The best hotels in films

Carol

The romantic drama, nominated this year for six Academy Awards (including Best Acress and Best Supporting Actress), is based on Patricia Highsmith's 1952 novel The Price of Salt. It follows the story of Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara), an aspiring photographer and her relationship with an older woman Carol (Cate Blanchett). The pair set off on a Christmas-time road trip from New York to Chicago, where they end up at various hotels, including a nondescript motel for New Year's Eve in Waterloo (pictured above), and finally at The Drake, Chicago's historic hotel.

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Youth

Youth, by Academy Award winner Paolo Sorrentino, which tells the story of Fred and Mick (Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel), two old friends approaching 80, who decide to 'face their future' and holiday together in Switzerland. The film follows their journey as they look observe their children, families and other hotel guests, all of whom, it seems, have the time that they lack. Set across a variety of locations in Switzerland, two main hotels feature: the Berghotel Schatzalp and The Hotel Waldhaus.

Read the full reviews: Berghotel Schatzalp; Waldhaus Hotel

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Credit: GIANNI FIORITO

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel features retired British pensioners, including Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy and others, travelling to an Indian retreat. Many scenes were filmed at the real-life Taj Lake Palace hotel on Lake Pichola.

Read the full review: Taj Lake Palace

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Credit: © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Ralph Fiennes stars as Gustave H, the concierge of a grand hotel in the fictional Republic of Zubrowka, in a typically off-beat and charming Wes Anderson film that is among the nominees for Best Picture at last year's Academy Awards. The Palace Bristol Hotel in the Czech town of Karlovy Vary was an inspiration for the imaginary lodging, as was both the Hotel Gellért and the Corinthia in Budapest.

Read the full review: Corinthia Hotel

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The Shining

Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) loses it at the isolated Overlook Hotel, in one of the most acclaimed horror movies of all time. It is packed with memorable scenes, including Jack's Danny pedalling around on his tricycle, those creepy twins, that lift filled with blood and Jack taking an axe to the bathroom door (and poor Hallorann's back). Two hotels can claim connections to The Shining. The exterior of Timberline Lodge in Oregon features in Stanley's Kubrick's film (interior scenes were shot at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire), while the Stanley Hotel in the Colorado Rockies (pictured) was the inspiration for Stephen King's novel, on which the film is based.

Read more: the world's most haunted hotels

Credit: ALAMY

Some Like It Hot

This classic comedy, set in prohibition-era America, sees Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon hide from the mob at a beachfront Miami hotel. The exterior shots feature the sprawling 120-year-old Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, which still does a roaring trade today. It was, in fact, one of the most Instagrammed hotels of last year.

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Credit: Rex Features

Lost In Translation

Scarlett Johansson is drawn to the droll charms of Bill Murray in this wonderful clash of cultures and generations. Frenetic Tokyo is the third star of the film, but most of the action takes place in the confines of Park Hyatt Tokyo, a sophisticated five-star skyscraper hotel in the nocturnal Shinjuku district.

Read the full review: Park Hyatt Tokyo

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Credit: Rex Features

Pretty Woman

California's Beverly Wilshire hotel is the setting for this 1990 romantic comedy, which sees Julia Roberts shocking fellow guests with her lycra outfits and lounging in the bathtub with Richard Gere. It has been a local landmark since it opened in 1928, and is currently run by the Four Seasons group.

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Credit: Rex Features

Psycho

"In Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock not only created a blazing masterpiece and spawned a new cinematic genre - the slasher," writes The Telegraph's Mark Monahan. "He also delivered one of the boldest blows in screen history. It was not just how he killed Janet Leigh's Marion Crane, astonishing though that was - it was when. The film is 109 minutes long, but he offs his heroine, the glamorous miscreant with whom he's made us identify, after just 47." The Bates Motel, which was a set, has been recreated at Universal Studios Hollywood.

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Octopussy

In this James Bond 1983 classic, Roger Moore - disguised as a crocodile - swims up to the floating palace, the real life Taj Lake Palace in Udaipur, to confront Octopussy over a stolen Fabergé egg.

Read the full review: Taj Lake Palace

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Credit: GETTY

Hotel Chevalier

This 13-minute film, by Wes Anderson, was initially meant to be a stand-alone production, but in 2007 it acted as a prologue to Anderson's film The Darjeeling Limited. The critically acclaimed, highly stylish Hotel Chevalier features former lovers (played by Jason SChwartzman and Natalie Portman) who reunite in a Paris hotel room. Paris' Hôtel Raphaël was used as the fictional hotel in the short.

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Credit: Rex Features

Hotel Rwanda

Described as Africa's Schindler's List, Hotel Rwanda tells the true story of Paul Rusesabagina (played by Don Cheadle), the manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines, who tried to protect more than 1,000 refugees from genocide by sheltering them inside. The four-star hotel in Kigali - which doesn't actually appear in the film, which was shot in South Africa - remains in operation.

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Credit: ALAMY

Death in Venice

Gustav von Aschenback travels to a cholera-ridden Venice, where he becomes obsessed with an adolescent Polish boy named Tadzio, in this 1971 adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella. Much of the film is set inside the plush Grand Hotel des Bains, on the Lido. Built in 1900, it was visited by Mann in 1911, and also appears in The English Patient. It closed in 2010 and is being converted into luxury apartments.

•The best hotels in Venice

Credit: GETTY

Ocean's Eleven

The 2001 heist film - which stars an ensemble cast which includes Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon and Don Cheadle - features the real-life Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas.

Read the full review: Bellagio

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Credit: MGM MIRAGE

Somewhere

Another Sofia Coppola-directed film, this time set in Los Angeles. It follows a down-and-out actor who is living at the Chateau Marmont (Stephen , who is left, unexpectedly, to look after his 11-year-old daughter (Elle Fanning). Scenes from the film are said to be inspired by Sofia's own experiences staying in hotels while her father, Francis Ford Coppola, worked on films. A large part of the film is shot inside the hotel; it's an interesting insight a place which is notoriously private.

Read the full review: Chateau Marmont

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The Witches

Based on a novel of the same name by Roald Dahl, The Witches must rank as one of the scariest "children's" films of all time. Complete with purple eyes, Anjelica Huston is utterly terrifying as the Grand High Witch, who presides over an annual witches' convention - held at the Excelsior Hotel in Cornwall. The imposing Excelsior is actually The Headland Hotel in Newquay.

Read the full review: The Headland Hotel

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Credit: AP

Barton Fink

A critical success (it scooped Best Director, Best Actor, and the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1991) but a commercial failure (it failed to recoup its modest $9 million budget), Barton Fink sees the title character (a writer played by John Turturro) shut himself inside the grim and desolate Hotel Earle to work on a new script. His efforts are hindered by cheap wallpaper, the presence of a whining mosquito, and a heavy drinking neighbour (played by John Goodman), however. Those hoping to see the Hotel Earle will find themselves out of luck - it's a set. But the retired Queen Mary cruise ship, now docked in Long Beach, California, does feature early on in the film as a New York restaurant.

Read the full review: Queen Mary Hotel