Colleges in movies – While America is full of great student cities, stunning college bars, and even the best college sandwiches, no school can ever match these legend Schools we’ve seen in movies, television, and books.
Actually, they existed, not as a movie audience, but a real college that has graduated top industry experts and notable figures in society.
Are colleges in movies real?
Relying on fictional settings allows authors to exaggerate certain aspects of school life for a humorous or dramatic effect. In fairy tales aimed at children and adolescents, the actual learning and teaching experience is usually diminished to focus on the social interactions that often take place outside the classroom.
For young people, college is often considered the last exciting academic journey before entering the so-called real world. For those who have already ridden ATVs on campus, endured late school sessions and dorm life, it may even symbolize a sweet nostalgia for those simpler times before work and adulthood began. However, for directors, the Colleges in movies offer nothing like any other place that could become a fictional college, a real prestigious Ivy League or a boarding school.
This article brings together a list of real colleges in movies where movies and TV shows have been made through numerous entertainment and university websites. The list includes movies and TV shows of all genres, and colleges are located everywhere from Arizona to Massachusetts and Canada.
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Full list of colleges in movies
· Carnegie Mellon University: ‘Creepshow’
A graduate of Pittsburgh College, director George A. Romero made most of the 1982 film “Creeps” by Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall. The horror comedy tells five scary stories inspired by 1950s horror comics. The film involved former alumni Ted Denson and Tom Savini, Denson starred in “Creeping Show” and Savini worked on special effects. Margaret Morrison Hall in the film was known as Emberson Hall and was used in The Box, a story about a professor and a janitor who discovered something better by leaving it closed.
· Duke University: ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
The prestigious University was the setting for a 1990 film adaptation of an anti-utopian story about a theocratic dictatorship that overtook the US government and forced women to act as concubines – all in the name of God. Gallows were installed in the university chapel, which caused a lot of controversy at the time.
The film is based on the book of the same name by Margaret Atwood, which the author developed at Harvard University and the surrounding area in Cambridge, Massachusetts, through his connections with Puritan America. Atwood received her master’s degree from Radcliffe College in Cambridge.
· Johns Hopkins University: ‘The Social Network’
Although the story of Facebook’s beginnings began at Harvard University, where social network creator and titan Mark Zuckerberg attended, Harvard refused to allow Social Network to be filmed there because they had problems with other films being shot on campus in the past.
Instead, director David Fincher used John Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland, for scenes on the film’s campus. The film used several locations on the Homewood campus, including a walkway between Rogers House and University Baptist Church and Kaiser and Wyman ATVs, as well as several campus classrooms.
· Harvard University: ‘Love Story’
Based on Erich Seagal’s 1970 novel, Ryan O’Neill and Ali McGraw are portrayed as two students of very different backgrounds who fall in love while studying at Harvard and face a horrific tragedy. While “Love Story” was filmed in many places, from the Tercentenary Theater to the Bright Hockey Center, the film crew was expelled from the Harvard campus shortly after they began filming.
Harvard was not only upset about the filming failures of its students, but the damage to the campus also prompted the school to rigidly allow filming in its holy halls, leaving directors to look for other campuses as substitutes for Ivy League University.
· Occidental College: ‘Arrested Development’
The 2003 comedy, about the troubled Bluth family, whose patriarch was arrested at the beginning of the series, was filmed at a college in Los Angeles in 2012. The school replaced the University of California at Irvine, where the young George Michael Blut (played by Michael Cera) is a freshman.
Occidental is a popular location for college filming because of its first-class real estate in California and openness to the film industry. The college even has its own film coordinator, and he has been serving Hollywood since the early days of filmmaking – the Marx brothers used it in their 1932 film Horse Feathers.
· University of Oregon: ‘Animal House’
The 1978 quintessential studio comedy starring John Belushi and Karen Allen tells the story of a battle between the wild Greek fraternity Delta Tau Chi and Dean Vernon Wormer at the fictional Faber College. Several places at the University of Oregon were included in the film, including Memorial Quadrangle, Gerlinger Hall and Hayward Field. Although the University, located in Eugene, initially did not want to have anything to do with the film, the school has since participated in its creation and is now proud of its place in the history of cinema.
· University of Toronto: ‘Good Will Hunting’
The 1997 film about a young janitor working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who is a mathematics prodigy won an Oscar for Best Screenplay for Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, who star in the film. While Good Will Hunting took place in the Boston area, the film also used several Toronto locations, including the University of Toronto, which replaced the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard. McLennan University Physics Laboratories was used as a lecture hall at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Whitney Hall residences served as a Minnie Driver dormitory.
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· University of North Carolina Wilmington: ‘Dawson’s Creek’
The story of a teenage boy named Dawson Leary and a group of friends growing up was filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina, which replaced the fictional coastal town of Capeside, Massachusetts. Capeside High, where the many adventures of Dawson and his friends unfolded, was actually the University of North Carolina Wilmington. One of the most recognizable places used as a place in the series is Kenan’s university audience.
· Bryn Mawr College: ‘How to Get Away with Murder’
Starring Viola Davis as a law professor who, along with several of her students, conspired to assassinate. The “How to Avoid Murder” action takes place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although the series was filmed mainly in Los Angeles, Brin Moore, a college in Pennsylvania, has replaced Middleton University, a fictional prestigious university where Analise Keating teaches in the show’s first season. The drama series also featured filming locations for Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania.
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· University of British Columbia: ‘Smallville’
The 2001 series “Smallville” focuses on the teenagers and young adults of Clark Kent, who grew up in Smallville, Kansas, trying to control his abilities as Superman. The University of British Columbia (UBC), located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, was used as a venue for the fictional University of Metropolis.
Kent receives a football scholarship at school, but decides to study at another school to stay closer to his parents. Several UBC locations were used in the series, including the exterior of the Walter K. Kerner Library and the chemical building on the Point Gray campus.
· Manhattan College/Bronx Community College: ‘A Beautiful Mind’
In this 2001 film, based on the life of John Nash, the genius mathematician discovers that the boundaries of reality are blurred when he struggles with mental illness. Manhattan College replaced Harvard University, and the Bronx Community College of New York City University served as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Nash taught. The Gould Memorial Library at the Bronx Community College was a replacement for the Great Dome at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the college also served as a hospital in the film.
· Wellesley College: ‘Mona Lisa Smile’
In the 2003 film, Julia Roberts starred as an art professor who shocked the lives of Wellsley College students in the 1950s, assuring them that they could be more than they imagined. According to Wellsley, “Mona Lisa’s Smile” was filmed on the scenic college campus in Wellsley, Massachusetts, in 2002 and 2003.
According to the college’s website, in the fictional version of the film, Roberts introduces his students to contemporary art, but Wellesley actually began offering contemporary art courses in the late 1920s when the man who continued to found the New York Museum of Contemporary Art, Alfred Barr Jr taught a class there.
· Tulane University: ‘22 Jump Street’
Tulane University in New Orleans has doubled for the fictional MC State University, where characters John Hill and Channing Tatum go undercover in the sequel to the 2012 comedy “Jump Street, 21”. Introducing themselves as college students, two police officers try to find a synthetic drug supplier known as WHY-FI. The film features several university venues, including both interior and exterior footage from Monroe Hall, the Hebert Hall office, the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library and Gibson Hall, to name a few.
