Feature films made in Seattle often use the waterfront to reinforce the setting — and in some cases even go so far as to show the waterfront beneath the film’s title. Here are three films that did just that: “The Slender Thread” (1965), “Singles” (1992) and “10 Things I Hate About You” (1999). (Main photo Clay Eals, with three superimposed screen shots)
Cover-story package published in Seattle Times online on July 12, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on July 13, 20255
Cinema with a Splash
How to visually anchor a feature film in Seattle?
Just add … water!
By Clay Eals
Cop chases. Car crashes. Romantic courtships and heartbreaks. Social struggles. Political paranoia. Ethical quandaries. Campy comedy. And star power, from John Wayne, Sidney Poitier and Tom Hanks to Angelina Jolie, Ann-Margret and Zoe Kravitz.
They’ve all arrived on the theater screen via our downtown waterfront.
The cover of Pacific NW magazine of The Seattle Times, July 13, 2025, featuring the opening scene of “The Parallax View“ (1974) atop the Space Needle with the harbor in the background. (Boo Billstein design)
If you love movies, you likely cherish those made in Seattle. They provide a trove of locales for keen eyes to discover and celebrate. Online sources, including one at the City of Seattle, identify movies made here, in whole or in part — 217 at last count — furnishing us a seemingly boundless treasure hunt.
Ever since the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair drew global eyes to our city— and then livability surveys and the fast-rising tech, coffee and pro-sports industries branded us as hip — commercial filmmakers increasingly have flocked here.
How have they visually cued our geographic identity? By showing the Space Needle, no surprise. But the waterfront is a close second.
So close, in fact, that it’s the rare snippet of the Needle that doesn’t also take in Elliott Bay and its skyline, Alaskan Way and its former double-deck viaduct, or the Port of Seattle’s piers, containers and cranes, not to leave out the greenbelted West Seattle peninsula that shapes our captivating harbor. These optical clues instantly assure and excite us that we’re settling into cinematic Seattle.
Harrison Ford (likely a stunt double) drives northbound on the Alaskan Way Viaduct (bottom of frame) to work ostensibly in downtown Seattle, in “Firewall” (2006).
Of course, not all Seattle-made films show our shore. Likewise, many purporting to take place in Seattle are filmed more conveniently and cheaply elsewhere. (Movies like the otherwise effective 2006 Harrison Ford tech thriller “Firewall,” which inserts a fake Space Needle through an office window, are notorious.)
Still, of the movies that were actually made here, 109 depict our waterfront. Of those, 68 throw in a fleeting establishing shot or two, but the remaining 41 — prominent and obscure — boast shoreline scenes of memorable magic. By diving into physical media and online streaming, we can enjoy most of them.
To start this celluloid montage: the movie touted as the first feature film made here, almost a century ago.
June 14, 1970, Seattle Times, p124.
In the depth of the Depression, “Tugboat Annie” (1933) reflects an era 30 years before the Space Needle when the waterfront was primarily a gritty shipping and transportation hub, not the glossy tourist attraction we know today. Playing the title role was Marie Dressler, reteamed with Wallace Beery from the film that won her a best-actress Oscar two years prior, “Min and Bill.”
In this screen shot, he tugboat Narcissus (the real-life Arthur Foss) rams a Mosquito Fleet ferry in Elliott Bay, with the Seattle Tower (left) and Exchange Building in the background.
Their hardworking characters inhabit the city’s margins, and they’re a big-hearted duo. But an equal star is Seattle (renamed “Secoma”), where their soot-spouting tug competes for maritime business and, in an alarming highlight, inadvertently rams a Mosquito Fleet ferry in the middle of Elliott Bay, in clear sight of the skyline’s nearly new Seattle Tower (1929) and Exchange Building (1930).
The more eye-catching city symbol of the era, the Smith Tower, built nearly 20 years prior, escaped camera range during the tug’s T-bone crash. But the beloved triangle-topped landmark (tallest building on the West Coast until the Space Needle) garnered a momentary Hollywood nod during World War II in the poignant Bob Cummings-Lizabeth Scott romance “You Came Along” (1945).
The Smith Tower (1914) stands out in this screen shot from a five-second view of the waterfront and skyline in the World War II melodrama “You Came Along” (1945).
