August // 2026

From the Little Red Lighthouse to the Original Ray's Pizza: Where One Night Only was filmed

One Night Only

A pizzeria named after the street he grew up on. A lighthouse in Washington Heights his parents used to take him to. A pharmacy where the staff know his family by name. Will Gluck — director of Easy A and Anyone But You, born and raised in New York — made One Night Only from the inside out, filming across the Upper West Side, Hamilton Heights, the West Village, SoHo, Long Island City and Greenpoint between September and December 2025.

Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner play two strangers racing through the city on the one night a year when sex is legal.

The city they race through is not a generic New York. It is Gluck's New York. Every location is personal. "Most importantly, I like filming parts of New York that you don't really see in movies," director Will Gluck told Condé Nast Traveller. The result is a film assembled from real places.

Still One Night Only Claremonts Pizza The Original Rays Pizza Credit Universal Pictures

Hamilton Heights and the Upper West Side

Owen is a mama's boy, and his mother Linda — played by Molly Ringwald, with LeVar Burton as her boyfriend — lives in a gorgeous Hamilton Heights brownstone, accessed via the 145th Street subway station. Gluck knew he wanted the family to live up there. "In fact, The Royal Tenenbaums shot near there too. We had location scouts knock on every single door until we found the one." The brownstone is not far from Alexander Hamilton's former home on West 141st Street.

A little further south on Amsterdam Avenue sits the pharmacy where Owen attempts an improvised contraceptive solution — the actual pharmacy frequented by Gluck's own parents. "When we went in to scout, the person working goes, 'Oh, I know your parents. Yes, you can use it.'" Nearby, an urgent care clinic where Owen continues his desperate search turns out to be, in reality, a veterinarian's office. "People have watched the movie and said, 'Wow that's such a nice urgent care centre!' It's because the space is a veterinarian's office."

Owen works at the fictional Claremont's Pizza — named after Claremont Avenue, the street near Columbia University where Gluck grew up. The pizzeria is not real, but the location used to film it is: The Original Ray's Pizza at 82nd Street and Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side.

On September 26 — the first day of principal photography — Monica Barbaro was spotted filming in the area alongside Radioman, the NYC legend known for his surprise cameos in dozens of Hollywood films. The week of October 21, the production was confirmed filming on 79th and Broadway.

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The West Village and Chelsea

On December 2, 2025, Julia Fox and Callum Turner were photographed filming at the White Horse Tavern at 567 Hudson Street — the historic bar that has operated in the West Village since 1880 and served Dylan Thomas his alleged last drinks. 

Nearby, Allie meets a musician at Electric Lady Studios — the legendary recording facility at 52 West 8th Street built in 1969 for Jimi Hendrix and where everyone from David Bowie to Beyoncé has recorded. 

Early in the evening, Allie finds herself in a swanky nightclub lounge where she is accosted by a swarm of desperate suitors — played by Saturday Night Live's Ben Marshall and Nicholas Braun. The scene was filmed at Chez Margaux, the elegant red-toned members' club in Chelsea.

Long Island City, Brooklyn and Ford Wahington Park

The film crosses into Queens when Allie goes home with a charming stranger. The apartment was filmed at The Foundry in Long Island City, an industrial facility-turned-event venue. "When he runs naked and jumps off the balcony, you can see the 59th Street Bridge," Gluck noted. A second building within the Foundry complex — formerly used for metal smelting — doubles as the interior of the club where Allie performs "Only You" in a later scene.

Meanwhile, Owen rides a bike to Brooklyn Bridge Park, where a dating app encounter goes catastrophically wrong. The police station where Owen and Allie reunite was filmed at a working metal factory: "We took over an old metal factory that is still in business, actually. It was really cool." The exterior of the club guarded by Ziwe's formidable bouncer was filmed at a warehouse in Greenpoint on Kingsland Avenue.

The film's final scene belongs to the Little Red Lighthouse — the real but no longer operating lighthouse in Fort Washington Park along the Hudson River in Washington Heights. "I went there all the time as a kid. No one knows about it," Gluck explained. "It's cool showing a grizzled New York crew a spot they haven't filmed in nor heard about."

One Night Only opened from August 7, 2026.

SOURCE

cinephiletourist.com // CN Traveller // IMDb // Sceen-it

CREDITS

© Universal Pictures, Olive Bridge Entertainment

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