50 best Long Island movies: 'The Godfather,' 'Amityville Horror' and more

Sometimes it plays middle-class suburbia, sometimes it represents aspirational wealth and occasionally it stands in for a whole different part of the country. But whenever Hollywood comes calling, Long Island is always ready for its close-up.

Myself, entertainment editor Andy Edelstein, deputy entertainment editor Daniel Bubbeo and assistant managing editor Robert Levin compiled (after, um, some vigorous arguing) this list of the best Long Island movies, from celebrated classics to strange obscurities. ("Best" is an extremely subjective term.)

Our criteria: The movie had to be set here, shot here (or both) or about a well-known LI personality. We gave weight to strong local connections but also gave consideration to overall quality (sorry, "Batman Forever").

1. 'THE GODFATHER' (1972)

"Get me Long Beach 4-5620, please," Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone says when phoning home — a small detail that cements this mobster saga as the greatest Long Island movie of all. Based on the hit novel by Mario Puzo (who bought a house in Bay Shore with his advance) and directed by Hofstra graduate Francis Ford Coppola, "The Godfather" features two of the most famous scenes in cinema history, both shot on Long Island. The bedroom where movie producer Jack Woltz (John Marley) wakes to find a severed horse head is in the Sands Point mansion Falaise, the onetime home of Newsday’s married founders, Harry F. Guggenheim and Alicia Patterson. And the bullet-riddled death of Sonny Corleone (James Caan), set at Jones Beach Causeway in the book, was filmed at Mitchel Field, the former Air Force Base in Uniondale.

2. 'THE WOLF OF WALL STREET' (2013)

Martin Scorsese went full Long Island for this drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort, a real-life financial fraudster who lived in Old Brookville while running his firm Stratton Oakmont out of Lake Success. Scorsese filmed one of Belfort’s wild parties at a house in Sands Point, an outdoor wedding in Bayville and a pre-downfall moment at a horse farm in the Upper Brookville area.

3. 'ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND' (2004)

Spike Jonez’ surreal, sci-fi romance centers on a man (Jim Carrey) trying to erase all memories of his ex-girlfriend (Kate Winslet). Written by Massapequa’s Charlie Kaufman, the film contains the whispered refrain "Meet me in Montauk" and culminates there in a dreamlike sequence involving a wintry seashore (Kirk Park Beach, according to the website Thrillist) and a lonely-looking mansion (an iconic Wainscott home known as Kilkare, according to The East Hampton Star).

4. 'THE AMITYVILLE HORROR' (1979)

By now everyone knows the story of George and Kathy Lutz, who claimed that their new Dutch Colonial home at 112 Ocean Ave. in Amityville was haunted by the recent DeFeo family murders there. The Lutzes’ tale became a bestselling book by Jay Anson, then a successful horror movie starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder. Few movies have a stronger Long Island connection, but here’s the irony: Filming took place mostly in New Jersey, right down to the altered look-alike home.

5. 'THE BROTHERS MCMULLEN' (1995)

Edward Burns was just a 20-something kid from Valley Stream when he started thinking seriously about filmmaking. Armed with a camera, a script and an unknown cast (including first-timer Connie Britton), Burns just needed a set — and his family home would have to do. "I wrote a scene into every room," he told Newsday. Burns’ micro-budget film is still regarded as one of the definitive indies.

6. 'ANNIE HALL' (1977)

Woody Allen’s Oscar winner for best picture is on this list for one reason: The runaway-lobster scene in a Hamptons kitchen. It belonged to Helen Rattray, she claimed in the East Hampton Star. By her account, the director and a location scout let themselves into her empty vacation home in Amagansett one winter morning, then called her up. "You’re not going to believe this," Rattray recalled the scout saying, "but I am in your house with Woody Allen." Crew members covered the kitchen’s tiled floor with wood, removed the refrigerator, hung curtains and finally filmed what’s now a classic scene. Rattray received about $1,200 for her trouble, she estimated, plus a place in cinema history.

7. 'THE GREAT GATSBY'

There’ve been four versions of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel set in a fictionalized Gold Coast inspired by his time living in Great Neck. Yet none, as far as we know, was filmed here. The 1926 silent, starring Warner Baxter as Jay Gatsby and Lois Wilson as Daisy Buchanan, is lost. The 1949 version with Alan Ladd and Betty Field was shot in Hollywood, according to IMDb. Coppola’s notoriously panned 1974 production, starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, was filmed in Rhode Island. Finally, Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 remake with Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan was filmed in the director’s native Australia.

