive, the Convention Center and the trolley system.

Modern architecture made the city useful as a stand-in for the movie's clean, futuristic urban environment.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park — 1997

Director: Steven Spielberg

This one requires a fun clarification.

The movie famously ends with a Tyrannosaurus rex rampaging through San Diego.

But most of that sequence wasn't actually filmed here.

Filmmakers originally considered shooting the rampage in the Gaslamp Quarter but ultimately moved much of the production to the Los Angeles area.

Actual San Diego footage included skyline and waterfront imagery.

So yes, the T. rex attacks San Diego.

But Hollywood cheated.

Lords of Dogtown — 2005

Locations: Imperial Beach and other Southern California coastal locations

The story centers on the rise of Southern California skateboarding culture.

Imperial Beach helped filmmakers recreate parts of the grittier coastal environment associated with the sport's early years.

Given San Diego County's deep skateboarding history, it was an especially appropriate choice.

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy — 2004

Starring: Will Ferrell

How could we possibly leave this one out?

Ron Burgundy may be San Diego's most famous fictional resident.

But there is a twist:

the original Anchorman was mostly filmed outside San Diego.

San Diego appears in some exterior and aerial material, but much of the movie was shot around Los Angeles and Long Beach and made to look like 1970s San Diego.

So while Anchorman is arguably the ultimate San Diego movie...

...it isn't really the ultimate movie filmed in San Diego.

That distinction is worth making.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues — 2013

The sequel brought more actual San Diego landmarks into the conversation.

Locations associated with the production included:

Balboa Park
San Diego Zoo
San Diego waterfront
SeaWorld San Diego

By then, Ron Burgundy and San Diego had become so intertwined that the city itself became part of the movie's marketing identity.

American Sniper — 2014

Director: Clint Eastwood

Starring: Bradley Cooper

San Diego's military geography again played a role in this film.

Productions involving the Navy, Marines or military training have long found the region useful because of nearby bases, desert landscapes and military infrastructure.

Veronica Mars — 2014

The fictional town of Neptune has long had strong Southern California roots, and the Veronica Mars universe has used multiple San Diego-area locations.

The region's combination of coastal wealth, suburban neighborhoods and urban settings made it a flexible filming environment.

One Battle After Another — 2025

San Diego continues appearing in major contemporary productions.

The film One Battle After Another used numerous locations across the region, including:

Downtown San Diego
East Village
The Westgate Hotel
Otay Mesa
Lower Otay Reservoir
Imperial Beach
Borrego Springs

It's a good reminder that San Diego's filmmaking history did not end with Top Gun.

The Hotel del Coronado: San Diego’s Movie Star Hotel

If we had to choose San Diego's most cinematic building, the Hotel del Coronado would be difficult to beat.

Films associated with the property include:

Some Like It Hot
The Stunt Man
My Blue Heaven
K-9
and other earlier productions

Its architecture is immediately recognizable.

And unlike a movie set, it's still standing exactly where Hollywood found it.

Balboa Park: Hollywood’s Favorite Fake Foreign Country

Balboa Park may be San Diego's most versatile filming location.

Its elaborate architecture has appeared in films dating back to the silent era.

The San Diego History Center notes that filmmakers repeatedly used the park to represent Spanish castles, Latin American republics and exotic estates.

Notable films associated with Balboa Park include:

Rosita
The Americano
Soldiers of Fortune
The Dictator
The Magnificent Fraud
Citizen Kane
Almost Famous
Top Dog

San Diego’s Military Has Been a Hollywood Backlot for Decades

San Diego's military presence is one of the biggest reasons Hollywood has repeatedly filmed here.

During the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, productions used local Navy and Marine installations for war movies including:

Devil Dogs of the Air
Dive Bomber
Guadalcanal Diary
Sands of Iwo Jima
Gung Ho!
Hellcats of the Navy
Hell Divers

Decades later, Top Gun continued the tradition.

San Diego wasn't pretending to be a Navy town.

It actually was one.

More Movies Filmed in or Around San Diego

The list above only scratches the surface.

Other films associated with San Diego County filming include:

8 Seconds
16-Love
Almost Heroes
Babel
Battle Cry
The Big Mouth
Blame It on the Night
Chubasco
Dangerous Curves
A Day Without a Mexican
Hardcore
Heaven & Earth
In God We Tru$t
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
K-9
The Kid from Left Field
Little Nikita
MacArthur
Loving Couples
Top Dog

And that is still nowhere close to every production ever filmed here.

Why Does Hollywood Keep Choosing San Diego?

There are some obvious reasons.

