10 Movies Starring the Original World Trade Center

April 4, 1973 (50 years ago today) marked the official opening of Tower 2 of the World Trade Center (RIP). As I mentioned here, the first place I ever took note of the WTC (as a kid a couple of hundred miles from New York City) was in the opening credit sequence to Barney Miller. But while they stood, the Twin Towers starred in over 1,000 movies, as chronicled on this lovingly tended website. I thought I would pick out 10 notable ones to highlight for this important if somber benchmark.

Serpico (1973)

All of the gritty NYC crime dramas in the early ’70s have incidental shots of the WTC, mostly when it was still going up. This shot from Serpico is particularly eye-catching for it shows how the buildings were almost like natural features, like the mountains in the distance when you’re in Seattle. You could see them from just about everywhere.

Three Days of the Condor (1975)

The WTC is an actual location in this Sydney Pollack/Robert Redford thriller, and there’s a zillion good shots of the complex, inside and out. My heart especially leaps at the shots of the lobby because, unless you worked there, you were only inside the building a few times in your life (as compared to the thousands of times you saw the outsides). That’s the thing I wish I could do again the most — go inside. (When I lived in Jersey my commute took me through the lower level concourse daily for years. Only a few times did errands or appointments take me into the ground floor lobbies).

King Kong (1976) It was a stroke of genius transplanting the climax to the ’76 remake of King Kongfrom the Empire State Building to the World Trade Center. Honorable mention goes to the 1998 remake of Godzilla, which includes some shots in at as well.

Superman: The Movie (1978)

It’s almost like people were remaking movies simply just so they could include the new World Trade Center! In Superman, the Man of Steel takes us to a perspective only helicopters got in real life (although I once got real close to it from the top of the Woolworth Building.)

Escape from New York (1981)

I’ve never been a huge fan of John Carpenter’s dystopian sci-fi action movie, but as a fan of the World Trade Center, I do enjoy the climax that is set there (even though those scenes of people taking the stairs all the way to the top at a run were proven tragically fanciful two decades later).

Trading Places (1982)

Most of this John Landis comedy starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy is set at the New York Stock Exchange and elsewhere, but the main characters do enter the WTC (just a couple of blocks away) in one scene.

The Squeeze (1987)

I know nothing about this Michael Keaton comedy except I saw this poster and it blew my mind. It was the genesis of this post.

Working Girl (1988)

Melanie Griffith’s character works in lower Manhattan in this Mike Nichols rom-com. The lobby scenes were shot in 7 World Trade Center, which was destroyed on Sept 11.

Gangs of New York (2002)

Scorsese’s adaptation of the Herbert Asbury classic is a mess, but that final shot puts a lump in my throat every time. Best thing about the movie. And as he knows so well, it’s what only movies can do — put things BACK.

Man on Wire (2008)

Terrific doc about Philippe Petit’s historic 1974 wire walk between the towers, featuring my good friend Jim Moore, who was there and helped facilitate and record the event as it happened! The event was later dramatized by Robert Zemeckis in his 2015 movie The Walk.

Anyway, thanks to cinema: gone, but not forgotten. For a thousand more movies that feature the World Trade Center (pre 9/11) go here.