Face it, some movies just don't have the time, budget, or teamster tolerance levels to actually shoot their New York-set movies in New York. So what do they do? They hike up to the Great White North and fake it.  I ♥ NY, Eh?



Escape From New York
Movie Location: Manhattan, New York
Actual Location: East St. Louis, Missouri
What does this say about your town? Actual New York was deemed not shitty enough to convincingly portray a near-future hellhole turned into a giant prison, so John Carpenter had to find his perfect dystopia in East St. Louis. The only part of the movie actually filmed in N.Y. was a two-second shot showing a police helicopter whizzing by the Statue of Liberty.



Punisher War Zone
Movie Location: Manhattan, New York
Actual Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
OK, so they shot mostly in alleys and dark buildings to disguise the fact that they weren't actually shooting in Frank Castle's comic book stomping grounds, but, hey, even Montreal beats the hell out of Tampa, Florida. Seriously, makers of the Thomas Jane debacle, what were you thinking?



Rumble in the Bronx
Movie Location: The Bronx, New York
Actual Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Now, we've been to the Bronx several times and, we might be wrong about this, but we've never seen giant lakes surrounded by snow-capped mountains off Jerome Ave. Unless there's a Bronx, British Columbia we aren't aware of…



Eyes Wide Shut
Movie Location: Manhattan, New York; Long Island, New York
Actual Location: London, England
Notoriously detail-oriented director Stanley Kubrick was suddenly fine with the idea of tackling a film set entirely in the state of New York with no plans to leave England. So he carefully recreated Manhattan streets and passed off English country mansions as Long Island estates. With all that money spent, is it any wonder the score consisted of one note played 8,000 times?



The Freshman
Movie Location: Manhattan, New York; New Jersey
Actual Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Although there are some legit NY locations spread throughout The Freshman, a large chunk—including nearly all the Jersey scenes—were filmed in and around Canada's New York. When Matthew Broderick and Frank Whaley lose the komodo dragon in the "Jersey" mall, you can clearly see a sign identifying the location as the Woodbine Center just outside of Toronto.



X-Men
Movie Location: Upstate New York
Actual Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
The Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, we are told, is located in upstate New York (which would explain how quickly the X-Men can rocket down to Ellis Island). Too bad the actual location of the Xavier Institute's main building is in Toronto—specifically, the city's Casa Loma Historical Site.



The Incredible Hulk
Movie Location: Harlem, New York
Actual Location: Ontario, Canada
Wondering why the climactic smackdown between Hulk and Abomination looks like the boss level of a video game more than the actual streets of Harlem? It's because that Apollo Theater was created in some Canadian techie's computer, not actually photographed.



Watchmen
Movie Location: Manhattan, New York
Actual Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Hiding behind the "set in an alternate universe" shield, the makers of Watchmen turned aside any notion of filming in real Manhattan. Instead, they build entire city blocks in a huge acreage just outside of Vancouver. Also not real? Dr. Manhattan's penis.