Paris and the Riviera on Screen: The French Hotels That Stole the Scene

France invented cinema, so it's only fair that its hotels have had more screen time than most actors. Paris has played itself in films for over a century, and the Riviera has a habit of turning up wherever Hollywood wants glamour with a sea view. This guide covers the hotels that did the heavy lifting, from Hitchcock to Netflix, and the one about to host the next season of The White Lotus.

The Riviera

Carlton Cannes: To Catch a Thief (1955), French Kiss (1995)

If one hotel defines the Riviera on film, it's the Carlton on La Croisette. In Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief, Cary Grant plays John Robie, a retired cat burglar suspected of a new run of jewel thefts, and Grace Kelly plays Frances Stevens, the heiress staying at the hotel who seems to know far more than she should. The film's hotel scenes were shot here, and its fireworks-over-the-bay seduction became one of the most imitated sequences in cinema. Robert Burks won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for it.

The story has a coda that no screenwriter would dare. Kelly returned to Cannes for the 1955 film festival, was photographed meeting Prince Rainier of Monaco, and within a year had left Hollywood to become a princess. The Carlton's Grace Kelly Suite on the seventh floor is named in her honour.

Forty years later, Lawrence Kasdan used the hotel beach in French Kiss, where Meg Ryan's Kate catches her fiancé with another woman before going on an accidental road trip with Kevin Kline's charming crook. The Carlton also appears in the 1970 comedy There's a Girl in My Soup, and its interiors were used in Michel Blanc's Grosse Fatigue (1994). The hotel reopened in 2023 as Carlton Cannes, a Regent Hotel, after a major renovation.

Hôtel Martinez and Château de la Messardière: The White Lotus (Season 4)

The fourth season of The White Lotus is set during the Cannes Film Festival, with two rival film teams staying at two White Lotus hotels. HBO has confirmed which hotels play them: the Art Deco Hôtel Martinez, a few minutes along La Croisette from the Carlton, is the White Lotus Cannes, and Airelles Château de la Messardière, a 19th-century château set in 32 acres of pines above Saint-Tropez, is the White Lotus du Cap. The season also filmed in Monaco and Paris.

Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc: Under the Cherry Moon (1986)

The Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc is the most famous hotel on the Cap d'Antibes and among the most exclusive in the world; for decades it was where film stars hid during the Cannes festival. On screen, its moment came in Prince's black-and-white romance Under the Cherry Moon, in which Prince and Kristin Scott Thomas, in her film debut, dance on the Eden Roc restaurant deck.

Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat: Emily in Paris (Season 2)

Emily, Mindy and Camille's girls' trip to the Riviera in Season 2 of Emily in Paris was filmed at the Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat, A Four Seasons Hotel, with the famous Club Dauphin pool overlooking the Mediterranean.

Paris

Le Bristol Paris: Midnight in Paris (2011)

In Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, Owen Wilson plays Gil Pender, a Hollywood screenwriter who slips back to 1920s Paris every night at the stroke of midnight. By day, he and his fiancée (Rachel McAdams) stay with her parents at Le Bristol on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. The production used the hotel's Panoramic Suite, named for its views across the rooftops to Montmartre and the Opéra Garnier. Allen won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film.

Ritz Paris: Love in the Afternoon (1957), How to Steal a Million (1966), Emily in Paris (Season 3)

The Ritz on Place Vendôme has hosted Hemingway, Coco Chanel, who lived there for more than three decades, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, but its film career began with Audrey Hepburn. Billy Wilder's Love in the Afternoon (1957) paired her with Gary Cooper as an American playboy staying at the hotel, and she returned for William Wyler's heist comedy How to Steal a Million (1966) with Peter O'Toole. More recently, the Ritz's garden appeared in Season 3 of Emily in Paris.

Hôtel Plaza Athénée: Sex and the City (Season 6), Emily in Paris

Carrie Bradshaw's Paris chapter in the final episodes of Sex and the City plays out at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée on Avenue Montaigne, where she stays with the artist Aleksandr Petrovsky before Mr. Big arrives to bring her home. Its red awnings are among the most photographed in Paris.

The hotel has an even longer relationship with Emily in Paris, first appearing in Season 1, Episode 7 and returning across the series. Season 4, Episode 6 showcases its Christmas decorations, including the courtyard that becomes an ice rink every winter. The show's director has said the crew has shot there every season.

Four Seasons Hotel George V: French Kiss (1995), Emily in Paris (Season 3)

In French Kiss, the George V is the Paris hotel where Kate tracks down her runaway fiancé and where she loses her bag to a thief. In Season 3 of Emily in Paris, Emily is seen walking out of the hotel after quitting her job at the Gilbert Group.

Hôtel Raphael: Hotel Chevalier (2007)

Wes Anderson's short film Hotel Chevalier, the prologue to The Darjeeling Limited, takes place almost entirely in one Paris hotel room, where Jason Schwartzman's character is visited by his ex-girlfriend, played by Natalie Portman. It was filmed at the Hôtel Raphael, a wood-panelled 1925 hotel near the Arc de Triomphe.

More Emily in Paris hotels

Emily in Paris has done more for Paris hotel bookings than any series in memory. Beyond the Plaza Athénée, George V and Ritz:

• Le Meurice, on the Rue de Rivoli opposite the Tuileries, hosts Sylvie Grateau's business lunch with Louis de Léon in Season 3, Episode 8, at its Versailles-inspired restaurant.
• Hôtel Lutetia, the only palace hotel on the Left Bank, is a prominent setting in Season 2, and its Bar Joséphine returns in Season 4.
• Shangri-La Paris, the former home of Napoleon's grandnephew near the Trocadéro, stood in for the supper club where Mindy performs in Season 2, and plays the fictional Heatherton Hotel, an Agence Grateau client, in Season 5.
• Molitor, built around a restored 1929 Art Deco swimming pool, is where Emily and Mindy go swimming in Season 3.
• The Hôtel du Louvre, opened in 1855 as one of the city's first luxury hotels, appears in Season 5.