Therein, Cummings and two other Navy buddies on a nationwide bond-selling tour hop a plane for a half-dozen stops, including Seattle. Five seconds of aerial footage hovers above our downtown piers, backed by the conspicuous Smith Tower.
Perhaps curiously, no other feature films were made in Seattle through the 1950s. But change was in the wind — from a commanding lookout.
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Opening Seattle to enduring stardom was (thankyouverymuch) the formerly rebellious face of rock ’n roll, Elvis Presley.
At the time, his “It Happened at the World’s Fair” (1963) was merely another in a string of non-threatening, sentimental vehicles that reshaped his persona through the decade. Happily, much of the movie was filmed at the 1962 fairgrounds, whose futuristic rides, exhibits and buildings — especially the soaring Space Needle — snared ubiquitous media coverage and captured countless imaginations, pushing Seattle to the metropolitan big time. So Elvis simply had to visit the Needle’s top.
The breadth of the Seattle harbor is seen in the painted backdrop of this panoramic screen shot from “It Happened at the World’s Fair” (1963). Note the oversized Mount Rainier!
In the finished product, after a meal at dusk in the tower’s rotating restaurant, while transfixed patrons gawk and then applaud, we see The King croon “I’m Falling in Love Tonight” to Joan O’Brien, which naturally leads to a kiss, from a window table overlooking the twinkling harbor. But the restaurant is a Hollywood set, and the waterfront and environs a meticulously painted backdrop. (In real life, Mount Rainier never looked so massive.)
The camera crew of “The Slender Thread” (1965) is perched in a rowboat at Shilshole Bay Marina during a short sequence. Sydney Pollack, director, dippled his hand in the water as he told Greg Jarvis, 13, to tow the miniature sailboat back slowly. Greg, a student at Nathan Eckstein Junior High School, played a role in the movie. At the film’s outset, the downtown waterfront appers beneath the title. (Seattle Times archive)
In contrast, soon after Elvis’ fling at the fair came a psychological nail-biter called “The Slender Thread” (1965). Climbing higher into the Seattle air, its breathtaking five-minute opener floats above the city, gently dropping to a trio of tableaus to introduce scarred characters played by recent Oscar-winners Anne Bancroft and Sidney Poitier, along with Steven Hill, later of TV’s “Law and Order.”
Opening title over skyline and waterfront for a psychological thriller, “The Slender Thread” (1965)
Beneath the title and credits, the graceful aerial encompasses the Needle, downtown, unfinished Interstate 5 and — deceptively serene for the coming cerebral cliffhanger — the waterfront. Not so placid, however, were the forthcoming years of filmmaking.
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More and more, movies reflected the cultural fascination with Seattle, initially with action:
From his high-rise hotel room with a view to the harbor and West Seattle, ace pickpocket Harry (James Coburn) gives the eye to his attractive protege (off camera), played by Trish Van Devere, in this screen shot from “Harry in Your Pocket” (1973).Soon afterward, near the viaduct and waterfront, Van Devere argues with Michael Sarrazin, also a pickpocket trainee.Michael Sarrazin, left, plays a novice pickpocket in Union Station in “Harry in Your Pocket” (1973), also starring James Coburn, Trish Van Devere and Walter Pidgeon. In strategy sessions in a high-rise hotel, outside the windows the waterfront sparkled. (United Artists Corporation)Richard Harris as Harry Crown points a gun in a gang war on the waterfront in “99 and 44/100% Dead” (1974).A car bursts into flames as it catapults into the Duwamish East Waterway in this screen shot from the gang-war film “99 and 44/100% Dead” (1974).
A quartet of pickpockets led by James Coburn risks peril while stalking our street and harbor milieu in “Harry in Your Pocket” (1973). Then Richard Harris ignites gang-war chases and shoot-outs amid south-shoreline containers and cranes, and a flaming car catapults into the Duwamish East Waterway in “99 and 44/100% Dead” (1974).
John Wayne’s starring credit appears above a scene of a bad guy driving east on Spokane Street with south-harbor container cranes and downtown skyline in the background in “McQ” (1974).(From left) John Wayne stars with Eddie Albert and Julian Christopher in the rogue-cop film “McQ” (1974). (Warner Bros. Inc.)
