Last updated on 10/26/2026
Berlin is one of the most filmed cities in Europe, and many of its locations sit right in the middle of everyday life. Top of the list is Filmpark Babelsberg in Potsdam, next door to the oldest large-scale film studio in the world, where sets, props and stunt shows can be explored on foot. In the city centre, Checkpoint Charlie is the shorthand for the Cold War, a role the Bond film Octopussy helped establish. And next to the ICC lies the orange-tiled underpass at Messedamm, which production teams book more often than the Brandenburg Gate or the Reichstag, from The Bourne Supremacy and Hanna to Atomic Blonde. Whether a monumental airport, a courtyard with a prefab block or a brick bridge over the Spree, the backdrops are usually closer than you think. Which scene will you recognise first?
Viktoria Tkachenko
I like to see Berlin through the eyes of a film fan. While researching this list, I roamed through underpasses and across bridges that I had long known from the cinema. I knew that "Run Lola Run" crossed the Oberbaumbruecke, and I discovered the rest with delight. Come along on a little tour through cinematic Berlin.
The Film Park is located on Großbeerenstraße in Potsdam, right next to the world's oldest large studio, where films have been shot since 1912. It features around twenty attractions and four shows with stunt performers, pyrotechnicians, and animal trainers. In the TV studio, guests can step in front of the camera themselves, and an adult ticket costs 25 Euros online.
At the corner of Friedrichstrasse and Zimmerstrasse, there is now a reconstructed checkpoint booth, the sector sign, and the illuminated display with the two soldier portraits, along with an open-air exhibition. Around four million people visit each year, and from 2030 onwards, the square is to be redesigned with a pavilion and an observation deck.
The building at Platz der Luftbrücke is one of the largest in the world, and precisely these dimensions make it a recurring guest in cinema, from Billy Wilder to The Hunger Games. Tours start at the visitor center, last approximately two hours, and cost from 17.50 Euros, but the tour is not barrier-free, and rollators are not permitted.
Beneath the intersection at the ICC lies a pedestrian tunnel from the seventies with orange tiles, round columns, and cylindrical ceiling lights, which has never been modernized. Production teams book it more frequently than the Brandenburg Gate or the Reichstag, from The Bourne Conspiracy to Hanna and Don to Atomic Blonde.
On 16 hectares in Falkenberg, there is a complex made of exposed concrete with over two hundred individually shaped round columns, large water features, and a circular outdoor area of approximately 210 meters in diameter, housing fifteen dog pavilions. Dietrich Bangert designed it, and productions like Aeon Flux use it as ready-made futuristic architecture.
In the Ehrenhof on Stauffenbergstraße, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators planned the assassination attempt on Hitler, and here they were shot the very same night after its failure. Admission, public tours and the audio guide of the German Resistance Memorial Center are free, and scenes for Operation Valkyrie were filmed here.
Two Neo-Gothic brick towers, the yellow U1 train on the upper level, and the Spree river below form one of Berlin's most iconic cityscapes, with the East Side Gallery and the Spree riverbank right next door. The bridge became famous through Run Lola Run, and since then it has been a staple when a shot needs to be immediately recognizable as Berlin.
The World Clock, TV Tower, and the panel buildings of late GDR modernism form one backdrop above, while the tunnels and platforms below form another, which can be cordoned off and illuminated. Filming took place here for Good Bye Lenin, Flightplan, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Babylon Berlin, and the square is connected like almost no other.
At Hardenbergplatz in Charlottenburg, S-Bahn, U2 and U9 lines, regional trains, and a large bus station converge, along with the Zoo with its Elephant Gate, Kurfürstendamm, and Bikini-Haus. The station became famous through Christiane F., for which filming took place in and around the building in 1981, partly with amateur actors from the area.
A prefabricated building in Friedrichshain, not far from Ostbahnhof, where Paul lives in The Legend of Paul and Paula, the cult film by DEFA from 1973. Opposite was Paula's old building, which today houses a supermarket, and on Rummelsburger See are the Paul-and-Paula-Ufer along with the bench for lovers, where the scene with the freight barge was filmed.
