Boston has spent decades playing itself on screen.
Some of the city’s most recognizable parks, waterfronts, streets and stadiums have appeared in movies seen around the world.
And a few of them are places you can walk past without realizing what happened there.
Good Will Hunting
Boston Public Garden
The bench used for Robin Williams and Matt Damon’s famous conversation scene is still inside the Public Garden.
There is no big movie sign marking it, which makes it surprisingly easy to walk straight past.
The Departed
Long Wharf
Long Wharf appears in two memorable waterfront scenes in The Departed.
The movie also used other locations around Boston, including Beacon Hill, Chinatown and downtown.
The Town
Fenway Park
The movie’s huge final robbery takes place at Fenway.
The production spent about 13 days filming the Fenway sequence in and around the ballpark, with roughly seven or eight days spent inside Fenway itself.
Free Guy
Liberty Square
Parts of Boston’s Financial District became the fictional Free City.
Liberty Square and nearby streets were transformed with fictional storefronts, signs and props for the movie’s video game world.
Spotlight
Fenway Park and the South End
Spotlight filmed at several real Boston locations, including Fenway Park, the former Boston Globe offices in Dorchester and South End Buttery.
The production used the real city throughout the film, while some interiors, including the main newsroom set, were recreated in Toronto.
Boston movies have always borrowed heavily from the city itself.
The fun part is realizing that many of those locations are still part of everyday Boston.
