Highways / Signs in Movies, TV Shows, and Videos

[Dr Frankenstein]

From Pixar's "Cars" movie.

[Kacie Jane]

So Cars takes place simultaneously in California, New Jersey, and Florida?

(CA for the green spade of course, really any circle-sign state would work but NJ does like to keep the black squares on BGSs, and US 41 is signed east-west in FL.  There's no accounting for I-24 or US 231 though.  )

[mightyace]

Well, I-24 runs through Nashville as does US 41 (but not E-W!), US 231 intersects I-24 near Murfreesboro.  And, elsewhere in the scene you see an I-40 sign.  And I-40 intersects I-24 and US 41 in Nashville and US 231 near Lebanon.

And, you would take I-40 from "Motor Speedway of The South" (aka Bristol Motor Speedway) to California.

Also, I-40 is the best route for real NASCAR haulers heading from North Carolina to California.  And, I have seen the haulers on I-40 a number of times over the years.

[rickmastfan67]

Also, I-40 is the best route for real NASCAR haulers heading from North Carolina to California.  And, I have seen the haulers on I-40 a number of times over the years.

But when they go to Bristol, they go I-77 > I-81.

[Henry]

How about Rain Man? I can cite a few examples:

• I-275 around Cincinnati, where, at the scene of a bad accident, Tom Cruise's character is so upset that Dustin Hoffman's character will not allow him to travel on the interstate
• US 60 in Missouri, as evidenced by Cruise's mention of "Bumf**k, Missouri"
• Route 66 further west

I'm sure there are others, but those three are the ones I could think of.

[FreewayDan]

How about Rain Man? I can cite a few examples:

• I-275 around Cincinnati, where, at the scene of a bad accident, Tom Cruise's character is so upset that Dustin Hoffman's character will not allow him to travel on the interstate
• US 60 in Missouri, as evidenced by Cruise's mention of "Bumf**k, Missouri"
• Route 66 further west

I'm sure there are others, but those three are the ones I could think of.

In the end credits of Rain Man, there is a photo of northbound I-15 at the exit for US 93/95 freeway southbound to Phoenix (sans I-515).

[Dr Frankenstein]

So Cars takes place simultaneously in California, New Jersey, and Florida?

(CA for the green spade of course, really any circle-sign state would work but NJ does like to keep the black squares on BGSs, and US 41 is signed east-west in FL.  There's no accounting for I-24 or US 231 though.  )

I wonder if that was on purpose. Either way, not a lot of animated movies have signs that are that accurate, standards-wise.

[mightyace]

Also, I-40 is the best route for real NASCAR haulers heading from North Carolina to California.  And, I have seen the haulers on I-40 a number of times over the years.

But when they go to Bristol, they go I-77 > I-81.

I was talking about in the movie where Mack heads from MSS (Bristol close) to California.  In real life, that would be I-81 South to I-40 West.

[Henry]

How about Rain Man? I can cite a few examples:

• I-275 around Cincinnati, where, at the scene of a bad accident, Tom Cruise's character is so upset that Dustin Hoffman's character will not allow him to travel on the interstate
• US 60 in Missouri, as evidenced by Cruise's mention of "Bumf**k, Missouri"
• Route 66 further west

I'm sure there are others, but those three are the ones I could think of.

In the end credits of Rain Man, there is a photo of northbound I-15 at the exit for US 93/95 freeway southbound to Phoenix (sans I-515).

Yes, totally forgot about that one!

[roadfro]

How about Rain Man? I can cite a few examples:

• I-275 around Cincinnati, where, at the scene of a bad accident, Tom Cruise's character is so upset that Dustin Hoffman's character will not allow him to travel on the interstate
• US 60 in Missouri, as evidenced by Cruise's mention of "Bumf**k, Missouri"
• Route 66 further west

I'm sure there are others, but those three are the ones I could think of.

In the end credits of Rain Man, there is a photo of northbound I-15 at the exit for US 93/95 freeway southbound to Phoenix (sans I-515).

Rain Man was released in 1988; I-515, while probably technically in existence at the time, was not signed until late 1994 or early 1995.

[FreewayDan]

How about Rain Man? I can cite a few examples:

• I-275 around Cincinnati, where, at the scene of a bad accident, Tom Cruise's character is so upset that Dustin Hoffman's character will not allow him to travel on the interstate
• US 60 in Missouri, as evidenced by Cruise's mention of "Bumf**k, Missouri"
• Route 66 further west

I'm sure there are others, but those three are the ones I could think of.

In the end credits of Rain Man, there is a photo of northbound I-15 at the exit for US 93/95 freeway southbound to Phoenix (sans I-515).

