The beach has been one of the most popular tourist spots for more than one hundred years, and its popularity is usually attributed to its relaxing and calming waters and sands, as well as its natural beauty. While almost all beaches have equal popularity, there are a few of them that are considered more famous because they were seen in several blockbuster movies in Hollywood and other countries. Most of these famous beaches can actually be visited by tourists, so if you want to recreate scenes from your favorite movies or just take a picture of the iconic landmarks in those areas, we are giving you a guide on some of the best movie beaches you can visit. Included in this guide are some info about the beaches and the movies that were shot in those locations.
Monuriki
Monuriki is an uninhabited island that is located near the coast of Viti Levu, the largest island in the Republic of Fiji. The small island was featured as the main location for the 2000 movie Cast Away, which starred Tom Hanks and was directed by Robert Zemeckis. Because Monuriki is widely known to be the island where the movie’s protagonist (a FedEx employee named Chuck Noland) was stranded for more than four years, tourists would often refer to the island as “Cast Away Island.”
However, the nickname would usually cause confusion amongst tourists, as there is another island in the area called Castaway Island, so some of them would visit that island instead of Monuriki since they believed that the former is the one where the movie was shot. So, if you are planning to go to Fiji and visit the island featured in Cast Away, make sure that you go to Monuriki and not Castaway Island.
Cannon Beach
Cannon Beach is a particularly popular location because there were three movies with beach scenes that were shot there, which are The Goonies (1985), Point Break (1991), and Twilight (2008). Cannon Beach is not just a beach but an entire city that is located to the west of Oregon and has a population of 1,690 according to the 2010 census. Because there are only a few people that are living in the city, it is an ideal place to shoot movies since there will be no distractions and outsiders that would be on the set.
In The Goonies, a film considered to be one of the best movies of the 80s and starred young actors Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Jeff Cohen, and Cory Feldman, Cannon Beach was featured in the opening sequence where the villainous Fratellis was seen escaping the police. In Point Break, an action movie starring Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves, Cannon Beach was featured in the last scene, although the sequence was supposed to depict Bells Beach in Australia. In Twilight, the beach was seen during a scene where Bella and her friends go surfing before finding out the truth about Edwards Cullen’s family.
Kastani Beach
Kastani Beach is one of the beaches located in Skopelos, an island located at the center of Greece in the western Aegean Sea. Skopelos is particularly known as the island that looks like a saxophone, and its beaches, including Kastani Beach, is popular among locals and tourists for their natural beauty.
The beach is famous for being the location for one of the scenes in the 2008 film Mamma Mia!, particularly the scene where Tanya and Pepper sang “Does Your Mother Know” in an outdoor beach bar. Unfortunately, the beach bar does not exist in real life, but you can still see the backgrounds that are seen in that particular scene.
Cove Beach
Cove Beach is a private resort that is located in Paradise Island, one of the islands in the Bahamas, and was formerly called “Hog Island.” Paradise Island is famous for the ocean-themed resort built there that is called “Atlantis Paradise Island” and features a variety of rides, pools, restaurants, and casinos, as well as a walk-in aquarium and a beach. While Atlantis Paradise Island is considered to be the area’s most popular tourist attraction, Cove Beach is a close second in popularity because of its involvement in the movie Casino Royale, a spy film released in 2006 and stars Daniel Craig as the fictional MI6 agent named James Bond.
The said beach is featured in the movie’s famous beach scene where James Bond is enjoying a day of swimming before taking notice of a girl that is riding a white horse. Because the beach was featured extensively in the movie, Cove Beach became one of the most popular tourist sites in Greece.
El Matador Beach
El Matador Beach was once an unpopular beach that serves as one of the three areas of the Robert H. Meyer Memorial State Beach, which is also a portion of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in California. The three areas of the Robert H. Meyer beach are the El Pescador Beach, the La Piedra Beach, and the El Matador.
After the El Matador Beach was featured in The Notebook, a 2004 romantic drama film that starred Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdam and was directed by Nick Cassavetes. The said beach is particularly seen in one of the most romantic scenes in the movie where Gosling’s character said, “if you’re a bird, I’m a bird.” Because of the popularity and subsequent cult following that the movie received after its release, El Matador Beach became one of the famous beaches in California not only because it was seen in a movie but also because of its amazing shoreline.
These are five of the best beaches featured in popular movies that you can visit. While there are some movie beaches that may be too far away from you, there will be a few good ones that are located in the United States, like Cannon Beach and the Will Rogers State Beach that was featured in Baywatch. If you cannot go abroad, you can still find famous movie beaches in the US by doing some research about them online.