The Untouchables 

© Paramount Pictures, Linson Entertainment

A MovieWalk is a self-guided walking tour that takes you to the real filming locations of your favourite films and series. No tour guide. No group. No fixed time. Just you, your phone and the city – seen through the eyes of cinema.

You download the free MovieWalks app, choose a city walk, and go. At each stop, the app reveals what was filmed there, how it was done, and what the cameras never showed you. Behind-the-scenes stories. Fun facts. Everything you need to turn a city walk into a movie experience.

The Dark Knight. My Best Friend’s Wedding. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Gotham, romance and a kid on the loose - all on the same streets. Walk up – and Chicago will never look the same again.

The Fugitive

© Warner Bros. Pictures

This self-guided walking tour takes you through the real Chicago – the one that gave cinema its car chases, its mob bosses, and its most famous sick day. The city where every street corner has been a crime scene, a dance floor, or both.

Start at the DuSable Bridge, where Kevin Costner met Sean Connery for the first time in The Untouchables – on the lower pedestrian level, beneath Michigan Avenue. To keep the 1930s intact, the crew turned off the lights in every modern skyscraper behind them. It almost worked – until a cleaning crew, unaware of the shoot, switched on an entire line of windows mid-take.

Cinematic stops. Each one a film location. Each one a story you didn’t know.

Walk to South La Salle Street, where Christian Bale rode the Batpod toward Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight – a vehicle so difficult to handle that Bale never actually got to ride it himself. Only one stunt performer could stay on it. While the crew filmed the chase, the Chicago Police Department received calls from citizens reporting a real pursuit involving a dark vehicle of unknown make. Christopher Nolan shot six sequences with IMAX cameras – the first time anyone had used them in a feature film. One of the four IMAX cameras in existence was destroyed during the chase.

Continue to the Rookery Building, where Macaulay Culkin walked into Duncan’s Toy Chest in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York – a store that doesn’t exist, in a city the film pretends isn’t Chicago. The exterior is La Salle Street. The interior was shot at an abandoned theatre. Culkin’s salary jumped from a hundred and ten thousand dollars for the first film to four and a half million for the sequel. A hundred and forty-nine days of shooting. Worth every dollar.

This is Chicago through the lens of cinema. The Untouchables. The Dark Knight. Home Alone 2. The Blues Brothers. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The Fugitive. ER. Source Code. Save the Last Dance. Films and series that chose Chicago not because it was polished – but because no other city hits quite this hard.

The MovieWalks Chicago Loop tour is a self-guided film location walk through the heart of the city. No group. No fixed schedule. Download the app, start at the bridge, and walk at your own pace through one of the greatest backlots in cinema history.

Ready to see Chicago differently? Download MovieWalks now and begin your movie adventure today – walk at your pace, any time.