Holder Hall, Princeton, in October 2006: the Collegiate Gothic quad where the film shot its Princeton scenes. Photo by Peter Dutton. Peter Dutton from Forest Hills, Queens, USA · CC BY 2.0
Russell Crowe in Washington, D.C., in November 1999, a year before A Beautiful Mind was shot. No free photograph of him from 2001 has turned up. Photo by John Mathew Smith (celebrity-photos.com). John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com · CC BY-SA 2.0Russell Crowe · Nash · 1999Photograph withheld pending rights reviewJohn Nash himself · 1951Jennifer Connelly in New York in June 2005 (cropped), three years after her Oscar for the film. No free photograph of her from 2001 or 2002 has turned up. Photo by Alejandro. Alejandro from New York, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0Jennifer Connelly · Alicia · 2005
Princeton, New Jersey and New York · shot in 2001 · Holder Hall behind
A Beautiful Mind
ABCDEFGH
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
A film made like a game: the story needed a Princeton, a Pentagon, an MIT, a Harvard and a Stockholm, and the shoot offered buildings within reach of New York. Tap a square.
Pick any square: a setting the story needs, against a building the shoot can offer. Play the full table
Non-cooperative games · Princeton, 1950
Equilibrium.
Nash’s 28-page thesis described a point where no player gains by changing their choice alone. Play it with the film. Down the side is what the story needs; along the top, what the shoot could offer. Pick a square, then let one side make its best reply. Where neither would move, you have found an equilibrium, and a real place.
story ↓ / shoot →AFlorhamBGouldCKeatingDNJPACEHolderFAlderGGrand StHManhattan
1Princeton
2The Pentagon
3MIT
4The drop
5The house
6The ball
7Harvard
8Stockholm
Pick any square: a setting the story needs, against a building the shoot can offer.
0 of 8 equilibria found
1 Princeton
2 The Pentagon
3 MIT
4 The drop
5 The house
6 The ball
7 Harvard
8 Stockholm
A Florham, Fairleigh Dickinson University
B Gould Memorial Library
C Keating Hall, Fordham University
D Prudential Hall, NJPAC
E Holder Hall
F Alder Manor
G The Nash house, Grand Street
H Manhattan College
A coordination game: it has eight pure equilibria, one for each setting, and a best reply from any square reaches one in a single move.
Where we read it
Nash’s 28-page dissertation on non-cooperative games, 1950.
Holder Hall from below, November 2019. Photo by Daderot. Daderot · CC0
Princeton · spring 2001
Three visits.
The film was shot largely in story order, so the crew came to Princeton three separate times. On 27 March 2001 a junior, Meredith Rugani, photographed Russell Crowe and Ron Howard crossing a courtyard from a window in 1901 Hall; Crowe looked up and made a rude gesture, and the picture, sold to a Trentonian reporter, set off a tabloid frenzy. The location manager, Lyn Pinezich, remembers him on his best behaviour, signing a student’s videotapes during a dormitory shoot.
Where we read it
27 March 2001, the 1901 Hall window, the Trentonian, Lyn Pinezich and the videotapes.
Holder Hall, Princeton, in October 2006: the Collegiate Gothic quad where the film shot its Princeton scenes. Photo by Peter Dutton. Peter Dutton from Forest Hills, Queens, USA · CC BY 2.0
Holder Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
Holder Hall
Princeton scenes were filmed at Holder Hall, on three separate visits.
Holder Hall belongs to Rockefeller College; its common room, Holder Hall itself and Blair Arch all appear in the film.
The film was shot about 90% in story order, which is why the crew came back to Princeton three times.
A student dormitory. Its courtyards are on the open campus, which visitors are welcome to walk; the rooms are not open.
Where we read it
Nassau Inn
Nassau Inn, Princeton
Princeton · Singles, kings, twins and suites
An inn on Palmer Square in downtown Princeton, established in 1756, a short walk from the campus gates. Rooms range from singles to suites; book through the inn’s own site.
Blair Arch at Princeton, November 2025. Photo by Julian Lupyan. Julian Lupyan · CC0
Blair Arch, University Place, Princeton, New Jersey
Blair Arch
Blair Arch appears in the film.
The arch adjoins Buyers Hall but technically belongs to Mathey College.
An open archway on the campus’s western edge, at the top of the steps from University Place.
Where we read itMcCosh Hall, June 2015, where auditions were held for the film’s extras. Photo by David Keddie. David Keddie · CC BY-SA 4.0
McCosh Walk, Princeton University, New Jersey
McCosh Hall
Auditions to fill the roles of 3,000 extras were held in McCosh Hall.
A working lecture building. See it from McCosh Walk.
Where we read it
Princeton University
Princeton campus history tour
Princeton · Register in advance
A student-led walk through the campus’s history since 1756, its architecture included. Registration is required and space is limited; there is also a self-guided tour by smartphone.
