Roll out the red carpet for these Oscar-inspired travel destinations

And the nominees for countries we most want to travel to after being featured in a film are …

The 97th Academy Awards were broadcast live from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on 2 March. And while the world was glued to everything from red carpet arrivals to who won what, the 2025 Oscars made us reflect on all the great travel movies of all time. The scene-stealing movies that have won or been nominated for Oscars (or Golden Raspberries) over the years all have at least one thing in common: they are films that inspire wanderlust. From Castaway to Lost in Translation, to the 2025 Best Animated Feature Film, Flow, here are some of the top films to inspire your next holiday destination.

Flow, 2024

If Flow were to arrive on the red carpet in the signature colours from the movie it would be all crayon-greens and dragon-green seas. The stunning movie made waves when it took out the 2025 Best Animated Film for its wordless cat parable about climate change. But the shifting landscapes featured in the animated film will also put Latvia in the spotlight as a destination worth exploring.  Expect a star turn from Gauga National Park and its soaring sandstone cliffs, stunning forests and historical landmarks.

Dune: Part Two, 2024

Dune: Part Two won the Oscar for Best Sound in 2025. (Image: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures)

Dune: Part Two has enough holiday hotspots to inspire a golden gap year. The moonscapes of Wadi Rum, in Jordan, the Old Town in Budapest, the desert sands around Abu Dhabi and a cemetery outside Asolo, in Italy, all deserve nominations for Best Stunt Double in the sequel to the first instalment of the Denis Villeneuve film released in 2021. Dune: Part Two won the Oscar for Best Sound in 2025. The destination-based movie is set to inspire travellers to explore the Oscar-winning film’s locations.

A Complete Unknown, 2024

The Chelsea Hotel is a storied hotel for rock and roll stars. (Image: James Mangold/Searchlight Pictures. © 2024 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.)

New York shines as bright as the monochromatic buttery-yellow Givenchy suit worn by star Timothée Chalamet at the 2025 Oscars. While not all of the scenes for the Bob Dylan biopic were shot in New York City, we expect a surge of visitors will now be booking a night at room 211 at The Chelsea Hotel where the troubadour lived between 1961 and 1964. Set-jetters can also follow in the footsteps of the bohemian folk singer (played by Chalamet) around Hoboken which the set designers converted into a mini Manhattan. Chalamet was nominated for the best actor in a leading role category.

The Brutalist, 2024

Brutalist architecture takes centre stage in this period drama. (Image: Universal Pictures)

The structure of Adrian Brody’s cheekbones is as compelling as the film sequences shot in VistaVision for The Brutalist. The film took out the statuette for Best Cinematography at the 2025 Oscars, giving architecture boffins a hit list of Brutalist buildings to admire in New York City. Although most of the scenes are set in the US, there are cameos by Venice and Carrara in Italy as well as Budapest and Tóalmás, Hungary. Brody also won Best Actor for the film about a Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor who immigrated to the US.

Barbie, 2023

Stuff your packing cells with Day-Glo hot-pink accessories and take off to Los Angeles. It’s a fact that the city that has doubled as a film set since forever can do with some love after the devastating bushfires. While much of Barbie was filmed at a studio in Hertfordshire, southeast England, the Greta Gerwig movie also presents a sun-drenched postcard from LA. Go rollerblading along its iconic Ocean Front Walk in Venice Beach and visit the 2000 Avenue of the Stars in Century City where Ken has the revelation that the real world is patriarchal. Ryan Gosling was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 96th Academy Awards.

No Time to Die, 2021

The sepia-toned city of Matera has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1993. But it wasn’t until Daniel Craig’s last hurrah as Agent 007 in the film No Time to Die that Matera became a ping on the radar as a lesser-known place to travel to in Italy. The underground city was carved into the limestone hills in Basilicata and we’re all for wandering around the steep cobblestone streets and subterranean architecture ticking off each location that made a cameo in the film. Can’t afford the airfare? Pass the popcorn. The town named the European Capital of Culture in 2019 should win Best Supporting Role for featuring Puglia so prominently. The film won Best Original Song in 2022.

Lord of the Rings, 2001-2003

No visit to New Zealand is complete without a tour of the awe-inspiring Hobbiton. (Image: Andres Iga/Unsplash)

Fans of the Lord of the Rings trilogy identified New Zealand as a dream destination after The Hobbit trilogy filmed by James Cameron was released. Hobbiton has become somewhat of a theme park for the blockbuster series and led to a huge spike in tourism to the lush rolling hills around the town of Matamata near Rotorua. It’s as close as Man and Men can get to Middle Earth and set tours here are still a thing some two decades after the last film, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was released. The trilogy won 178 Academy Awards and was akin to a love letter to New Zealand.

Lost in Translation, 2003

The film Lost in Translation was influenced by director Sofia Coppola’s experiences in Japan in the 1990s. More than two decades later, the atmospheric and dimly lit lobby of the Park Hyatt Tokyo attracts film buffs drawn to making sense of that feeling of being a foreigner in this neon-lit megacity. While the film is essentially a film about jetlag, it’s also about searching for meaning in a world in which you don’t necessarily feel you belong. Sophia Coppola won an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay at the 2004 Oscars.

The Beach, 2000

There’s been a surge in visitor interest to Thailand since Season 3 of the White Lotus dropped. But the backpacker thriller, The Beach, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a young American tourist travelling through Thailand also made Maya Bay and Koh Phi Phi such popular destinations for backpackers in tie-dyed tees that visitor numbers were capped to try and mitigate damage to the environment. The film was not nominated for an Oscar. But DiCaprio did win the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor. Our suggestion: pick up a copy of the cult novel and head to one of Australia’s secret beaches instead.

Cast Away, 2000

Rewind to the year 2000 when Tom Hanks was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his work on Cast Away. His straggly beard almost stole the show and could have won an Oscar for Best Supporting Role. But we’re not in pursuit of the hirsute here. We’re about packing our bags and heading to the remote islands of Fiji to try and channel some of those barefoot castaway vibes (minus the starvation and Survivor vibes) on Castaway Island. BYO volleyball. It’s just one of the many Fijian resorts Aussies need to know about.