Ocean Drive, 1980 · shot 1982–83 · Brian De Palma
Set in Miami, turned away by Miami, made mostly in Los Angeles. Every scene hangs on a hotel fin; turn them and see where they really are.
Twelve fins, every one of them reading Miami. See the fins
Twelve scenes · twelve fins
On Ocean Drive a hotel says its name down a tall fin. Here every scene has one. The side facing you says where the story puts it; turn a fin to read where the camera really stood.
Twelve fins, every one of them reading Miami.
Producer Martin Bregman planned twelve weeks in Miami. Local Cuban opposition, and a city commissioner’s proposal to bar permits on city property, moved the shoot to Los Angeles and Santa Barbara for twenty-four weeks; a 27 April 1983 Variety item reports a quiet return to Miami for ten to twelve days of exteriors.
The Miami Tourist Board declined to let the film shoot there. The Fontainebleau scene was shot in April 1983 and the apartment scene on Ocean Drive.
Fin 04 · 728 Ocean Drive, South Beach, Miami Beach
Tony and Manny’s first job takes them to an apartment block on Ocean Drive, and it goes wrong.
Built in 1953 as the Sun Ray Apartments, to a design by Don Reiff, in the style Miami calls MiMo, Miami Modern.
Its patio staircase is the one used in Scarface; the scene in the apartment was filmed upstairs.
Now a pharmacy. The patio staircase and its plaque are on the Ocean Drive front, just south of 8th Street.
728 Ocean Drive · the Sun Ray Apartments
Miami would not have the film. Now the staircase from its first Ocean Drive scene has a plaque of its own, on the wall of a pharmacy.
Now a pharmacy. The patio staircase and its plaque are on the Ocean Drive front, just south of 8th Street.
April 1983 · ten to twelve days
A 27 April 1983 Variety report says the crew came back to Miami for ten to twelve days of exteriors, filming quietly to keep the press away.
Ocean Drive is the centre of the Art Deco District. Streamline Moderne dominates the street.
The district was listed on the National Register on 14 May 1979. It holds 960 historic buildings, the largest collection of Art Deco in the world.
Most of its buildings went up between the Great Depression and the early 1940s, in styles called Streamline, Tropical and Med-deco.
A public street facing Lummus Park and the beach. Walking tours leave daily from the Art Deco Welcome Center at 1001 Ocean Drive.
4441 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach
In April 1983 one scene was shot here: by the pool, Manny tries his luck with a woman and gets a slap for it.
Morris Lapidus designed it, and it opened in 1954 on the grounds of Harvey Firestone’s estate. Lapidus wore bow ties and worked them into the design.
Expanded with new towers, it reopened in November 2008 and joined the National Register of Historic Places that December.
A working hotel on Collins Avenue, north up Collins Avenue from South Beach. The pools are for guests.
Neon that never went out: the doorway of the Boulevard Hotel on Ocean Drive, a building finished in 1950, lit at night.
The Boulevard Hotel, designed by August Swarz and completed in 1950, and its neon sign on Ocean Drive.
Ocean Drive, Miami Beach · Daily · private tours from $400
The preservation league’s daily walk through the Art Deco District, from the Art Deco Welcome Center at 1001 Ocean Drive. Private group tours start at $400.
See the toursCalle Ocho and East 2nd Street
The neighbourhood the film portrays is on Calle Ocho. The one it shows is on a street in Little Tokyo, dressed for the part.
SW 8th Street, Little Havana, Miami
The neighbourhood the film portrays, which it could not film.
Máximo Gómez Park, known as Domino Park, is where Cuban immigrants gather on Calle Ocho to drink coffee and play dominoes.
Viernes Culturales fills Calle Ocho on the last Friday of each month, from 8th to 27th Avenue.
Domino Park (Máximo Gómez Park) is on Calle Ocho, free to walk into. The Calle Ocho Walk of Fame runs from 12th to 17th Avenue.
East 2nd Street, Little Tokyo, Downtown Los Angeles
Tony and Manny work at a food stand in Little Havana, dressed on East 2nd Street in Little Tokyo.