8. 'UNCUT GEMS' (2019)

Adam Sandler plays Howard Ratner, a Diamond District wheeler-dealer. Not only were all the scenes in his store filmed in Bethpage’s Gold Coast Studios, all his home life scenes were filmed in Roslyn (the score includes a piece called "Back to Roslyn"). As a bonus, Howard’s wife is played by Idina Menzel, of Syosset, and a sleazy bagman is played by Wayne Diamond, a former fashion designer from Oceanside.

9. 'SABRINA' (1954)

Billy Wilder’s romance stars Audrey Hepburn as a chauffeur’s daughter torn between two wealthy brothers (Humphrey Bogart and William Holden). Much of the action happens at their Glen Cove estate on "Dosoris Lane," we’re told, and you can see a quick glimpse of the LIRR station. Most of this charming film, though, was shot in California.

10. 'NORTH BY NORTHWEST' (1959)

When Cary Grant’s debonair Roger Thornhill is taken to a villain’s sprawling mansion, he finds a mailing tube bearing an address: 169 Baywood, Glen Cove, NY. The mansion itself, however, is the famous Phipps estate, now known as Old Westbury Gardens.

11. 'POLLOCK' (2000)

To play Jackson Pollock, actor-director Ed Harris spent a few nights at the late painter’s home in Springs (a national historic site), then convinced its director, Helen Harrison, to let him film there, she wrote in a piece for The New York Times. She agreed to exteriors only; interiors were filmed in Brooklyn. One detail that caught her eye: The stack of Life magazines that lands on Pollock’s doorstep is actually a stack of Dan’s Papers, the longtime Hamptons publication. Pollock’s fatal car accident was filmed in the Springs area as well.

12. 'BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY' (1989)

Tom Cruise plays Ron Kovic, the Massapequa Marine Corps sergeant whose experiences in Vietnam turned him into an anti-war activist. Several scenes are set there — including the opening Independence Day parade — but director Oliver Stone shot them in Texas, according to The New York Times.

13. 'GOODFELLAS' (1990)

Surely the only other mobster movie to rival "The Godfather," this Scorsese classic features a brief scene of Henry Hill and his wife (Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco) relaxing at the Catalina Beach Club in Atlantic Beach, a brightly colored Art Deco gem that opened in 1944. The club still displays a framed Newsday story detailing its role.

14. 'THE IRISHMAN' (2019)

Scorsese’s epic mobster movie, featuring Robert De Niro as self-described hitman Frank Sheeran and Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa, wasn’t set on Long Island but was filmed all over the area. The two stars eat ice cream at Hildebrandt’s in Williston Park, a yacht explodes at the Harry Tappen Marina in Hempstead Harbor and a Huntington Station Rodeway Inn doubles as a Howard Johnson’s. A Teamsters rally takes place at Leonard’s Palazzo, the event space in Great Neck, while the union’s office is played by Hempstead’s Town Hall.

15. 'MEET THE PARENTS' (2000)

Jay Roach’s hit comedy about a nurse (Ben Stiller) trying to please his fiancée’s menacing father (Robert De Niro) is set in Oyster Bay, played by several Long Island locations. The parents’ home is in Old Brookville, the tuxedo shop is Greenvale’s Victor Talbots, the local pharmacy (then actually a grocery store) was in Port Washington, the real Oyster Bay Animal Shelter is in Syosset and the pre-wedding dinner is at the old Louie’s Oyster Bar & Grille in Port Washington, according to Movie-Locations.com. There’s also a scene of Stiller and De Niro racing each other down Port Washington’s Main Street.

16. 'IN & OUT' (1997)

In Frank Oz’s comedy about a possibly gay high school teacher (Kevin Kline), Northport plays the fictional Greenleaf, Ind. — and it’s a starring role. You’ll see several shots of Main Street, a glimpse of the iconic bar Gunther’s Tap Room and Tim’s Shipwreck Diner (disguised as "Darlene’s Diner").

17. 'SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE' (2003)

Nancy Meyers’ oh-so-Hamptons romcom, starring Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson as late-life opposites who attract, was filmed on the East End. The exteriors for the Keaton character’s home were shot at 576 Meadow Lane in Southampton and some beach scenes were filmed locally, according to Parade magazine, though the house’s interiors were sets in California.

