This year's Oscars Best Picture nominees make us want to pack a bag and travel. But which one is most suitcase-worthy? Click on to find our honorable mentions and winner.
Math genius Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) struggles with his own secrets as he cracks the Nazi Enigma code at atmospheric Bletchley Park (where some scenes were filmed) in this WWII thriller. Click on to see the movie's actual filming location.
Courtesy StudioCanal
Bletchley Park —
The eccentrically designed Bletchley Park, an old manor house and once-secretive military campus, is now a fascinating museum. Some of the best historical tour guides in the UK make visits Ultra special.
Based on the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery March for voting rights led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., director Ava DuVernay filmed many of the scenes at the Alabama locations where actual history took place.
Courtesy Paramount Pictures Corporation
Alabama State Capitol —
The Alabama State Capitol (pictured) is located on Montgomery's Washington Avenue. The street is also home to the First White House of the Confederacy (residence of Confederate President Jefferson Davis at the beginning of the Civil War) and the Maya Lin-designed Civil Rights Memorial. Nearby is the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where a young Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached.
Courtesy Alabama Tourism Department
Honorable mention: "Birdman" —
This dark comedy focuses on a washed up action hero who attempts to make a comeback by funding a Broadway play starring himself. But the real star of the film is the St. James Theater, on West 44th Street in New York, which opened in 1927 and still puts on shows.
Courtesy Fox Searchlight Pictures
Honorable mention: "Whiplash" —
New York's Carnegie Hall is where Andrew (Miles Teller) performs -- and spills more blood -- during the JVC Jazz Festival in the big "Whiplash" finale. The JVC fest was actually held at Carnegie in 2005.
Stephen Hawking's ascent from impressionable graduate to astrophysicist, despite the onset of motor neurone disease, is set against a backdrop of ancient Cambridge University colleges. The 16th-century St. John's College (pictured) stands in for Hawking's own Trinity College.
Dan Kitwood/Getty Image
Honorable mention: "Boyhood" —
Director Richard Linklater's ode to growing up also functions as a love letter to his home state of Texas. From the leafy streets of San Marcos to a swimming hole in Pedernales Falls State Park, filming locations show off the dynamic range of America's second largest state.
IFC Films
Magical trip —
By the time Big Bend National Park (pictured) shows up in "Boyhood," Mason (Ellar Coltrane) is already a man. The college-aged Mason heads for this beautiful stretch of high desert on a magical hike with new friends.
Drew Holmgreen/Texas Tourism
And the winner is ... —
The Grand Budapest Hotel! It wasn't filmed in Budapest and the "hotel" and Republic of Zubrowka aren't even real. But director Wes Anderson's ode to swankier travel days, a legendary concierge and his faithful lobby boy sidekick make us want to pack our steamer trunks, hat boxes and portable wardrobes and waltz to a Victrola in a musty ballroom.
Courtesy Fox Searchlight Pictures
The Grand Budapest Hotel is actually in Germany —
Much of "The Grand Budapest Hotel" was filmed in the town of Goerlitz, Germany, which stood in for Anderson's composite vision of an Eastern European city. The "hotel" is actually the old art nouveau Goerlitz Department Store building (pictured). Scenes from "Inglorious Basterds," "The Book Thief" and other movies have been filmed in Goerlitz.
Courtes Kaufhaus Goerlitz Presse
Well, we'll mention it: "American Sniper" —
O'Malley's on Main in Seal Beach, California, is where Kyle (Bradley Cooper) meets future wife Taya (Sienna Miller) in "American Sniper." Great film, but the depictions of war-torn Iraq mostly make us grateful to be sitting comfy in a theater seat.