The film’s Little Havana is here. The El Paraíso stand where Tony and Manny work was dressed at about 375 East 2nd Street.
That block was later replaced by a modern apartment building.
The Little Havana nightclub was shot at Brunswig Square, a 1931 office building on 2nd Street, which looks quite different today.
Public pavements in Little Tokyo. The stand’s block is now apartments; Brunswig Square still stands on 2nd Street.
600 Biscayne Boulevard, Downtown Miami
The Miami the story arrives in: in the 1960s Cuban refugees were processed at this tower.
Built in 1925 for The Miami News. In the 1960s the federal government used it to process refugees from the Cuban Revolution.
It is a National Historic Landmark for that role. Miami Dade College now runs it as a museum with four exhibitions.
It reopened on 16 September 2025 after a $25 million restoration.
A Miami Dade College museum and cultural centre, open again since September 2025. Tickets on the college’s site.
West 17th Street by the Santa Monica and Harbor freeways, Los Angeles
Tony and Manny wait for their papers in a refugee camp under a Miami expressway: a Los Angeles interchange.
Freedomtown, the camp where the new arrivals wait, was doubled under the interchange of the 110 and the 10, near West 17th Street.
The site is now an overflow lot for a Downtown car dealership group.
Look from West 17th Street; the lot under the interchange is private parking for a car dealer.
Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Encino
Tony’s Miami money passes through car lots, offices and a bank, and every one of them is in Los Angeles. Put each on the turntable.
Bay 1 of 4 · 8825 Wilshire
Frank Lopez receives Tony at his Miami car lot.
Frank Lopez’s car lot, Lopez Motors, was 8825 Wilshire Boulevard. A luxury car dealer, Marshall Goldman, occupies it now.
Lopez’s office was probably a set built on a soundstage.
Working car showrooms; look from the Wilshire pavement.
Montecito and Coronado
Montecito, near Santa Barbara
El Fureidis, Arabic for little paradise, played the outside of Tony’s Coral Gables mansion.
Built in 1906 on ten acres for James Waldron Gillespie, it is one of only five houses designed by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue.
AFI records the shoot moving to Los Angeles and Santa Barbara after objections in Miami.
A private estate. It is named here and kept off the map; Montecito is shown instead.
Ocean Boulevard, Coronado, San Diego
A second-unit team under David Hans Dreyfuss shot here for one day.
A public beach along Ocean Boulevard, with the Hotel del Coronado behind it.
The people
The first cinema on the Sunset Strip, a revival house where Pacino watched the 1932 Scarface. It showed its last film on 13 March 1983, in the middle of the shoot.
Brian De Palma directed, from Oliver Stone’s script; Martin Bregman produced, and Giorgio Moroder wrote a synthesised score. Steven Bauer, who played Manny Ribera, was the only Cuban in the principal cast. Pfeiffer, then known mainly for Grease 2, was cast over the doubts of Pacino and De Palma; the film helped launch her career and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio’s.
Director, writer, producer, composer; Bauer the only Cuban in the principal cast; Pfeiffer cast over Pacino’s and De Palma’s doubts; the film helped launch Pfeiffer’s and Mastrantonio’s careers.
Shooting from 22 November 1982 to 6 May 1983; twenty-four weeks against twelve planned; a $10 million budget that ended at $23.5 million.
12 places you can visit, on two coasts. El Fureidis in Montecito is a private estate: named here, not on the map.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Now a pharmacy. The patio staircase and its plaque are on the Ocean Drive front, just south of 8th Street.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A public street facing Lummus Park and the beach. Walking tours leave daily from the Art Deco Welcome Center at 1001 Ocean Drive.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working hotel on Collins Avenue, north up Collins Avenue from South Beach. The pools are for guests.
728 Ocean Drive, South Beach, Miami Beach
Built in 1953 as the Sun Ray Apartments, to a design by Don Reiff, in the style Miami calls MiMo, Miami Modern.
Now a pharmacy. The patio staircase and its plaque are on the Ocean Drive front, just south of 8th Street.