18. 'MARRIED TO THE MOB' (1988)

Baldwin-raised director Jonathan Demme cast Michelle Pfeiffer as the wife of a Long Island mobster (played by Massapequa’s Alec Baldwin) in this hit romcom. Noteworthy locations include the Traveler's Building in East Meadow, a Howard Johnson's in Westbury and the LIRR stations in Cedarhurst and Valley Stream.

19. 'WALL STREET' (1987)

The second-most quoted line in Oliver Stone’s iconic drama comes when financier Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) uses his brick-sized cellphone to call young Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) with this advice: "Money never sleeps." Gekko is calling from the beach in front of his Brutalist mansion at 67 Surfside Drive in Bridgehampton, according to the real estate site Behind the Hedges.

20. 'TRADING PLACES' (1983)

Roosevelt’s Eddie Murphy stars in this John Landis comedy as a street hustler who swaps lives with a pampered financier (Dan Aykroyd). Pulling the strings are the wealthy Duke brothers (Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche), whose estate is actually the 34-room Mill Neck Manor House, a Tudor Revival mansion built in the 1920s.

21. 'ARTHUR' (1981)

Steve Gordon’s screwball comedy, starring Dudley Moore as a New York City playboy and Liza Minnelli as a waitress from Queens, features a few crucial scenes shot on Long Island. Arthur’s visit with the menacing Burt Johnson (Stephen Elliott) takes place in the de Seversky mansion in Brookville, the climactic wedding scene exteriors were shot at the Marshall Field House at Caumsett State Historic Park Preserve and a romantic scene between Moore and Minnelli was filmed at the nearby Lloyd Harbor Equestrian Center.

22. 'DEATHTRAP' (1982)

Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve and Dyan Cannon star in Sidney Lumet’s adaptation of Ira Levin’s murder-mystery stage play. Judging by exterior shots, Caine’s character lives in the historic Edward DeRose Windmill Cottage in East Hampton.

23. 'CROCODILE DUNDEE' (1986)

Newsday reporter Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski) is dating her editor (Mark Blum) when she gets a plum assignment in Australia — a premise this paper would probably not put its name to today. Back then, though, the movie became a smash hit and turned its unknown Aussie star, Paul Hogan, into a household name. Filming took place mostly in Manhattan and briefly Down Under.

24. 'TREES LOUNGE' (1996)

Writer-director-star Steve Buscemi, set this comedy-drama in a bar inspired by a real one in his hometown of Valley Stream. He filmed in various spots around the neighborhood, though the bar itself was played by a joint called The Assembly, in Queens. Buscemi dedicated the movie to Lynne C. Lappin, his acting teacher at Valley Stream Central High School.

25. 'THE LONG ISLAND TRILOGY'

That’s how Lindenhurst-born filmmaker Hal Hartley describes "The Unbelievable Truth," "Trust" and "Simple Men," which he released between 1989 and 1992. Set and filmed on Long Island — from Lindenhurst to Port Jefferson — the three features established Hartley as a distinctive cinematic voice and an early icon of independent cinema.

26. 'THE DAYTRIPPERS' (1997)

Driving around his hometown of Dix Hills in the early 1990s, director Greg Mottola began mulling an idea for a movie and eventually came up with the story of a Long Island family (Hope Davis, Anne Meara, Parker Posey and others) who take a road trip to Manhattan to confront a possibly cheating husband (Stanley Tucci). Filming took place partly at Mottola’s childhood home, according to The New York Times, and partly on the Long Island Expressway, according to an NPR interview with Mottola, who said traffic noise required at least one scene to be entirely re-dubbed.

27. 'L.I.E.' (2001)

A pedophile (Brian Cox) cruises rest stops on the Long Island Expressway in this discomfiting film from filmmaker Michael Cuesta, who says the idea came from real-life stories he heard growing up in Dix Hills. "We knew a guy like that; that’s all I’ll say," Cuesta told The New York Times. Filming took place in Bay Shore, Greenlawn’s Harborfields High School and Cuesta’s hometown, according to IMDb.com. The movie provided a breakout role for a young Paul Dano.

