John Wick: Chapter 2

© Thunder Road, 87Eleven, Summit 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 bridge from Spider-Man. The park from When Harry Met Sally. The bridge from the photoshoot in The Devil Wears Prada. Still there. Exactly as they were. Walk up, look around – and New York will never look the same again.

Made of Honor

© Columbia Pictures, Original Film

This self-guided walking tour takes you through the real Central Park – the one that hosted breakups and bounties, proposals and assassins, all on the same footpath. The park where every bench is a confession, every bridge is a reunion, and the boathouse has seen more drama than most theatres.

We pass the Loeb Boathouse, where Sarah Jessica Parker and Chris Noth both fell into the pond in the season three finale of Sex and the City. Neither used a stunt double. Parker cut her foot on the way down and left the set for a tetanus shot. The dock where they fell is still there, just left of the restaurant entrance. The boathouse has also appeared in When Harry Met Sally, 27 Dresses, and Three Men and a Little Lady – but this is the scene everyone remembers.

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

Walk to Bethesda Terrace Arcade, where Keanu Reeves walked through fifteen thousand hand-painted ceiling tiles to meet Ian McShane at the fountain in John Wick: Chapter 2. Fans noticed the scene mirrors a moment from The Matrix – fitting, since John Wick’s director was Reeves’ stuntman in the Matrix trilogy. Every civilian on screen could be an enemy. Every step could be the last.

Continue through Central Park near the Mall, where Billy Crystal asked Meg Ryan about her sexual fantasy in When Harry Met Sally. The park has changed since the late 1980s – fences, healthier lawns, the Conservancy’s touch – but the neuroses haven’t. Harry was based on director Rob Reiner: depressed, cynical, big-hearted. Sally was screenwriter Nora Ephron: optimistic, controlling, and always “just fine.”

End at the Plaza Hotel, where Barbra Streisand hugged Robert Redford one last time in The Way We Were. When word spread that the two stars were filming outside the hotel, crowds of fans nearly shut down the shoot. Composer Marvin Hamlisch originally left the theme music out of the final scene. After the first preview fell flat, he returned $15,000 from his own salary to pay for the change. That fifteen thousand dollars made the ending.

This is New York through the lens of cinema. Sex and the City. John Wick. When Harry Met Sally. The Way We Were. Home Alone 2. Spider-Man 3. Ocean’s 8. The Devil Wears Prada. Kramer vs. Kramer. Enchanted. Hitch. Serendipity. Films that chose Central Park not because it was green – but because no other place holds this many stories per square metre.

The MovieWalks New York Central Park tour is a self-guided film location walk through the most filmed park on earth. No group. No fixed schedule. Download the app, start at the Met, and walk at your own pace through the park that plays a role in everything.

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