The Most Beautiful Buildings Seen on Screen in Asia
6 places in 5 countries · updated 5 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful buildings seen on screen in Asia are Taipei 101 (Taiwan), Petronas Towers (Malaysia) and Hagia Sophia (Turkey). The list covers 6 buildings seen on screen in 5 countries. Turkey has the most, with 2. Last updated 5 October 2026.
Asia's most filmed buildings fall into two camps that cinema loves to set against each other. On one side stand the imperial and sacred interiors that took centuries to shape, from Byzantine domes to Ming palace halls. On the other rise the record towers of the last three decades, built partly to be seen from afar and photographed. A film crew needs both: the weight of history for an epic, and a vertical skyline for a chase or a heist. Being seen on screen adds a second life to these buildings, as places that millions of viewers recognise before they ever arrive.
In Istanbul, Hagia Sophia has crowned the city since the 6th century, and James Bond walked beneath its dome in From Russia with Love. Across the Golden Horn, Topkapı Palace gave its name to Topkapi, the 1964 caper about stealing a jewelled dagger from its treasury. Bernardo Bertolucci filmed The Last Emperor inside Beijing's Forbidden City, the Ming and Qing palace whose halls had been closed to Western cameras before.
The modern half is just as cinematic. The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, linked by a skybridge high above the street, framed the finale of Entrapment. Taipei 101, shaped like a stalk of bamboo, holds a giant steel ball near its top that damps the sway of typhoon winds. In Dubai, Tom Cruise climbed the glass walls of the Burj Khalifa for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, on the tallest building in the world.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Taipei 101 | Skyscraper | Taiwan | |
| 2 | Petronas Towers | Skyscraper | Malaysia | |
| 3 | Hagia Sophia | Mosque | Turkey | ✓ |
| 4 | Forbidden City | Palace | People's Republic of China | ✓ |
| 5 | Burj Khalifa | Skyscraper | United Arab Emirates | |
| 6 | Topkapı Palace | Palace | Turkey | ✓ |
01 Taipei 101
Taiwan · 0.4 km from Taipei25.034° N 121.565° E
Image by george17168 from Pixabay The single most photographed part of Taipei 101 isn't visible from the street. Between the 87th and 92nd floors hangs a bright yellow steel sphere weighing 660 tonnes — the largest tuned mass damper ever installed in a building, and one of the few designed to be seen rather than hidden.
Did you know? In January 2026 Alex Honnold climbed the outside of the tower without ropes in about an hour and a half, in an authorised free solo.
02 Petronas Towers
Malaysia · 3.2 km from Kuala Lumpur3.158° N 101.712° E
Image by Pexels from Pixabay 9 metres. The Argentine-American architect César Pelli designed them for the Malaysian state oil company. He deliberately drew on Islamic geometry: each tower's floor plan is an eight-pointed star made of two overlapping squares, with rounded lobes fitted into the angles to gain office space. The steel and glass cladding repeats the pattern as it steps up towards the spires.
Did you know? Climber Alain Robert was stopped at the 60th floor in 1997 and again ten years later, before scaling Tower Two barehanded in 2009.
03 Hagia Sophia
Ayasofya
Turkey · 1.1 km from Istanbul41.008° N 28.980° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by edibejko from Pixabay The building that stands today was put up in barely five years. In January 532 the Nika riots burned down the previous church on the site, and within weeks Emperor Justinian I had started a far more ambitious replacement, designed by two scholars rather than master masons: Anthemius of Tralles, a mathematician, and Isidore of Miletus, a geometer. It was dedicated in 537.
Did you know? Envoys of the Kievan Rus' prince reported that inside they could not tell whether they were in heaven or on earth, a verdict tied to Rus' conversion to Orthodoxy.
04 Forbidden City
People's Republic of China · 1.6 km from Beijing39.916° N 116.391° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
N509FZ · CC BY-SA 4.0 For almost five centuries the Forbidden City was the physical centre of the Chinese state. The Yongle Emperor of the Ming dynasty began it in 1406, after moving the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, and the complex was ready by 1420; from then until 1912 twenty-four emperors, fourteen Ming and ten Qing, lived and ruled here.
Did you know? The Last Emperor of 1987 was the first feature film the People's Republic of China ever allowed to be shot inside the palace.
05 Burj Khalifa
United Arab Emirates · 2.3 km from Dubai25.197° N 55.274° E
Image by JESHOOTS-com from Pixabay 8 metres to the tip of its spire, the Burj Khalifa has been the tallest building on Earth since it opened in January 2010, taking the title from Taipei 101. It rises out of Downtown Dubai beside Sheikh Zayed Road, and it was conceived less as an office tower than as the anchor of an entire new district: the Dubai Mall, an artificial lake, hotels and residential blocks were all planned around it.
Did you know? During Ramadan, residents above the 150th floor break their fast a few minutes later than those at street level, because they see the sun set later.
06 Topkapı Palace
Turkey · 1 km from Istanbul41.013° N 28.984° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by falco from Pixabay For almost four centuries the Ottoman Empire was governed from a headland at the very tip of old Istanbul. Mehmed II began Topkapı Palace in 1459, a few years after taking Constantinople, on Seraglio Point, where the Golden Horn opens into the Bosphorus and both meet the Sea of Marmara.
Did you know? The palace stands on the site of the acropolis of ancient Byzantion, and parts of its outer walls date back to Byzantine times.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful buildings seen on screen in Asia?
- On our list, Taipei 101 (Taiwan) ranks first, followed by Petronas Towers (Malaysia) and Hagia Sophia (Turkey).
- Which country has the most buildings seen on screen in Asia?
- In our collection, the most come from Turkey (2), Malaysia (1) and the People's Republic of China (1).
- Was The Last Emperor really filmed inside the Forbidden City?
- Yes. Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 film was shot on location in the Forbidden City in Beijing, the first Western feature film allowed to do so.
- Which film shows Tom Cruise climbing the Burj Khalifa?
- Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011). Cruise performed the climb on the outside of the tower himself, secured by cables that were later removed digitally.
- Which movie made the Petronas Towers famous on screen?
- Entrapment (1999), with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones, staged its climactic heist in and around the twin towers and their skybridge.
- How many buildings seen on screen are on this list in Asia?
- The list covers 6 buildings seen on screen in 5 countries. Turkey has the most, with 2.