As a rogue cop, predictably stern John Wayne (a stunt double in long shots) speeds along the waterfront in “McQ” (1974), while similarly independent officer Connie Stevens commandeers a souped-up sandrail vehicle to Alaskan Way for much the same before a jump in the bay in the campy “Scorchy” (1976). How the “Scorchy” bad guys climbed to the top of the Edgewater Inn and arrived 13 piers south on the roof of Ivar’s Acres of Clams is an insider gaffe reserved for Seattleites.
Atop Pier 54 and with the viaduct behind her, Connie Stevens, playing unorthodox cop Jackie Parker, calls for help in this screen shot from “Scorchy” (1976).
The drama of danger rose to unparalleled tension in the startling opener of “The Parallax View” (1974). High above a busy, oblivious downtown and harbor, stuntman Chuck Waters, standing in for a politician’s assassin in the film, is chased around the Space Needle’s saucer-shaped dome (!) before tumbling into the urban abyss (actually a plywood platform).
An assassin — stuntman Chuck Waters in red shirt — tries to elude captors atop the Space Needle with the waterfront below in this lobby card from “The Parallax View” (1974).James Caan as a Navy sailor who doesn’t know how long his shore leave will last, stands at a Harbor Island dock in this screen shot while the film title is superimposed and Mount Rainier appears in the distance in “Cinderella Liberty” (1973).James Caan, playing a Navy sailor, and Marsha Mason, playing a sex worker, and Kirk Calloway, playing her son, ride a Space Needle-backed ferry in “Cinderella Liberty” (1973).
Only a notch less anxious were films about relationships. In “Cinderella Liberty” (1973), a strained future is at stake for James Caan as a Navy sailor on indefinite shore leave who courts Marsha Mason, first-time Oscar-nominated for this role, as a troubled pool shark and sex worker with an 11-year-old mixed-race son. Here, the waterfront’s then-seediness is almost a character in itself.
James Caan as a Navy sailor ponders his future while sitting at Harbor Island in this lobby card from “Cinderella Liberty” (1973).James Caan plays basketball with Kirk Calloway (left of Caan) and other boys on Harbor Island in this lobby card from “Cinderella Liberty” (1973).On Pier 56, Patty Duke walks away from Bradford Dillman, playing her wayward and critical husband, in “Before and After” (1979, TV movie).Patty Duke jogs away from Bradford Dillman along the Myrtle Edwards Park path in “Before and After“ (1979, TV movie).
In “Before and After” (1979, TV movie), the waterfront looks more inviting, even as it breeds confusion and despair for Patty Duke as a wife whose wayward husband spurns her, labeling her as overweight. But she confronts him on the Pier 56 walkway, and at the end, at Myrtle Edwards Park, jogs away in deserved triumph.
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By 1980, the Seattle-made feature-film juggernaut was chugging full steam. While 21 movies had been filmed here by then, the coming four-plus decades saw another 193, not to mention dozens of episodic TV series such as “Frasier” and “Grey’s Anatomy” that capitalized on Seattle-mania. As the waterfront broadened its trope of tourism, it bolstered films of all genres and tastes.
With the Kingdome and waterfront behind them, Ann-Margret and Gene Hackman meet illicitly in “Twice in a Lifetime” (1982).With the waterfront, skyline and a ferry behind them, Edward Furlong listens to Jeff Bridges pick on a ukulele, in this screen shot from “American Heart” (1992).
For stories of personal connection, we can witness Oscar-winner Gene Hackman meeting illicitly with nominee Ann-Margret on Beacon Hill overlooking the Kingdome and harbor, in “Twice in a Lifetime” (1985); Oscar nominee (and later winner) Jeff Bridges in a fatherly role meeting a tragic dockside demise in “American Heart” (1992); and a grunge ensemble including Bridget Fonda and later Oscar nominee Matt Dillon chasing romance while bookended by opening and closing harbor views in “Singles” (1992).
