A machine comes to Los Angeles to find one woman, and the city it reads is real. The Terminator arrives at Griffith Observatory and confronts a gang of punks outside; one of them is a young Bill Paxton. Start the scan ▾
Machine vision
The film tells you where things are. The city says otherwise. Choose a target and let the eye find the real address.
720 South Hill Street (Tech Noir)
Match: 720 South Hill Street (Tech Noir). On the guide map below.
Tech Noir, the club where Sarah hides, was built inside an empty property at 720 South Hill Street.
See it from the pavement on Hill Street, a block south of Seventh. The club was built for the film and is long gone.
Tinted red only while it scans: the photographs are of each place today, or of its street where no photograph of the address exists.
A phone booth on Victory Boulevard
A little further along the road, he pulls a man out of a phone booth and looks up Sarah Connor in the phone book. He works down the list in order.
CONLEY – CONNORSLos Angeles
Three Sarah Connors in the book.
The Alamo gun shop was filmed at what is now Car Planet, 14329 Victory Boulevard at Tyrone Avenue. The shop owner the Terminator kills is played by Dick Miller.
A used-car lot on a busy boulevard. See it from Victory Boulevard.
Sarah is at Miceli’s when she learns that a second Sarah Connor has been murdered. It calls itself Hollywood’s oldest Italian restaurant, and it has a no-phones policy.
Still an Italian restaurant, just off Hollywood Boulevard. The house has a no-phones rule, so keep the camera for the street.
Not on Pico Boulevard
In the film’s dialogue the club is on Pico Boulevard. Tech Noir, the club where Sarah hides, was built inside an empty property at 720 South Hill Street. The conversion was so convincing that people are said to have wandered in off the street.
Adam Greenberg’s rig
The cinematographer Adam Greenberg shot the shootout in the club with his low-angle rig. The rig was L-shaped aluminium tubes holding a camera at floor level, controlled through a video monitor.
Camera at eye level.
See it from the pavement on Hill Street, a block south of Seventh. The club was built for the film and is long gone.
Downtown, at night
Stop 1 of 4: 720 South Hill Street (Tech Noir).
720 South Hill Street, Jewelry District
Tech Noir, the club where Sarah hides, was built inside an empty property at 720 South Hill Street.
See it from the pavement on Hill Street, a block south of Seventh. The club was built for the film and is long gone.
Downtown sits 9.2 km in a straight line from the observatory where the machine arrived.
Los Angeles
Live marketplace results for film-location tours of Los Angeles. Check each itinerary: most of the Terminator’s downtown is seen from the street.
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Compare tours939 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles
Not a filming location: a 1926 downtown hotel, first built as a haven for professional women travellers. 268 rooms over 14 floors and a coffin-shaped pool, about a kilometre from Seventh Street.
Check rooms
Sarah, before
Her ordinary life
The film ends with a Polaroid of Sarah. Before all this she waited tables at a diner and lived in a flat near MacArthur Park.
A white square, still developing.
In the last scene a boy at a desert gas station takes a Polaroid of Sarah: the photograph Reese carried.
Sarah is introduced arriving late for her shift. Big Jeff’s, the diner where Sarah waits tables, is Carrows at 815 South Fremont Avenue, at Mission Street. Movie Locations reports the building still there but the restaurant closed.
See it from Fremont Avenue. The building stands; when Movie Locations last looked, the restaurant was closed.
The Tiki Motel, where Reese teaches Sarah to survive, stood at 7301 Santa Fe Avenue, Huntington Park. It has closed and been redeveloped as private housing. In the story it is where Reese tells Sarah he loves her, and where their son John is conceived.
Sarah’s apartment is 420 South Lafayette Park Place, just south of West 3rd Street, near MacArthur Park.
A private apartment building, named here but not mapped. Lafayette Park, a few blocks south, is public.
City of Industry
The press is up. Five strokes to the bed.
The final fight, where the Terminator is crushed in a metal press, was filmed at Kern’s of California, 13010 East Temple Avenue, City of Industry.
In the story it is a factory full of giant hydraulic machines; Sarah lures what is left of the machine under a press.
An industrial address with nothing to visit. Temple Avenue is a public road; the plant is private.
Identified
Arnold Schwarzenegger
The Terminator
17 lines and fewer than 100 words. Orion first wanted him for Reese; Cameron cast him as the machine once the two became friends.
Linda Hamilton
Sarah Connor
Cast after Children of the Corn. She sprained her ankle a week before filming began.
James Cameron
Writer and director
The idea came to him in a fever dream in Rome, 1982. He sold the rights to Gale Anne Hurd for $1, on condition that he directed.
Filming began in Los Angeles in March 1984, mostly at night. It opened on 26 October 1984 at number one in 1,005 cinemas and took $78.3 million worldwide; the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 2008.
Schwarzenegger’s 17 lines and fewer than 100 words; Orion’s approach for Reese; Hamilton cast after Children of the Corn and her sprained ankle; Cameron’s fever dream in Rome in 1982 and the $1 sale to Gale Anne Hurd; filming from March 1984, mostly at night; the release, opening and gross; the 2008 Registry selection.