Inside the dome of Gould Memorial Library, October 2017. Photo by Professorcornbread. Professorcornbread · CC BY-SA 4.0
The Bronx · Riverdale · Morningside Heights · Yonkers
Stand-ins.
Not one of the film’s other universities was filmed where it says it is. MIT is a Stanford White dome in the Bronx. Harvard is Riverdale: Harvard has turned most film crews away since Love Story damaged its trees in 1970. The Pentagon office is a Fordham hall.
plays The Pentagon
Keating Hall with the Cunniffe Fountain, Fordham, March 2017. Photo by Indefatigable2. Indefatigable2 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Rose Hill campus, 441 East Fordham Road, the Bronx
Keating Hall, Fordham University
The aerial shot of the Pentagon is real; the Pentagon office is Keating Hall.
Keating’s basement was a filming location for A Beautiful Mind, as it had been for The Exorcist.
The Collegiate Gothic hall was finished in 1936 and still houses the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
A working university building on Fordham’s Rose Hill campus.
Where we read it
plays MIT, and the hospital
The Hall of Fame colonnade looking towards Gould Memorial Library, Bronx Community College, November 2015. Photo by Bestbudbrian. Bestbudbrian · CC BY-SA 4.0
Bronx Community College, University Heights, the Bronx
Gould Memorial Library
The film’s MIT Great Dome is the Gould Memorial Library, and the college was also used as the hospital.
The MIT scenes were filmed at Bronx Community College because of the film’s budget.
Stanford White designed the library; it was built between 1895 and 1898, with a copper dome and an oculus at its centre.
On the Bronx Community College campus, behind the Hall of Fame for Great Americans colonnade.
Where we read it
plays Harvard
The quad at Manhattan College, Riverdale, August 2012. Photo by Trollness. Trollness · CC BY-SA 4.0
4513 Manhattan College Parkway, Riverdale, the Bronx
Manhattan College
Manhattan College stood in for Harvard.
Harvard has turned down most filming requests since Love Story (1970), which damaged trees on its campus.
The college was founded in 1853 and moved to Riverdale in 1922.
A working campus in residential Riverdale; the north campus looks over Van Cortlandt Park.
Where we read it
plays More college scenes
Union Theological Seminary at Broadway and West 120th Street, December 2010. Photo by David Merrett. David Merrett · CC BY 2.0
3041 Broadway at West 120th Street, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
Union Theological Seminary
The seminary supplied further college scenes.
Its English Gothic buildings, by Allen & Collens, were completed in 1910; the tower adapts the crossing tower of Durham Cathedral.
A working seminary. See its towers from Broadway and Claremont Avenue.
Where we read it
plays The drop
Alder Manor (the W. B. Thompson Mansion), Yonkers, February 2009. Photo by Daniel Case. Daniel Case · CC BY-SA 3.0
1061 North Broadway, Greystone, Yonkers, New York
Alder Manor
Alder Manor is the mansion where Nash leaves his code-breaking results.
Carrère and Hastings designed it for the mining financier William Boyce Thompson; it is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Tara Circle, an Irish American cultural group, holds events and hires the house out for weddings and filming to pay for its restoration.
Set back 600 feet from North Broadway on a bluff above the Hudson. It opens for occasional events and hires.
Where we read it
The ceiling of Prudential Hall, January 2025. Photo by Staniulis. Staniulis · CC0
Newark · Madison · Jersey City · Bayonne
Stockholm is Newark.
The Nobel ceremony is Prudential Hall; the governor’s ball is a Vanderbilt ballroom in Madison; home is a street in Paulus Hook; and the sets stood on an old army pier in Bayonne that has since been cleared.
plays Stockholm
The New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, March 2022. Photo by Kenneth C. Zirkel. Kenneth C. Zirkel · CC BY-SA 4.0
1 Center Street, Newark, New Jersey
Prudential Hall, NJPAC
Nash receives his Nobel Prize in Prudential Hall.
Prudential Hall seats 2,800 in four horseshoe tiers. The arts centre opened in October 1997.
In life, Nash gave no acceptance speech for his Nobel Prize.
A working concert hall. Book a seat for anything on the main stage.
Where we read it
plays The governor’s ball
The mansion at Florham, Fairleigh Dickinson University, May 2017. Photo by Trinitarian Creek. Trinitarian Creek · CC BY-SA 4.0
285 Madison Avenue, Madison and Florham Park, New Jersey
Florham, Fairleigh Dickinson University
The governor’s ball was filmed in Lenfell Hall of the Florham mansion.
Two night shots were done in the Vanderbilt mansion ballroom on the Fairleigh Dickinson campus.
