As part of the National Humanities Center's Being Human Festival (USA), join us to learn more about the locations used as backgrounds for a great number of movies, including Henry King's Wilson (1944), Fred Schepisi's I.Q. (1994), Jonathan Demm's Last Embrace (1979), Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind (2001), Michael Bay's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), and Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer (2023). The next available tours can be booked below and, if they are sold out or past, please feel free to contact us at [email protected]. Private tours can also be booked by using the same email address.

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The main argument for this innovative tour is the following: Princeton University and cinema were born on the same grounds (North Jersey) and they have always been tied to each other. The College of New Jersey (later called Princeton University) was founded in Elizabeth, NJ in 1746¹ and the beginning of cinema can be traced back to Thomas Edison's invention of Black Maria, the world first's film studio established in West Orange, NJ in 1893². Between Princeton University's and the motion pictures' origins, there are only a few miles…

Since at least the beginning of the sound film era in the 1920s, the town and campus of Princeton have always attracted major and emerging filmmakers who found, in its exceptional architecture, evolving landscapes, and historical campus, a unique background for their stories. From Frank Tuttle's Varsity (1929), one of the first sound films produced by Paramount Pictures, to Christopher Nolan's recent and internationally acclaimed Oppenheimer (2023), not forgetting an impressive range of lesser-known cinematic works as well as the local arthouse (Princeton Garden Theatre) built in 1920, Princeton has a rich, varied, yet unfortunately unexplored history of cinema that was often at the intersection of major historical, cultural, and intellectual events. 

Relying on a variety of materials that includes films, photographs, local newspaper articles, academic publications, and the inhabitants' anecdotes that we have been collecting, this tour a) investigates the college town's historical and metaphorical landmarks as depicted in moving images and b) offer the first-ever cinematic walking tour open and accessible to the greatest audience. 

Taking place right after the Princeton Public Library's Environment Film Festival (April 4-5) and Princeton University's French Film Festival (March 28 - April 25), the (re-)discovery of Princeton through cinema offers an innovative perspective, allowing all age groups and experiences with cinema the highest engagement with Princeton's past and present. Building on the outcomes of these initial iterations of the cinematic walking tour, the materials collected for this project will is currently being transformed into an accessible publication in the form of a book and a series of articles in the near future.

The Princeton Film Festival Society is working with local libraries to make as many films shot/set in Princeton as possible available for loan. More information to come soon.

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Sources
¹Princeton University, “Our History”
²Britannica, “Thomas Edison”

This project received generous support from the National Humanities Center's 2025 Being Human Festival (US) and was organized in collaboration with the Princeton Public Library and Princeton University's Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship. More information here.