The role a location house plays in a movie or TV series can be as integral to the narrative as the characters and plot lines. These settings welcome viewers into the fictional world of the production and set the atmosphere for the story. They’re often the forgotten “third characters” of a scene, though sometimes they’re even more remembered than the action of the script itself. Here are some of the most memorable real-life residences that have doubled as cinema darlings, from modernist icons to more recent masterpieces.

The Stahl House

One of Los Angeles’s most iconic midcentury homes—and arguably the most famous of all the houses built as part of the famous Case Study House program—the Stahl House (pictured above), also known as Case Study House #22, was designed by Pierre Koenig in 1960. Perched on the top of the Sunset Strip with floor-to-ceiling walls of glass and epic views of the city, the Hollywood Hills home was immortalized in a famous Julius Shulman photo and has appeared in numerous fashion shoots, ad campaigns, and films over the years, from the 1998 rom-com Playing by Heart (as the home of Jon Stewart’s character) to Neil LaBute’s 2000 comedy Nurse Betty (as the house of the soap opera doctor played by Greg Kinnear). It’s also made cameos on a few TV series.

The Elrod House

Designed by American architect and Frank Lloyd Wright protégé John Lautner, the Elrod House is a modernist gem set on a craggy ridge in Palm Springs. Interior designer Arthur Elrod commissioned the cliffside desert residence in 1968. It appeared as Willard Whyte’s futuristic hideaway in the 1971 James Bond classic Diamonds Are Forever, and has since become one of the most recognizable homes of the era. (Around the same time it was featured on the big screen, the organic modern masterpiece was also the subject of its own glowing feature in Playboy.)

The Schaffer House

Another Lautner design—the 1949 Schaffer House in Glendale, California—rose to new levels of fame after its on-screen appearance in Tom Ford’s 2009 directorial debut A Single Man. The architect built the tree house–like midcentury modern horizontally around the site’s oaks, using primarily redwood, glass, red brick, and concrete.

The Sheats-Goldstein Residence

Yet another Lautner landmark, the 1963 Sheats-Goldstein Residence in the Hollywood Hills, appeared in the 2003 spy film Charlies Angels: Full Throttle, and, most notably, acted as the “pad” that “The Dude” is abducted to in the 1998 cult classic The Big Lebowski. The living room—which has become known, fittingly, as the “Big Lebowski Room”—boasts a curvy, concrete-and-leather sofa that resulted from a collaboration between homeowner James Goldstein and Lautner. The ceiling is covered with sandblasted concrete that still features the original miniature circular skylights.

The Chemosphere

The fourth (and final Lautner) design on this list is the architect’s magnum opus, the Chemosphere, located on the San Fernando Valley side of L.A.’s Hollywood Hills. Lautner designed the 1960 residence that resembles a flying saucer on a stick for a young aerospace engineer. The one-of-a-kind house—once called “the most modern home built in the world” by the Encyclopædia Britannica—features a single octagonal level, accessible via a funicular, set atop a 29-foot-high, five-foot wide concrete pole. Its starring role as the home Jake Scully (Craig Wasson) gets called on to house-sit in Brian De Palma’s 1984 thriller Body Double helped transform it into a certified pop culture icon. Lautner’s Garcia House, used in the 1989 action-comedy Lethal Weapon 2, is less than five minutes down the road on Mulholland Drive.

The Lovell House

Designed and built by Richard Neutra in the late 1920s above L.A.’s Los Feliz neighborhood, the Lovell House (also known as the Lovell Health House) galvanized the modernist architect’s career. It’s recognized as an early example of the International Style in the United States that evokes principles developed by Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. It appeared in the 1997 thriller L.A. Confidential and the 2011 romantic dramedy Beginners.

The Kaufmann House

Neutra’s 1946 Kaufmann House (also called the Kaufmann Desert House) in Palm Springs, was famously documented by American photographers Julius Shulman in 1947 and Slim Aarons in 1970, but for more than seven decades, no Hollywood productions had been allowed to shoot in the architecturally significant midcentury residence. The 2022 psychological thriller Don’t Worry Darling became the first movie to use the modernist architect’s desert masterpiece as a shooting location.

The Ennis House

The 1924 Ennis House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built by his architect son, Lloyd Wright, has made more than 80 on-screen appearances in films, TV shows, and commercials. The celebrated example of FLW’s Mayan Revival architecture—the last and largest of his L.A.-area textile-block houses, located in Los Feliz—made cameos in the original two seasons of David Lynch’s cult series Twin Peaks, as well as the late director’s 2001 neo-noir mystery Mulholland Drive, and the 1998 action-comedy Rush Hour. It most famously appeared in Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi classic Blade Runner. Another one of Wright’s textile-block houses, the Millard House (also known as La Miniatura) in Pasadena, has been featured in heavy-hitting sci-fi series including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Westworld.

The Sowden House

Nearby in Los Feliz, the 1926 Sowden House (also known as The Jaws House or the Franklin House) by FLW’s son, Lloyd Wright, employs concrete textile blocks similar to those used for the L.A.-area homes he collaborated on with his father in the early ’20s. The Mayan Revival–style mansion, built for a couple who were part of the Hollywood film scene, was used as a filming location to depict the home of Ava Gardner in Martin Scorsese’s 2004 Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator.

