2. Prospect Park
Prospect Park and its surrounding neighborhoods are among the most filmed in Brooklyn. As Brooklyn’s second-largest park (behind Marine Park), Prospect Park has many of the same features as the oft-filmed Central Park, as it was also designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Many directors have looked toward the park’s zoo, Boathouse, Long Meadow, Litchfield Villa, and Concert Grove for filming scenes. The park’s nearby neighborhoods of Prospect Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, and Windsor Terrace have also been prime locations for some of the highest-grossing films in history.
Some directors used special effects to make Prospect Park look like other parks and destinations, such as in The Wolf of Wall Street, which made the park look like London’s Hyde Park. In Goodfellas, the Prospect Park Zoo stands in for the Tampa Zoo, which is where a debtor is threatened. In other films, the park is the soul of Brooklyn, such as in The Angriest Man in Brooklyn which includes an enchanting park scene that contrasts the not-so-lovely protagonist. The Prospect Park Zoo features in Radio Days, in which a stand-in for Woody Allen meets a “Whiz Kid,” as well as in Highlander in which Christopher Lambert and Roxanne Hart look at lions. Additionally, Sophie’s Choice, The Smurfs 2, Bullets Over Broadway, and Netflix’s Passing all have scenes at the Prospect Park Boathouse.