28. 'NOAH' (2014)

Russell Crowe plays the seafaring biblical patriarch in Darren Aronofsky’s non-traditional version of events. The ark was real: Aronofsky had had it built at Planting Fields in Oyster Bay. The foam-and-steel ark was 165 feet long by 60 feet high and able to withstand 5,000 gallons of fake rain per minute, according to The Wall Street Journal. It even survived 2012’s Superstorm Sandy.

29. 'IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU' (2025)

Rose Byrne is an Oscar nominee for her performance as a stressed-out Montauk psychoanalyst who holes up at a creepy motel — actually The Wave Inn — while having a nervous breakdown. Writer-director Mary Bronstein posted a midproduction photo of the place on Instagram, noting, "This is how the practical green and impossibly red lighting looked and felt in our main character’s room."

30. 'THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU' (2014)

Jane Fonda, Adam Driver, Rose Byrne, Jason Bateman, Connie Britton and half a dozen other stars packed themselves into a Long Island house — 9 Burnham Pl. in Munsey Park, to be precise — for this comedy-drama from director Shawn Levy. Filming also took place at Spencer’s Ice Rink in Bellmore and a now-defunct sports store in Great Neck (then called Sportset/Tennis Junction, according to ScreenRant.com).

31. 'THE HOT ROCK' (1972)

Robert Redford and George Segal lead a crew whose best-laid plans to swipe a gem from the Brooklyn Museum keep going crazily awry. Peter Yates’ caper-comedy-drama features a jailbreak scene filmed at what is now called the Nassau County Correctional Center in East Meadow and a swift glimpse of Redford and Segal driving by the former Modell's shopping center on Hempstead Turnpike.

32. 'LOVE STORY' (1970)

The definitive weepy features Ryan O’Neil as a wealthy Harvard man and Ali MacGraw as a working-class Radcliffe student. His family estate: None other than Old Westbury Gardens. It appears again in the 1978 sequel, "Oliver’s Story."

33. 'IS THIS THING ON?' (2025)

Bradley Cooper’s comedy-drama, about an almost-divorced man (Will Arnett) who begins dabbling in stand-up comedy, features a climactic sequence set and filmed in a home in Oyster Bay. Alongside Arnett in those scenes are Laura Dern, Andra Day, Sean Hayes, Scott Icenogle (Hayes’ on-screen and real-life husband) and Cooper himself.

34. 'NO HARD FEELINGS' (2023)

Jennifer Lawrence plays an Uber driver and bartender in Montauk who is hired by a wealthy couple to "date" their shy son (Andrew Barth Feldman, of Woodmere). About a week’s worth of filming in Montauk took place at Salivar’s Clam & Chowder House, Montauk Point Lighthouse, Gosman’s Dock and a house on Startop Drive. Other spots stood in for Montauk, including Ted’s Fishing Station in Point Lookout and The Sands in Atlantic Beach. "We kind of faked Montauk all through Nassau County," location manager Josh Dorn told Newsday.

35. 'CRUEL INTENTIONS' (1999)

The youth-culture version of "Dangerous Liaisons," starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Reese Witherspoon and Selma Blair, features Old Westbury Gardens as the country manor of Mrs. Rosemond (Louise Fletcher), according to Movie-Locations.com.

36. 'THE HOUSEMAID' (2025)

The hit thriller starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried is said to take place in Great Neck, but director Paul Feig opted to film in New Jersey.

37. 'HAIR' (1979)

Milos Forman’s adaptation of the rock musical was filmed partly at Fordyce House in Mill Neck, which stood in for the family home of Sheila Franklin (Beverly D’Angelo). Among the action filmed there: a 100-person dinner party, some chandelier-swinging and the smashing of $10,000 worth of china, according to a 1977 New York Times article, which quoted homeowner Dorothy Fordyce: "Some things I watch, and some I don’t dare."

38. 'COCAINE COWBOYS' (1979)

A drug-dealing rock band pulls one last job in this late-arriving counterculture curio. It’s one of the only known feature films to be shot largely at Eothen, Andy Warhol’s rustic 20-acre compound in Montauk, and features Warhol as himself (he shows up to interview the band’s manager, played by Jack Palance). The whole movie is pretty shaggy — from the hair to the music to Ulli Lommel’s direction — but it offers an extensive look into a legendary Long Island getaway that only a very few have seen.