The Jaffe House

Built in the mid-1960s by British architectural firm Team 4, established by Su Brumwell, Wendy Cheesman, Norman Foster, and Richard Rogers, the modernist interiors of the Jaffe House (also known as the Skybreak House) in the Radlett village of Hertfordshire made several appearances in the 1972 dystopian cult film A Clockwork Orange.

The Ben Rose House

The glass-and-steel box in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, designed in 1953 by modernist architect A. James Speyer, a student of Mies van der Rohe, achieved pop culture fame as the home of Cameron Frye in the 1986 classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

The Hill House

Designed by Walter Pierce, a midcentury architect best-known for his post-World War II suburban homes, in the modernist enclave of Brown’s Wood in Lincoln, Massachusetts, the 1957 Hill House appeared on-screen as the fictional home of Hugh Ransom Drysdale, the main antagonist in the 2019 mystery Knives Out.

The Sculptured House

Built in 1963 on Genesee Mountain outside Denver, the futuristic Sculptured House is a three-level, elliptical-curved structure by architect Charles Deaton. Though the interior of the 7,500-square-foot residence was left unfurnished and largely vacant for decades, the distinctive home was featured prominently in Woody Allen’s 1973 comedy, Sleeper.

Palais Bulles

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The sprawling, pink Palais Bulles (“Bubble Palace”) is located in Théoule-sur-Mer, near Cannes, in the south of France. Constructed over 14 years and completed in 1989, the retro-futuristic compound was the magnum opus of avant-garde Hungarian architect Antti Lovag, who designed the home for one of his biggest patrons, French industrialist Pierre Bernard. It later became the holiday home of legendary designer Pierre Cardin. The eccentric estate appeared in 2016’s Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie as the home of a character appropriately named Bubble.

Villa Necchi Campiglio

Villa Necchi Campiglio’s grand staircase and stately marble corridors set the scene in Luca Guadagnino’s 2009 romantic drama I Am Love as the cinematic home of the Recchis, a family of Milanese textile manufacturers. The historic residence was built by Milanese architect Piero Portaluppi between 1932 and 1935 and is considered an important example of Italian Rationalist architecture. It’s now a house museum open to the public.

Villa Överby

Designed by Swedish architect John Robert Nilsson in 2009, Villa Överby is located on Värmdö, one of the small outlying islands near Stockholm. The sleek, Scandinavian minimalist summer home, which features floor-to-ceiling glass and a matte-black exterior set on a limestone slab foundation, played a key role in David Fincher’s 2011 adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, appearing as the main antagonist Martin Vanger’s austere, ultramodern villain’s lair.

The Skyline Residence

Scenes at the glass-walled Hollywood Hills mansion where Ryan Gosling’s character lives in the hit 2011 rom-com Crazy, Stupid, Love. were filmed at the 5,800-square-foot Skyline Residence, designed by Belzberg Architects in 2007. Pharrell Williams scooped up the 1.5-acre Laurel Canyon property for a reported $7.14 million in 2015 and put it back on the market for just under $12 million in May 2020. It sold for $9.2 million in February 2o22.

Hoke House

Located on the border of Forest Park in Portland, Oregon, the 4,800-square-foot Hoke House designed by Skylab Architecture, made from mostly steel, glass, and wood, with cantilevered living volumes, appeared in the Twilight movie saga as the residence of Edward Cullen and his family.

The Ravine House

Many key scenes in Atom Egoyan’s 2010 erotic thriller Chloe were filmed at the Toronto Ravine House designed by Drew Mandel Architects in 2007. However, the owners didn’t want the facade of their home to appear in the film, so all the exterior shots were actually taken at a residence down the street: the Heathdale House by another Toronto architect Stephen Teeple.

The Rappaport House

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The 15,000-square-foot Malibu residence by Scott Mitchell Studio that made an appearance in Tom Ford’s second feature film, the 2016 neo-noir psychological thriller Nocturnal Animals, was said to be the most expensive home sale in Los Angeles history when its former owner, real estate mogul Kurt Rappaport, sold it for $120 million in 2018. For the film, where it stood in as the modernist home of art gallery owner Susan Morrow, played by Amy Adams, the interiors were reworked with darker furnishings inspired by Ford’s own home and added artworks.

The Sherman Residence

Set on a hillside above the San Fernando Valley, the Sherman Residence, designed in 2001 by Peter Tolkin + Sara Lorenzen Architecture, played the scene of the crime in the 2007 thriller Fracture led by Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling. It also made an appearance in the 2005 crime comedy Fun with Dick and Jane. Surrounded by nature, the 6,500-square-foot, one-level home comprises a series of pavilions constructed of board-formed concrete, wood, and glass.

The Caterpillar House

Shot in the thick of 2020 pandemic lockdown, the entire Netflix drama Malcolm & Marie starring Zendaya and John David Washington was filmed at Feldman Architecture’s modern, ranch-style Caterpillar House in Carmel, California (the first home on the Central Coast to have LEED Platinum status).

This story was originally published on March 7, 2017. It was updated on February 21, 2025, to include current information.

Top photo of the Stahl House by Pierre Koenig courtesy Los Angeles Conservancy

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