Most Popular Christmas Filming Locations in the U.S.
Last updated on 11/05/2024
As the days grow shorter and the weather gets colder, the holiday season draws near. Whether you’re warming yourself up with some eggnog, decorating your home, or watching a Christmas movie with the family, there is something magical about this time of year.
If you’re looking to do something different for the holidays, InsureMyTrip found the cities and states in the U.S. with the most Christmas filming locations and these places could be a great option to create your own memories and a unique opportunity to step into the movies that are on rotation every December.
Top 5 Most Popular US Cities for Christmas Filming Locations
In first place is Los Angeles, home of Hollywood and its studios, with 56 Christmas filming locations. This includes some of the most famous Christmas films, like Die Hard (1988) which had scenes shot at Fox Plaza and the airport, and Miracle on 34th Street (1947), with filming taking place at 20th Century Fox Studios and at Black-Foxe Military Academy.
New York is at second with 28 filming locations, already a Christmas setting during the festive season with its Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, and the backdrop for the wintery classic, Elf (2003), which also had Macy’s Flagship store feature and the Lincoln Tunnel.
The next most popular Christmas film location is the Windy City with 15 filming locations. Chicago is well-known for being home to Home Alone (1990), with the McCallister home being located on 671 Lincoln Avenue.
In fourth, Atlanta, has eight filming locations, such as Office Christmas Party (2016), which in the spirit of the festivities, donated their furniture and props to the Furniture Bank of Metro Atlanta, a charity dedicated to providing furniture to those moving into housing after being homeless.
San Francisco has five film locations at fifth and was home to a sound stage for Skellington Productions which created the stop-motion classic Nightmare Before Christmas
Top 5 Most Popular States for Christmas Filming Locations
As both San Francisco and Los Angeles are in the top five cities, it is no surprise that California is the most popular state with 98 filming locations across the west coast, offering merriment and joy in the movies. Even though many films are filmed in the famous film studios, there are some festive scenes shot on location in the Golden State.
Utah has the second most Christmas film locations with 36, including many featured on the Hallmark Channel, such as My Christmas Love (2016) and Christmas Made to Order (2018). It’s also featured in the popular Christmas film How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), which filmed at Solitude Mountain Resort.
In third is New York, which also popular for sequel locations like Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) and the British sequel Nativity 3: Dude, Where’s My Donkey?! (2014)
Georgia and Illinois have been locations for 17 films each, including locations across Atlanta and Duluth, along with Chicago and Utica.
Methodology
A seed list of U.S. cities was created by identifying the top 100 largest cities by population size.
Next, each city's IMDb location page was scraped using the Screaming Frog SEO Spider and the number of titles which were included in the “Christmas Movie” genre was recorded.