Rain Man was released in 1988; I-515, while probably technically in existence at the time, was not signed until late 1994 or early 1995.

Yes indeed.  I-515 was nowhere on that end credits photo in Rain Man, hence the "sans".

[nexus73]

Go watch the first episode of "The Invaders" TV show from 1966 and you will see Temecula CA as it used to be.  At the end of the episode you can see the road heading out of Temecula to a main highway.  That's US 395 in the distance.

Rick

[mightyace]

I'm in the middle of watching Baby Mama.

It is set in Philadelphia and you see the Ben Franklin Bridge.

However, another seen shows a road with a PA 51 road sign!  That's Pittsburgh not Philly!

[Stephane Dumas]

Frebbie and the Bean gives us a vintage street visit of San Francisco ending in an appartment.

[thenetwork]

I had the (mis)fortune to watch "The Chase", starring Charlie Sheen the other night.  What I thought was ironic was that the movie was "set" along I-5 from L.A. to S.D., but the movie was "shot" in Houston, Texas.

I say ironic, since many movies are the other way around -- "set" in other areas of the country, but "shot" in Southern California.

[Stephane Dumas]

"Across 110th street" (with the song of the same name) show at the opening credits some vintage views of Manhattan and Harlem.

[PAHighways]

The Mon-Fayette Expressway has a cameo towards the end of Love and Other Drugs.  Thanks to a little "Hollywood magic" in the form of extras' vehicles, it has the most traffic on it that I have ever seen.

[berberry]

I think one of the absolute greatest thrillers of all time is Georges Clouzot's The Wages Of Fear (1953), in which a highway - specifically a dangerous mountain road - becomes a major character, threatening the lives and livelihoods of all the other main characters. 

The South American town in which the first half of the picture takes place is impoverished, at least partly because it sits on the old mountain highway, which has been bypassed for long-distance travel by a newer, safer route.  An explosion at an American-owned oil field provides a very lucrative, though extremely dangerous, opportunity for a few of the men in town.  They're hired to drive trucks loaded with nytroglycerine to the site of the explosion, and they must use the old road.  Nail-biting sequences abound, including one where a washed-out section of switchback had years ago been "repaired" with a now-rotting wooden structure.

Clouzut was something of a French Hitchcock.  One of his movies was the better-known Les Diaboliques, a film Hitchcock had wanted to make himself.

A grossly inferior American remake of this from the '70s was called Sorcerer, in which the wooden switchback structure is replaced with a rickety bridge.

I found a trailer:

[Grzrd]

I had the (mis)fortune to watch "The Chase", starring Charlie Sheen the other night.  What I thought was ironic was that the movie was "set" along I-5 from L.A. to S.D., but the movie was "shot" in Houston, Texas.
I say ironic, since many movies are the other way around -- "set" in other areas of the country, but "shot" in Southern California.

Another "ironic" movie is opening today: http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20110311/NEWS01/103110318/1060/Briefly-Battle-Los-Angeles-opens-today

At least it was filmed in the "other" LA (specifically Shreveport)... although not in Lower Alabama.

[PAHighways]

The Armstrong Tunnel, Second Avenue, 10th Street Bridge, PA 8/Washington Boulevard, I-279 from the McKnight Road interchange north, and Turnpike 43/Mon-Fayette Expressway from the Redstone Toll Plaza to Exit 18 are in The Next Three Days.

[formulanone]

Hopefully this hasn't been mentioned before, but at the scene where a pursuit is going on, the movie 2 Fast 2 Furious takes place at I-95 somewhere near Miami

Actually, it takes place on I-75 between I-595 and (appropriately) Hollywood Blvd. I remember when they closed the road for a couple of days for shooting. It's not far from Miami, though...although more Everglades than South Beach.

[PAHighways]

The episode of Route 66 this afternoon, on the Retro Television Network, saw Tod and Buz come through the Mid-State area.  At the beginning of the episode, Tod is heading to the then Harrisburg-York State Airport and exiting off a relatively new I-83/US 111 at what is now Exit 39A.

Sure enough IMDb confirmed this episode was filmed in Pennsylvania.  I was fortunate enough to be watching it in Media Center, so I grabbed a couple screenshots showing PA 114 cut-outs and the old black-on-white directional signage, and uploaded them to my site's Facebook page.

[Ace10]

I watched Hackers (1995?) and saw a US 42 shield in the bedroom of one of the characters. It looked like it used Series C. The film is set in New York City, which US 42 doesn't go anywhere near (unless it used to?).

[Quillz]

No, US-42 has never even come close to New York. But movies typically get various highway routes wrong.

[Scott5114]

I'm guessing the shield was selected more because it said 42 than any particular desire to reference US 42 itself.