McKim, Mead & White built Florham between 1893 and 1899 for Florence Vanderbilt and Hamilton Twombly; the name joins their first names.
A university campus. The mansion is a working college building; see it from the campus drives.
Where we read it
plays The Nash house
Paulus Hook, Jersey City: Essex Street looking east in 2006. The Nashes’ film house is a private home in this neighbourhood and is not shown. Photo by A1% (public domain). A1% at English Wikipedia · Public domain
Grand Street, Paulus Hook, Jersey City, New Jersey
The Nash house, Grand Street
The house of John and Alicia Nash in the film is on Grand Street at Washington Street, in Paulus Hook, Jersey City.
Paulus Hook is a waterfront neighbourhood about a mile across the Hudson from Manhattan; Washington Street is its main street.
A private home. It is not numbered or pinned here, and the photograph shows a nearby Paulus Hook street, not the house.
Where we read it
plays The stages
Warehouses at the former Military Ocean Terminal, Bayonne, July 2010. The terminal’s last buildings were demolished in 2021. Photo by Jim Henderson. Jim.henderson · CC0
Former Military Ocean Terminal, Bayonne, New Jersey
The Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor
Studio filming took place at the former Military Ocean Terminal, now the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor.
The terminal closed in 1999; its last two buildings were demolished in August 2021 for a distribution hub.
A 9/11 memorial, the Tear of Grief, and the cruise port stand at the end of the long pier.
The pier is being redeveloped. The Hudson River Waterfront Walkway runs round its edge; the pin is the cruise terminal near its end.
Where we read it
Photograph withheld pending rights review
John Forbes Nash Jr. · 1928–2015
The real Nash.
Born in Bluefield, West Virginia, Nash came to Princeton from Carnegie Tech with a letter of recommendation that called him a mathematical genius. His 1950 thesis on non-cooperative games ran to 28 pages. He lived with schizophrenia for three decades before he recovered; in the 1970s students knew him as the Phantom of Fine Hall. In 1994 he shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with John Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten, and in 2015 the Abel Prize with Louis Nirenberg. John and Alicia Nash died together in a road accident in New Jersey on 23 May 2015, on their way home from the Abel ceremony in Norway.
Where we read it
Bluefield; Carnegie Tech; the letter of recommendation; the 28-page thesis; the Phantom of Fine Hall; the Nobel and Abel prizes; 23 May 2015.
Fine Hall, the mathematics building Princeton opened in 1968, in March 2026. Photo by ajay_suresh. ajay_suresh · CC BY 4.0
Washington Road, Princeton University, New Jersey
Fine Hall
The mathematics department moved into a new Fine Hall in 1968; the old building was renamed Jones Hall.
In the 1970s Nash became known as the Phantom of Fine Hall, a figure who wrote equations on the blackboards in the middle of the night.
Nash earned his doctorate at Princeton in 1950 with a 28-page dissertation on non-cooperative games.
The working mathematics building. See the tower from Washington Road.
Where we read it
Schizophrenia affects about one person in every hundred. If the film touches something close to home, Rethink Mental Illness explains the condition and the support available.
The faculty club · 1994, in the film
The pens.
Near the end of the film, Nash’s fellow professors honour him by laying their pens down in front of him. Lay them down.
An empty table.
Where we read it
The pen ceremony is fictitious; Dave Bayer advised on the equations and lays a pen in it.
Russell Crowe in Washington, D.C., in November 1999, a year before A Beautiful Mind was shot. No free photograph of him from 2001 has turned up. Photo by John Mathew Smith (celebrity-photos.com). John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com · CC BY-SA 2.0Russell CroweJohn Nash · shown 1999
Jennifer Connelly in New York in June 2005 (cropped), three years after her Oscar for the film. No free photograph of her from 2001 or 2002 has turned up. Photo by Alejandro. Alejandro from New York, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0Jennifer ConnellyAlicia Nash · shown 2005
Ron Howard directing Apollo 13 at Kennedy Space Center in December 1994 (cropped). No free photograph of him from 2001 has turned up. NASA photograph. NASA · Public domainRon HowardDirector · shown 1994
Photograph withheld pending rights reviewJohn NashHimself · 1951
Russell Crowe played Nash and Jennifer Connelly played Alicia, with Ed Harris, Paul Bettany, Adam Goldberg, Josh Lucas and Christopher Plummer. Ron Howard directed from Akiva Goldsman’s screenplay of Sylvia Nasar’s 1998 biography. It opened on 21 December 2001 and won four Oscars: best picture, director, adapted screenplay and, for Connelly, supporting actress. No free photographs of Crowe, Connelly or Howard from 2001 have turned up, so each is shown in the nearest year that has one.
Where we read it
Cast, director, screenplay and source book; release date; the four Academy Awards.