A scene from “Singles” (1992). Caption is inset. (Warner Bros. Inc., 1992)With the waterfront behind the PUBLIC MARKET sign and looking west on Pine Street, Rob Reiner inspects Tom Hanks’ “cute butt” in this screen shot from “Sleepless in Seattle” (1993).During the “Sleepless in Seattle” shoot, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan pose at a local hotel for a Polaroid taken by the film’s production designer, Jeffrey Townsend. A photo of the two facing each other was need so a silhouette could be created for a candy-box lid in a scene. (Courtesy Jeffrey Townsend)
Topping them was an irresistible blockbuster, practically a city landmark itself, the fairy tale “Sleepless in Seattle” (1993). Chided locally for an impossibly easy-to-execute putt-putt boat trip from Lake Union to Alki Beach, it also positions widower Tom Hanks and buddy Rob Reiner on a walk down Pine Street to the Pike Place Market as they discuss Hanks’ date-worthy “cute butt.” The extended shot of the PUBLIC MARKET sign endearingly sets off Elliott Bay and West Seattle, pinpointing both the spot and the city.
Tyne Daly, (left) as an unhoused person, talks with well-off Gena Rowlands in front of the Daly character’s tent at Victor Steinbrueck Park in this screen shot from “Face of a Stranger” (1991).Tyne Daly (left) receives an umbrella from Gene Rowlands in “Face of a Stranger” (1991, TV movie). The umbrella becomes part of Daly’s temporary home and symbolic of their relationship. (Courtesy Claudia Weill)
“Face of a Stranger” (1991, TV movie) employs the identical vantage to examine a social issue. Oscar nominee Gena Rowlands plays a well-off downtowner and Tyne Daly an unhoused person, both repeatedly making the same trek to Daly’s makeshift umbrella home in nearby Victor Steinbrueck Park.
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On the south waterfront near container cranes and the Duwamish East Waterway, (from left) Mike Nussbaum and Joe Mantegna argue over a missing briefcase while Lindsay Crouse watches in this screen shot from “House of Games” (1987).
The waterfront also sets the stage for other issues, as addictive psychologist (and Oscar nominee) Lindsay Crouse consorts with conman Joe Mantegna over stolen money surrounded by containers and cranes in “House of Games” (1987). Then Oscar-winner Michael Douglas ferries downtown from his innocent Bainbridge Island family refuge to confront sexual harassment and high-tech trauma, embodied by later nominee Demi Moore and Donald Sutherland, in “Disclosure” (1994).
With the waterfront as a backdrop, an anguished Michael Douglas rides a ferry (left) and, silhouetted, runs past a container crane in these screen shots from “Disclosure” (1994).In an echo of the Elvis Space Needle shot 23 years prior, Richard Gere and Kate Capshaw lunch at the Needle with the real-life waterfront below them in this screen shot from “Power” (1986).Kate Capshaw, playing Washington’s governor, telephones Richard Gere with the waterfront and West Seattle behind her in this screen shot from “Power” (1986).
Territorial views seen from both an upper-floor Sheraton hotel room and the Space Needle also undergird political ambition in “Power” (1986). Two sequences show a feisty Washington state governor, played by Kate Capshaw, entertaining brash advice from Richard Gere’s cocky but conflicted consultant.
Gesturing from the Space Needle to the harbor below, Joel David Moore, playing a Seattle City Council candidate in the comedy/drama “Grassroots” (2012), shouts to onlookers, “It’s so beautiful! This is what we need to save right here.” (Courtesy producer Matthew R. Brady)
In perhaps the most lavish display of Seattle in feature film, the raucous “Grassroots” (2012) chronicles the improbable campaign of Seattle City Council candidate and Monorail advocate Grant Cogswell, played by Joel David Moore, who also walks through town dressed as a polar bear. At one point, gesturing grandly from the Space Needle’s observation deck to the land- and seascape below, he implores onlookers, “It’s so beautiful! This is what we need to save right here.”
With the waterfront as a romantic backdrop in this screen shot from “Life or Something Like It” (2002), Angelina Jolie strolls north along the Harbor Avenue Southwest path in West Seattle. Playing a Seattle TV news reporter, she walks with Edward Burns, portraying a camera operator at her station, and Jesse Rutherford, who plays the Burns character’s son. (Courtesy Visual Icon and New Regency Enterprises)Tricia O’Kelley, as a Seattle TV weather reporter, rides a ferry leaving downtown as she considers her personal and professional future in this screen shot from “Weather Girl” (2009).
