Old Westbury Gardens named among top U.S. spots for romance films

The movie experts at Giggster combed through the data and have revealed a list of U.S. locations most featured in romantic movies.

And, it would seem, one well-known Long Island location has certainly played its part in romance on the big screen.

Old Westbury Gardens — the former estate of businessman John Shaffer Phipps — has featured in nine romantic movies, according to the experts, including Cruel Intentions (1999) and Hitch (2005).

Of course, there was American Gangster (2007), but that’s not a romance movie by any stretch.

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The sprawling estate at 71 Old Westbury Road, which was tied for 8th on the Giggster list with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was converted into a museum for public enjoyment back in 1959.

Using the US Census Bureau, Giggster gathered data on the 50 most populated cities in the U.S. as of 2023, according to the company

To determine the number of romantic movies in each city, they used IMDb.

Then, “using the advanced title search, we filtered each movie by location (city) and genre by romance.”

These figures exclude documentaries and short films. The data was collected on Dec. 20, 2024. 

As for the rest of the list (below), Central Park clocked in at No. 1, and by far, with 134 “iconic romcoms” shot there, according to Giggster, which serves as a broker between filmmakers and locales to rent.

Romantic movies filmed at Central Park include When Harry Met Sally (1989) and 27 Dresses (2008).

Credit: Old Westbury Gardens on Facebook