12 places you can visit in Princeton, northern New Jersey and New York. Most are working campuses: walk the grounds, not the buildings. The Nash house is a private home on Grand Street and is not on the map; Bayonne is pinned at the cruise terminal on the redeveloped pier.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
General reference · Restricted access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A student dormitory. Its courtyards are on the open campus, which visitors are welcome to walk; the rooms are not open.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. An open archway on the campus’s western edge, at the top of the steps from University Place.
General reference · Restricted access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working lecture building. See it from McCosh Walk.
General reference · Restricted access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. The working mathematics building. See the tower from Washington Road.
1Holder Hall, Princeton, in October 2006: the Collegiate Gothic quad where the film shot its Princeton scenes. Photo by Peter Dutton. Peter Dutton from Forest Hills, Queens, USA · CC BY 2.0
Holder Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
Holder Hall
Princeton scenes were filmed at Holder Hall, on three separate visits.
A student dormitory. Its courtyards are on the open campus, which visitors are welcome to walk; the rooms are not open.
Where we read it
2Blair Arch at Princeton, November 2025. Photo by Julian Lupyan. Julian Lupyan · CC0
Blair Arch, University Place, Princeton, New Jersey
Blair Arch
Blair Arch appears in the film.
An open archway on the campus’s western edge, at the top of the steps from University Place.
Where we read it
3McCosh Hall, June 2015, where auditions were held for the film’s extras. Photo by David Keddie. David Keddie · CC BY-SA 4.0
McCosh Walk, Princeton University, New Jersey
McCosh Hall
Auditions to fill the roles of 3,000 extras were held in McCosh Hall.
A working lecture building. See it from McCosh Walk.
Where we read it
4Fine Hall, the mathematics building Princeton opened in 1968, in March 2026. Photo by ajay_suresh. ajay_suresh · CC BY 4.0
Washington Road, Princeton University, New Jersey
Fine Hall
The mathematics department moved into a new Fine Hall in 1968; the old building was renamed Jones Hall.
The working mathematics building. See the tower from Washington Road.
Where we read it
Stay
On Palmer Square.
A room at the inn by the campus gates.
Nassau Inn
Nassau Inn, Princeton
Princeton · Singles, kings, twins and suites
An inn on Palmer Square in downtown Princeton, established in 1756, a short walk from the campus gates. Rooms range from singles to suites; book through the inn’s own site.
A student-led history walk round the campus, and film-location tours of New York from the marketplace.
Princeton University
Princeton campus history tour
Princeton · Register in advance
A student-led walk through the campus’s history since 1756, its architecture included. Registration is required and space is limited; there is also a self-guided tour by smartphone.
Dates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.
The working
Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.
13 of 13 places · 13 of 13 Moments
Holder Hall
Holder Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton, 1947
Nash arrives at Princeton in 1947; the Princeton scenes are filmed at Holder Hall over three visits.
Blair Arch
Blair Arch, University Place, Princeton, New Jersey
Through Blair Arch
Blair Arch appears in the film.
McCosh Hall
McCosh Walk, Princeton University, New Jersey
3,000 extras
Auditions for 3,000 extras are held in McCosh Hall.
Fine Hall
Washington Road, Princeton University, New Jersey
The Phantom of Fine Hall
In the 1970s Nash is known at Princeton as the Phantom of Fine Hall.
The Nash house, Grand Street
Grand Street, Paulus Hook, Jersey City, New Jersey
The house
John and Alicia’s house is on Grand Street, Paulus Hook.
Florham, Fairleigh Dickinson University
285 Madison Avenue, Madison and Florham Park, New Jersey
The governor’s ball
The governor’s ball is filmed at night in the Florham ballroom.
Prudential Hall, NJPAC
1 Center Street, Newark, New Jersey
Stockholm, 1994
Nash receives the Nobel Prize; Prudential Hall plays the ceremony.
The Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor
Former Military Ocean Terminal, Bayonne, New Jersey
The stages
Studio scenes are shot at the former Military Ocean Terminal, Bayonne.
Keating Hall, Fordham University
Rose Hill campus, 441 East Fordham Road, the Bronx
The Pentagon
Nash is called to a Pentagon office to break a code; the office is Keating Hall.
Manhattan College
4513 Manhattan College Parkway, Riverdale, the Bronx
Harvard
Nash lectures at Harvard; Manhattan College plays Harvard.
Union Theological Seminary
3041 Broadway at West 120th Street, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
More college
Union Theological Seminary supplies further college scenes.
Gould Memorial Library
Bronx Community College, University Heights, the Bronx
MIT
Nash teaches at MIT, under a dome that is the Gould Memorial Library; the college also plays the hospital.
Alder Manor
1061 North Broadway, Greystone, Yonkers, New York
The drop
Nash leaves his results at a mansion that is Alder Manor.
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