The Most Beautiful Buildings Seen on Screen in the United States
6 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful buildings seen on screen in the United States are Metropolitan Museum of Art, Empire State Building and Chrysler Building. The list covers 6 buildings seen on screen. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Hollywood built its own streets on studio lots, yet the buildings that stay with audiences are mostly real, and mostly in New York. A city that built upward in steel and stone at the start of the 20th century produced towers and public halls with silhouettes so distinct that a few seconds on screen fix the place, the era and often the mood.
The Empire State Building, opened in 1931 after barely more than a year of construction, is where King Kong makes his last stand and where Sleepless in Seattle ends. The Chrysler Building's Art Deco spire of stacked stainless-steel arches is among the most recognisable tops on any skyline. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Frank Lloyd Wright's last major work, wraps its galleries around a spiral ramp under a glass dome. Grand Central Terminal, a Beaux-Arts hall of 1913, has hosted chases and reunions from North by Northwest onward. The New York Public Library Main Branch, completed in 1911, is the marble temple where Ghostbusters begins.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Metropolitan Museum of Art | Museum | |
| 2 | Empire State Building | Skyscraper | |
| 3 | Chrysler Building | Skyscraper | |
| 4 | Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum | Museum | ✓ |
| 5 | Grand Central Terminal | Railway station | |
| 6 | New York Public Library Main Branch | Library building |
01 Metropolitan Museum of Art
United States · 7 km from New York City40.779° N 73.963° W
Image by marekr from Pixabay The Metropolitan Museum of Art occupies almost a quarter of a mile of Fifth Avenue along the eastern edge of Central Park, and inside it holds something close to the whole history of art. 5 million works across 17 curatorial departments, from Palaeolithic flints to contemporary painting.
02 Empire State Building
United States · 3.1 km from New York City40.748° N 73.986° W
Image by Olga_Fil from Pixabay The Empire State Building is the skyscraper against which other tall buildings are still measured, and it earned that status in a single burst of work at the start of the Great Depression. It stands on the west side of Fifth Avenue between 33rd and 34th Streets, on the site of the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
Did you know? On 28 July 1945 a B-25 bomber flying in thick fog struck the north face between the 78th and 80th floors, killing 14 people.
03 Chrysler Building
United States · 3.7 km from New York City40.751° N 73.976° W
Image by RJA1988 from Pixabay The Chrysler Building is the purest expression of the optimism New York built for itself at the end of the 1920s. It was designed by William Van Alen and paid for by Walter P. Chrysler out of his own pocket, as an investment for his children rather than as a headquarters for his car company.
Did you know? Van Alen sued Walter Chrysler for his unpaid architect's fee and won, but the lawsuit hurt his reputation so badly that he received few major commissions afterwards.
04 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
United States · 7.5 km from New York City40.783° N 73.959° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
Jean-Christophe BENOIST · CC BY 3.0 The Guggenheim on Fifth Avenue is a museum people visit as much for the building as for the art. Frank Lloyd Wright designed it as a top-heavy spiral that widens as it rises, a shape that looks nothing like the apartment blocks around it on the Upper East Side, facing Central Park.
Did you know? By 1958 Wright and the director James Johnson Sweeney refused to speak to each other, so Harry Guggenheim had to relay every message between them.
05 Grand Central Terminal
United States · 3.8 km from New York City40.753° N 73.977° W
Image by jplenio from Pixabay Grand Central Terminal is a commuter station that became one of the most visited buildings in the world: some 21 million people came in 2018 just to look, not counting passengers. It stands at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan and opened in 1913, the third station of that name on the site, built by the New York Central Railroad.
Did you know? The constellations on the Main Concourse ceiling are largely painted back to front; a commuter noticed the mistake in 1913, and it has never been corrected.
06 New York Public Library Main Branch
United States · 3.7 km from New York City40.753° N 73.982° W
ajay_suresh · CC BY 2.0 The main building of the New York Public Library, officially the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building since 2008, occupies the stretch of Fifth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets in Midtown Manhattan. It was designed by the firm of Carrère and Hastings in the Beaux-Arts manner, clad in white Vermont marble, and opened on 23 May 1911 after more than a decade of work; the cornerstone had been laid in November 1902.
Did you know? The lions were first nicknamed Leo Astor and Leo Lenox; Mayor Fiorello La Guardia renamed them Patience and Fortitude during the Great Depression.
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 the United States?
- On our list, Metropolitan Museum of Art ranks first, followed by Empire State Building and Chrysler Building.
- How long did it take to build the Empire State Building?
- Construction started in March 1930 and the building opened on 1 May 1931, after about 13 months. At 102 storeys it remained the tallest building in the world for almost forty years.
- Who designed the Guggenheim Museum in New York?
- Frank Lloyd Wright designed it over some sixteen years, and it opened in October 1959, six months after his death. In 2019 it was inscribed as part of the World Heritage Site The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.
- How many buildings seen on screen are on this list in the United States?
- The list covers 6 buildings seen on screen.