While focusing on a popular medium, let’s not forget movies about the media. With edges gentle and sharp, “Life or Something Like It” (2002) and “Weather Girl” (2009) satirize TV news while pursuing formula romance amid waterfront warmth. In the former, Oscar-winner Angelina Jolie strolls idyllically with Edward Nelson and his son along Harbor Avenue, framed by a glorious skyline. In the latter, Tricia O’Kelley contemplates her future gazing from a ferry leaving downtown.
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Hyun Bin, as a mysterious stranger, makes a call from a waterfront viewing area at Pike Place Market in these screen shots from the Korean “Phim Thu Moon” (aka “Late Autumn,” 2010).Tang Wei waits for him …… and the two eat from view seats at the Market.
Just as with Hollywood, recent years have accentuated racial diversity in Seattle-made films, with several touching on our shoreline. The Korean “Phim Thu Muon” (2010, aka “Late Autumn”) tracks the doomed pairing of a murderer temporarily paroled to Seattle for a family memorial and a Seattle gigolo who shows her the town, including water views from Pike Place Market.
Undocumented immigrants pour out from a waterfront shipping container in this screen shot from the Indonesian “Brush with Danger” (2012). (Courtesy Sun and Moon Films)With the skyline and harbor in the background, police investigate the death of an undocumented immigrant on West Seattle’s Harbor Avenue beach in this screen shot from “Brush with Danger.” (Courtesy Sun and Moon Films)
More tense and timely, “Brush with Danger” (2014) tackles the plight of undocumented Asians (the vagueness is intentional) who at night pour out from a south-waterfront shipping container. Police probe the death of one whose body is found in view of downtown on the Harbor Avenue beach, while an inventive brother and sister use skills in martial arts and painting to survive a malevolent benefactor. The film was written, produced and directed by its two stars, the Indonesian sister-brother team of Livi and Ken Zheng. Livi is a University of Washington graduate.
Involved in a murder investigation, Anushka Shetty, playing a deaf mute who communicates in person partly with her phone, meets with Anthony Gonsalves on the waterfront in this screen shot from the Indian Bollywood film “Nishabdham” (aka “Silence,” 2020).
Uneasiness also pervades “Nishabdham” (aka “Silence,” 2020), from India, billed as the first Bollywood movie made in the United States. Its three lead actors, Anjali, Anthony Gonsalves and, playing a deaf mute, Anushka Shetty, are enmeshed in a Seattle murder investigation, and a crucial scene spotlights a recently added harbor attraction, the Great Wheel.
A masked and nearly frantic Zoe Kravitz checks her phone as she races around the north waterfront, including the Thomas Street bridge (Seattle Post-Intelligencer globe in background) in this screen shot from the tech thriller “Kimi” (2022).Meanwhile the two bad guys meet a half mile northwest …… on the Helix pedestrian bridge in sight of the Pier 86 Grain Terminal, in these screen shots from “Kimi” (2022).
Murder figures, too, in a mashup of COVID masking and tech excess in “Kimi” (2022). Working for a Siri-like firm, anxious Zoe Kravitz hears a recording of the crime and tries to solve it. She races around the north waterfront, including over the Thomas Street overpass with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer globe in view, while corporate bad guys meet a half-mile northwest on the Helix pedestrian bridge, the Pier 86 Grain Terminal a looming touchstone.
Between scenes on “Kimi” (2022). Caption embedded. (Ken Lambert, The Seattle Times, 2021)
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Seemingly endless, this compendium overflows with local riches. (See the searchable database that accompanies this story.) And surely the list will grow. Some visionary filmmaker is likely pondering the panoramic potential of the transformational Overlook Walk. And one day soon, we’ll sit in a theater (one can hope) and welcome the first notable made-in-Seattle film to showcase our expansively reborn harbor.
Scroll down to see alternate waterfront scenes and tidbits from films mentioned above and other made-in-Seattle waterfront movies not mentioned above!
