James Bond has been coming to the French Riviera since 1963. The region’s combination of casinos, cliff roads, superyachts, and Mediterranean light made it the natural home for the series from the beginning. Here is where the key scenes were filmed and what you can see on a private Riviera tour today.
The 1983 film starring Sean Connery used Nice extensively. The scenes set at the fictional Shrublands clinic were filmed at the Hotel Negresco on the Promenade des Anglais, the most iconic building on the Nice waterfront, built in 1913 and still operating as a palace hotel. The distinctive pink dome is visible from the beach. The Negresco’s lobby, with its 1920s rotunda and its collection of original artworks, is one of the most extraordinary interiors on the Riviera.
The car chase through the old streets of Nice in the same film used the lanes of Vieux-Nice and the streets around the Cours Saleya market. Walk that route today and the buildings are unchanged.
GoldenEye opens with one of the most memorable sequences in the Bond series: a Ferrari versus BMW chase along the Grande Corniche above Monaco, followed by Bond (Pierce Brosnan) driving a tank through St. Petersburg. The Riviera section was filmed on the Grande Corniche, the highest of the three roads between Nice and Monaco, and on the roads above Villefranche-sur-Mer.
The Casino de Monte-Carlo appears as Bond’s target in the opening Monaco sequence. The real Casino is exactly as it appears on screen: the Belle Époque building by Charles Garnier, the same architect who designed the Paris Opéra, still operating, still requiring a jacket for the main gaming rooms after 8pm.
On a private tour, you drive the Grande Corniche in the opposite direction to the Bond chase and stop at the viewpoints that the film crew used. The cliff drops here are genuine, the road is cut into the rock face at around 500 metres, and the view of Monaco below is what makes it one of the most filmed stretches of road in Europe.
Before Bond, Hitchcock used the Riviera for its full visual potential. To Catch a Thief was filmed almost entirely on location in 1954 with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, and the locations are still immediately recognisable.
The car chase sequence was filmed on the Moyenne Corniche between Nice and Eze, the same road the Bond films used later. Grace Kelly drives at speed through the hairpin bends above Villefranche while Cary Grant sits in the passenger seat. The scene was filmed on the actual road with the actual drop below, which is visible throughout.
The flower market scene was filmed at the Cours Saleya in Nice’s Old Town, which still operates as a flower and produce market Tuesday through Sunday. The Hotel Carlton in Cannes serves as the fictional Carlton where much of the action takes place. The real Carlton, on the Croisette with its twin domes modelled on the breasts of La Belle Otero, has been a Riviera landmark since 1913.
Hitchcock also filmed scenes at the Corniche d’Or near Cannes, the coastal road through the red Esterel cliffs west of the city. The colour contrast between the burnt-orange rock and the blue sea is remarkable in person and was spectacular in VistaVision, Paramount’s widescreen format used for the film.
The opening sequence of the Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage film was shot at the Citadelle de Villefranche-sur-Mer, the 16th-century fortress on the eastern shore of the bay just east of Nice. The citadel is still there and still used, it houses the town hall, several museums, and the famous Cocteau Chapel on the waterfront below. Villefranche bay is one of the deepest natural harbours on the Mediterranean and has been used as a fleet anchorage since the Middle Ages. On any given day you can see superyachts anchored in the same water used as a background for the film.
Riviera Come True runs a dedicated cinematic tour of the French Riviera covering the Bond locations, the Hitchcock sites, and a range of other film and television locations across Nice, Villefranche, Monaco, and the Corniche roads. The tour covers the actual filming spots, the context of how each scene was made, and the parts of each location that have changed and the parts that have not.
It works as a half-day or a full day depending on how far you want to go. The Monaco Casino and the Grande Corniche drive can be added to any standard Riviera tour if you want the locations alongside a wider programme.