Schwarzenegger’s motion-picture star is at 6764 Hollywood Boulevard; the ceremony was on 2 June 1987. Miceli’s is about 200 metres away, round the corner on Las Palmas.
On the pavement of Hollywood Boulevard, a short walk from Miceli’s.
The state film commission’s location directory lists the observatory as a filming location for the film. Rebel Without a Cause made the building famous in 1955, and a bust of James Dean stands in the grounds.
Free to go in. Open Tuesday to Friday noon to 10pm, weekends 10am to 10pm; closed on Mondays. The nearest parking is paid.
Griffith Park, Los Angeles
Live marketplace results for tours that stop at Griffith Observatory, where the machine arrives. The observatory itself is free.
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Compare tours10 places you can visit, from Griffith Park to City of Industry. Sarah’s apartment and the Tiki Motel site are private: named, not pinned.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A public street in the Jewelry District. The alleys are service lanes: look, don’t wander in.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. See it from the pavement on Hill Street, a block south of Seventh. The club was built for the film and is long gone.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working road tunnel under Bunker Hill. Look in from either end; it is no place to linger on foot.
General reference · Restricted access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. The car park belongs to a working city headquarters. The steps and plaza on Hope Street are open.
212–219 West Seventh Street, between Broadway and Spring Street
Reese materialises in the alleyway at 212 and 214 West Seventh Street, between Broadway and South Spring Street.
A public street in the Jewelry District. The alleys are service lanes: look, don’t wander in.
720 South Hill Street, Jewelry District
Tech Noir, the club where Sarah hides, was built inside an empty property at 720 South Hill Street.
See it from the pavement on Hill Street, a block south of Seventh. The club was built for the film and is long gone.
West 2nd Street between Hill Street and Figueroa Street
The motorbike chase through a tunnel was filmed in the Second Street Tunnel, between Hill Street and Figueroa Street.
A working road tunnel under Bunker Hill. Look in from either end; it is no place to linger on foot.
North side of West 1st Street, between Figueroa and Hope Streets
Reese crashes into the underground car park of the Department of Water and Power, on the north side of West 1st Street between Figueroa and Hope.
The car park belongs to a working city headquarters. The steps and plaza on Hope Street are open.
Stay
Not a filming location: a 1926 hotel about a kilometre from Seventh Street.
939 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles
Not a filming location: a 1926 downtown hotel, first built as a haven for professional women travellers. 268 rooms over 14 floors and a coffin-shaped pool, about a kilometre from Seventh Street.
Check roomsGo there
Downtown is seen from the street; the observatory is free to enter.
Los Angeles
Live marketplace results for film-location tours of Los Angeles. Check each itinerary: most of the Terminator’s downtown is seen from the street.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare toursGriffith Park, Los Angeles
Live marketplace results for tours that stop at Griffith Observatory, where the machine arrives. The observatory itself is free.
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Compare toursWhat’s on
A live-score screening in San Francisco.
Checking current event dates…
Take it home
Three original 1984 posters from our store, two books and Brad Fiedel’s score.
The big French poster from 1984, 47 × 63 inches, rolled after being folded. Very good condition.
In stock
View posterThe Japanese release poster, 20 × 29 inches, rolled, mint.
In stock
View posterThe British quad, 40 × 30 inches, with art by Mike Francis. Rolled after being folded; very good condition.
Sold out · archive reference
View posterSean French · BFI Modern Classics
A short critical book on the film, from the British Film Institute’s series.
Find the bookIan Nathan
The making of The Terminator and Terminator 2, with production material.
Find the bookBrad Fiedel · CD, Milan, 2016
Brad Fiedel’s synthesiser score, released on CD by Milan in 2016.
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copyDates, 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.
12 of 12 places · 14 of 14 Moments
2800 East Observatory Road, Griffith Park
The Terminator arrives at Griffith Observatory and confronts a gang of punks.
212–219 West Seventh Street, between Broadway and Spring Street
Kyle Reese arrives in a downtown alley off Seventh Street.
Sarah and Reese throw the Terminator off their car on Seventh Street.
720 South Hill Street, Jewelry District
Sarah hides in a nightclub; Reese saves her there.
West 2nd Street between Hill Street and Figueroa Street
The chase on motorbike and truck goes through a tiled downtown tunnel.
North side of West 1st Street, between Figueroa and Hope Streets
Reese crashes the car into an underground car park.
1646 North Las Palmas Avenue, Hollywood
Sarah learns on the news that a second Sarah Connor has been killed, and realises she is the third.
6764 Hollywood Boulevard
Arnold Schwarzenegger receives his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Lafayette Park Place, Westlake
The Terminator comes to Sarah’s apartment while she is out; her roommate and the roommate’s boyfriend are killed there.
815 South Fremont Avenue at Mission Street, South Pasadena
Sarah Connor arrives late for her waitressing shift at Big Jeff’s.
14329 Victory Boulevard at Tyrone Avenue, Van Nuys
The Terminator arms himself at a gun shop and kills its owner.
At a phone booth he finds three Sarah Connors in the Los Angeles phone book.
Santa Fe Avenue, Huntington Park
Reese teaches Sarah to fight back; their son is conceived.
13010 East Temple Avenue, City of Industry
Sarah crushes the Terminator in a hydraulic press.
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