Not only have numerous British stars made their homes in the north London neighbourhood but Hollywood icons such as Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and Renee Zellweger have shot movies in the area.
Locals have got used to film crews cordoning off locations such as Flask Walk for a dramatic scene.
Here are some of the best‑known films that have featured Hampstead and the Heath as a location – with the chance to follow in the footsteps of the movie greats.
Hampstead (2017) starring Diane Keaton and Brendan Gleeson
As the name suggests the rom‑com is set in the area and is based on the true story of Hampstead hermit Harry Hallowes who won squatting rights to a patch of the Heath.
The film imagines his fictional romance with an American played by Keaton and features her character Emily cycling around her new neighbourhood, shopping in the boutiques of Hampstead High Street and Flask Walk, with establishing shots along Flask Walk, Holly Bush Passage and Church Row.
Notting Hill (1999) starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts
Although the main action took place around Portobello Road, one key scene in the Richard Curtis movie was shot against a backdrop of 18th century mansion Kenwood House.
Julia Roberts’ character Anna Scott is filming a costume drama and Grant’s character William Thacker pays her an awkward visit. Such was the popularity of the film that the English Heritage property got a considerable boost from visitors after it came out.
An American Werewolf in London (1981) starring John Woodvine and Jenny Agutter
John Landis’ comedy horror sees a pair of American backpackers attacked on the north York moors with one killed and the other bitten and cursed. Back in London David Naughton’s character transforms into the beast and goes hunting on Hampstead Heath before waking up naked in the wolf enclosure at London Zoo.
The Edwardian red-brick mansion block, where a posh couple unwisely decide to give their friends a surprise by sneaking around to the rear is The Pryors in East Heath Road and the park onto which the property backs are the woods on the southwest edge of the Heath.
Allied (2016) starring Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard
In Robert Zemeckis’s wartime thriller, Brad Pitt plays a Canadian intelligence officer who falls in love with Marion Cotillard’s French Resistance fighter while posing as a married couple.
Fans of Pitt were delighted to spot him dressed in soldier’s uniform while filming at the corner of Christchurch Hill and Willow Road in March 2016. The production took over the London street where the family home was set – before moving on to film on Hampstead Heath.
Bridget Jones’s Diary: Mad About the Boy (2025) starring Renee Zellweger and Leo Woodall
The fourth Bridget Jones film made liberal use of Hampstead village streets and locations including Flask Walk and the Heath.
In one scene Bridget buys her daughter Mabel a hot chocolate on a snowy winter’s day on a narrow, cobbled street that involved dressing Flask Walk with fake snow. Later she and new squeeze Roxster played by Woodall have an intimate dinner at a tiny French restaurant – the now closed La Cage Imaginaire on Flask Walk.
The Flask pub, Hampstead High Street was also used as a location as was a house in The Vale of Health that stood in for Bridget’s home.
And Hampstead Heath where Roxster works as a park ranger also starred including Bridget flying a kite with her children on Parliament Hill and getting stuck up a tree in Parliament Hill Fields. Finally ‘Galsworthy House School’ where the no-nonsense science teacher Mr Walliker played by Chiwetel Ejiofor works is Christchurch Primary School.
Scenes of a Sexual Nature (2006) starring Ewan McGregor and Hugh Bonneville
This indie movie was shot entirely on Hampstead Heath with locations including Parliament Hill Fields, the grounds of Kenwood House and the famous bathing ponds which were used as a backdrop for Ewan McGregor’s character.
101 Dalmatians (1996) starring Glenn Close and Jeff Daniels
Sarum Chase on West Heath Road stands in for dog snatcher Cruella De Vil’s (Glenn Close) grand neo‑Tudor mansion. Located opposite the wilds of West Heath, the house it was described by architectural historian Nikolas Pevsner as “unashamed Hollywood Tudor” and was built in 1932 for the painter Francis Owen Salisbury most famous for his White House portrait of Franklin D Roosevelt. In June 1968 the house was used for a Rolling Stones photo session for their Beggars Banquet album.