Lobby card for “You Came Along” (1945).Sheet-music cover for “You Came Along” from film of same name (1945).Screen shot from Space Needle restaurant scene of “It Happened at the World’s Fair” (1963).Screen shot from Space Needle restaurant scene of “It Happened at the World’s Fair” (1963). Notice how quickly the scene has changed from afternoon to dusk. Long meal!… and the kiss!One last image — a vertical promo photo in black-and-white. Gotta love that big painted hill.With West Seattle behind him, from a downtown pier Richard Harris points a gun, in this VHS cover from the gang-war film “99 and 44/100% Dead” (1974).Connie Stevens, as Seattle cop Jackie Parker, confronts a bad guy atop Pier 54 in this screen shot from “Scorchy” (1976).Connie Stevens, as Seattle cop Jackie Parker, confronts the same guy in Gas Works Park, with Lake Union and the skyline as a backdrop in this screen shot from the final scene of “Scorchy” (1976). Note the campy slogan and racy image also used in the film’s posters: “She’s killed a man, been shot at and made love twice already this evening … and the evening isn’t over yet!”On Pier 56 with West Seattle in the background, Patty Duke absorbs difficult knowledge about her marriage, in this promo photo from “Before and After“ (1979).On the south-side waterfront, Richard Crenna prepares to deck a bad guy, in this screen shot from “The Rape of Richard Beck” (1985).Briefcase in hand, Kris Kristofferson gets off a bus on Alaskan Way with the viaduct in the background, in this screen shot from “Trouble in Mind” (1985).A car flies off the Bell Street Pier, with the viaduct in the background, into Elliott Bay …… and its occupants — (from left) Malcolm McDowell, Pam Grier and Patrick Kilpatrick — somehow quickly have swum all the way across the bay to emerge at the Harbor Avenue beach in West Seattle, in these screen shots from the sci-fi film “Class of 1999” (1990).Director Claudia Weill (left) guides actor Gena Rowlands on the set of “Face of a Stranger” (1991, TV movie). (Courtesy Claudia Weill)With the waterfront and Magnolia in the background, River Phoenix runs up Galer Street on west Queen Anne Hill in this screen shot from “My Private Idaho” (1991).The waterfront and West Seattle peninsula frame Rebecca DeMornay in a high-rise lawyer’s office downtown in this screen shot from the thriller “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” (1992).Opening title over nighttime waterfront and skyline, in this screen shot from “Singles” (1992).The skyline and waterfront of Seattle emerge in this aerial focusing on a garden-court apartment building in the foreground and pulling up to a panoramic ending shot, in this screen shot from “Singles” (1992).Opening title over skyline and waterfront, in this screen shot from “10 Things I Hate About You” (1999).In Victor Steinbrueck Park with Elliott Bay in the background, Timothy Olyphant (right) reconnects with Mark Wahlberg, in this screen shot from the end of “Rock Star” (2001).With Elliott Bay and a ferry behind her, Naomi Watts, playing a skeptical Seattle Post-Intleligencer reporter, ponders a fearful dilemma, in this screen shot from “The Ring” (2002).Dee Wallace points our a “red zone” near the waterfront, indicating a convergence of milk-truck routes that portends possible death for her soon-to-be 25-year-old son, in this screen shot from the unorthodox romantic comedy “Expiration Date” (2006). The movie makes repeated use of the Space Needle but mostly explores areas of the city not usually shown in feature films.In this screen shot, “Cthulhu” (2007) opens with a dawn scene panning from the viaduct to a west-facing view of the waterfront.Motivational speaker Aaron Eckhart enters Seattle in taxi with containers behind him in windows and waterfront from south as taxi crosses West Seattle Bridge, in these screen shots from “Love Happens” (2009).Motivational speaker Aaron Eckhart (above left) ponders turmoil over his deceased wife from the Space Needle at night as camera pulls out to reveal harbor, in these screen shots from “Love Happens” (2009).With the viaduct and waterfront behind her, reporter Toni Collette waves goodbye in Pioneer Square before boarding a bus, in this screen show from “Lucky Them” (2013).With Duwamish Head at rear, youths run the beach at West Seattle’s Jack Block Park, in this screen shot from “4 Minute Mile” (2014).With Magnolia in the distance, would-be runner Kelly Blatz eyes the downtown waterfront from West Seattle’s Jack Block Park, in this screen shot from “4 Minute Mile” (2014).From West Seattle’s Jack Block Park, would-be runner Kelly Blatz eyes the downtown waterfront, in this screen shot from “4 Minute Mile“ (2014).With the viaduct, waterfront and downtown close by, a Kung Fu martial-arts clash on a SoDo rooftop constitutes the climactic scene in this screen shot from “The Paper Tigers” (2020).