Almost Perfect Weather

Productions hate losing expensive filming days to weather.

San Diego's climate makes scheduling considerably easier.

Beaches

Need a classic Southern California coastline?

We have several dozen options.

Military Locations

Navy and Marine installations have provided authentic environments impossible to convincingly recreate on a small soundstage.

Architecture

San Diego can look surprisingly diverse.

Balboa Park can become Europe.

Coronado can become Florida.

Downtown can become a futuristic city.

Ocean Beach can become the 1970s.

Desert, Mountains and Mexico Nearby

Within a relatively short distance, filmmakers can access:

Pacific coastline
Urban downtown
Desert
Mountains
Military bases
Suburbs
Ranches
The international border

Few American cities offer that much visual diversity in such a compact region.

San Diego Is Still Trying to Attract Hollywood

Today, the San Diego Film Office actively works with film, television and streaming productions.

The city promotes its locations, climate and film-friendly permitting process, including no-cost authorization for many productions filming on city property.

So don't be surprised if you walk around a corner one day and find a camera crew taking over your favorite neighborhood.

Create Your Own San Diego Movie Location Tour

You could actually turn this article into a fantastic San Diego road trip.

Stop 1: Hotel del Coronado

Walk the grounds where Marilyn Monroe filmed Some Like It Hot.

Stop 2: Kansas City Barbeque

See the famous Top Gun piano and memorabilia.

Stop 3: Liberty Station

Visit the former Naval Training Center used in Top Gun and explore its transformation into one of San Diego's best Hidden Gems.

Stop 4: Mission Beach

See the historic Plunge and Belmont Park.

Stop 5: Ocean Beach

Walk Newport Avenue and the neighborhood featured in Almost Famous.

Stop 6: Balboa Park

Explore architecture seen in everything from early silent films to Citizen Kane.

Stop 7: Oceanside

Visit the historic cottage used as Charlie's house in Top Gun.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many movies have been filmed in San Diego?

The San Diego History Center has documented more than 500 film and television productions associated with filming in the San Diego region, although there is no simple definitive number because productions vary from entire movies shot locally to films using only a few San Diego scenes.

What is the most famous movie filmed in San Diego?

Top Gun is probably the movie most closely associated with San Diego, although Some Like It Hot is one of the most historically significant films to use a local location.

Was Top Gun really filmed in San Diego?

Yes. Numerous scenes were filmed around San Diego County, including Miramar, downtown San Diego, Point Loma, Mission Beach, the former Naval Training Center and Oceanside.

Was Anchorman filmed in San Diego?

Only partly. Although the story is famously set in San Diego, much of the original movie was filmed in the Los Angeles area, with limited San Diego exterior footage.

Was Jurassic Park filmed in San Diego?

The Lost World: Jurassic Park ends with a T. rex rampage set in San Diego, but most of that sequence was filmed outside the city. Some genuine San Diego skyline and waterfront footage appears in the film.

What Marilyn Monroe movie was filmed in San Diego?

Some Like It Hot filmed exterior scenes at the Hotel del Coronado and Coronado Beach in 1958.

What movie was filmed in Ocean Beach?

Almost Famous prominently used Ocean Beach, including Newport Avenue and the neighborhood's coastal environment.

What movies were filmed at Balboa Park?

Balboa Park has appeared in numerous films dating back more than a century, including Citizen Kane, Almost Famous and several early Hollywood productions.

Hollywood Has Been Hiding in San Diego for More Than a Century

That's what makes San Diego's movie history so much fun.

These aren't distant studio backlots.

They're places we still use.

You can eat inside a Top Gun location.

Stay at the hotel where Marilyn Monroe filmed.

Walk through a park that appeared in Citizen Kane.

Visit the Ocean Beach streets Cameron Crowe used to recreate his childhood.

And swim at the same Mission Beach facility seen in one of America's most famous aviation movies.

Sometimes the history isn't behind a museum wall.

Sometimes you're standing directly on the movie set.

Discover San Diego's Hidden Gems

At Nancy's Vacation Rentals, we've spent more than 25 years helping visitors experience San Diego's beach communities, neighborhoods and local culture.

Our San Diego Hidden Gems — A Local Guide series explores the stories hiding behind familiar places — from old Navy bases and forgotten amusement parks to legendary restaurants, music venues and Hollywood filming locations.

And apparently filmmakers figured out something San Diegans have known for a long time:

This city looks pretty good on camera.

Stay Where the Movies Were Made

Make San Diego's coast your home base and explore the beaches, neighborhoods, historic landmarks and movie locations that have appeared on the big screen for more than a century.

Explore Nancy's Vacation Rentals

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