39. 'ENDLESS LOVE' (1981)

Franco Zeffirelli’s romance starring Brooke Shields as the bohemian Jade Butterfield and Martin Hewitt as the respectable David Axelrod used a Victoria-era mansion at 140 Glenlawn Ave. in Sea Cliff as the Butterfield family home.

40. 'LYMELIFE' (2008)

In 1979, two Syosset families begin to crumble under the pressures of adultery and Lyme disease. The filmmaking Martini brothers, Derick and Steven, based the story on their own Syosset childhoods and cast Massapequa’s Alec Baldwin as one of the grown-ups, although filming took place in New Jersey.

41. 'COMPROMISING POSITIONS' (1985)

Newsday contributor Susan Isaacs marked her screenwriting debut with this mystery-comedy starring Susan Sarandon as — what else? — a former Newsday reporter. (Her character lives in the almost real-sounding town of Shorehaven.) Shooting locations include Newsday itself, the roller rink in Great Neck’s Steppingstone Park, Woodbury Commons and a home in Old Westbury. Director Frank Perry was a part-time East Hampton resident, and the production was financed by the East Meadow-based United Artists Communications.

42. 'HELLO AGAIN' (1987)

The follow up to "Compromising Positions" finds Isaacs and Perry reteaming for a supernatural comedy about a Long Island housewife (Shelley Long) who chokes to death on a South Korean chicken ball but is revived by her amateur occultist sister (Judith Ivey). Filming took place in Glen Cove, Sands Point and Kings Point.

43. 'THE MONEY PIT' (1986)

This comedy about a young couple and their fixer-upper has arguably three stars: Tom Hanks, Shelley Long and a mansion at 199 Feeks Lane in Lattingtown (then owned by Eric Ridder, an Olympic yachter, according to The New York Times). Only its exteriors are seen, however.

44. 'SWEET LIBERTY' (1986)

Alan Alda was at top of his Hollywood game when he wrote, directed and starred in this comedy about a college professor whose book on the American Revolution is turned into a major motion picture. The film’s climactic sequence, a reenactment of the Battle of Cowpens that goes way off-script, was filmed in the township of Southampton, according to The New York Times.

45. 'HOW TO MAKE A KILLING' (2026)

This update of 1949’s "Kind Hearts and Coronets" stars Glen Powell as a disenfranchised heir who decides to bump off the relatives in line before him. The original title was "Huntington," after the Long Island town where the massive family estate sits. Writer-director John Patton Ford built a façade for the exterior but filmed the dazzling interiors in unidentified "actual North Shore mansions," according to the film’s studio, A24.

46. 'WE’RE NOT MARRIED!' (1952)

Five couples discover their marriages are technically invalid in this star-studded romcom with Ginger Rogers, Fred Allen and a little-known Marilyn Monroe. Filming took place mostly on the 20th Century Fox lot in Los Angeles, according to IMDb.com, but one couple (Eve Arden and Paul Douglas) live in the fictional "Lanhasset, Long Island" — a detail so strangely important that the studio invented an LIRR station for it.

47. 'THE GIRL FROM JONES BEACH' (1949)

Future U.S. President Ronald Reagan plays a man trying to find the unknown model for a famous pin-up illustration. He fails, until he gets a glimpse of gorgeous schoolteacher Ruth Wilson (Virginia Mayo) at Jones Beach. Those scenes were filmed on location, but the rest was shot at Warner Bros.’ Burbank soundstages, according to IMDb.

48. 'PRIVATE PARTS' (1997)

Howard Stern plays himself in this wild and woolly biopic that includes scenes of his slightly rough upbringing in what must be — judging from the chronology —Roosevelt and Rockville Centre. Most of the film was shot in New York City, though.

49. 'JOY' (2015)

Don’t call it a biopic, insisted 20th Century Fox, but this David O. Russell film centered on Joy Mangano, the Huntington-raised, Smithtown-based homemaker turned inventor, played by Jennifer Lawrence. Filming took place mostly in Massachusetts, but the story follows Mangano's work on her self-wringing Miracle Mop at the Peconic auto-body shop of her father (Robert De Niro) and her rising stardom at the QVC network in the early 1990s. You know what? We’re gonna call that a biopic. Lawrence earned an Oscar nod for her performance.

50. 'LOVE AND DEATH ON LONG ISLAND' (1997)

Strong reviews greeted this indie drama featuring John Hurt and Jason Priestley. Would you believe the title role is played by Nova Scotia?