Ocean Drive, from 5th to 15th Street, South Beach
A 27 April 1983 Variety report says the crew came back to Miami for ten to twelve days of exteriors, filming quietly to keep the press away.
A public street facing Lummus Park and the beach. Walking tours leave daily from the Art Deco Welcome Center at 1001 Ocean Drive.
4441 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach
In April 1983 one scene was shot here: by the pool, Manny tries his luck with a woman and gets a slap for it.
A working hotel on Collins Avenue, north up Collins Avenue from South Beach. The pools are for guests.
Stay
The hotel with the blue fin, a few steps from the staircase.
South Beach, Miami Beach · Up to 20% off booking direct
The hotel with the tall blue name fin at 736 Ocean Drive, next door to the Scarface staircase at 728. Booking direct takes up to 20% off, with a 1pm late check-out.
See the hotelGo there
The preservation league’s deco walk, and tours of Little Havana and Los Angeles.
Ocean Drive, Miami Beach · Daily · private tours from $400
The preservation league’s daily walk through the Art Deco District, from the Art Deco Welcome Center at 1001 Ocean Drive. Private group tours start at $400.
See the toursLittle Havana, Miami
Live marketplace results for walking and food tours of Little Havana and Calle Ocho. None is built round this film.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare toursLos Angeles
Live marketplace results for film-location tours of Los Angeles. Check each itinerary for Beverly Hills and the Sunset Strip.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare toursWhat’s on
Cultural Fridays on Calle Ocho, rescued neon in the Valley, and Art Deco Weekend on Ocean Drive.
Checking current event dates…
Take it home
Two original 1983 posters, the soundtrack LP and a book about the film.
An original American poster from 1983, 27 × 41 in. Near mint; previously folded, now rolled. Also offered framed.
In stock
View posterThe original French release poster, 15.7 × 20.9 in, from 1983. Near mint, rolled. Also offered framed.
In stock
View posterVarious artists · LP, MCA, 1983
Giorgio Moroder’s synthesised score and songs, released on vinyl in the US on 9 December 1983, the day the film opened.
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copyKen Tucker · St. Martin’s Griffin
Ken Tucker’s book about the film, published by St. Martin’s Griffin in 2008.
Find the bookDates, 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.
Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.
13 of 13 places · 16 of 16 Moments
728 Ocean Drive, South Beach, Miami Beach
Tony and Manny’s first job takes them to an apartment block on Ocean Drive, and it goes wrong.
Ocean Drive, from 5th to 15th Street, South Beach
The crew come back to Miami Beach in April 1983 for ten to twelve days of street exteriors.
4441 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach
By the hotel pool, Manny tries his luck and gets a slap.
600 Biscayne Boulevard, Downtown Miami
The Miami the story arrives in: in the 1960s Cuban refugees were processed at this tower.
SW 8th Street, Little Havana, Miami
The neighbourhood the film portrays, which it could not film.
East 2nd Street, Little Tokyo, Downtown Los Angeles
Tony and Manny work at a food stand in Little Havana, dressed on East 2nd Street in Little Tokyo.
A Little Havana nightclub, shot in Brunswig Square.
West 17th Street by the Santa Monica and Harbor freeways, Los Angeles
Tony and Manny wait for their papers in a refugee camp under a Miami expressway: a Los Angeles interchange.
8825 and 8423 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills
Frank Lopez receives Tony at his Miami car lot.
Tony and Elvira at a Porsche showroom.
8600 block of Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood
Tony’s front companies get offices with a Brickell Avenue address on screen.
Pacino watches the 1932 Scarface at the Tiffany and calls his manager about a remake.
16000 Ventura Boulevard, Encino
A Miami bank in the montage, filmed in Encino.
7900 Balboa Boulevard, Lake Balboa (entrance on Stagg Street)
The Tiffany’s sign letters, saved in 2013, hang in a Valley museum.
Montecito, near Santa Barbara
Tony’s Coral Gables mansion: its outside is a 1906 estate in Montecito.
Ocean Boulevard, Coronado, San Diego
A second unit spends one day on the beach at Coronado.
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