Most Memorable Parking Garages in the Movies

Long-time staples of thrillers, horror films, spy flicks, and other movies, parking lots provide a wealth of places to hide, moody lighting, and of course, plenty of opportunities for cars to suddenly flick on their lights and peel out of the garage. 

Regardless, it might be hard to remember a specific film with a parking lot, garage, or facility playing a major role. 

Here are some of the most memorable parking garages in the movies and the films they appeared in.

All the President’s Men (1976)

When Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein broke open the Watergate Scandal and brought down President Richard M. Nixon, it’s unlikely they imagined they’d one day be played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.

All the President’s Men shows the necessary monotony of journalism, involving chasing down leads, looking up records, and confirming your sources.

Of course, most people remember the late-night, clandestine meetings between Woodward and his informant Deep Throat (played by Hal Holbrook) in a dark and mysterious parking garage in Rosslyn, Virginia.

Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol (2011)

One of the most memorable parking garages in the movies might be the one specially constructed for the fourth installment of the successful franchise.

IMF Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) battles with Swedish/Russian nuclear strategist Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyquist) for possession of a briefcase containing a device for launching nuclear missiles.

They fight in a 20-story automated car parking facility, falling from and in between the platforms that rise and fall and carrying the cars to their spots.

The Hunter (1980)

Action star par excellence Steve McQueen’s last film, where he played bounty hunter Ralph “Papa” Thorson, was an exciting one and included one of the more famous of the many car chases/crashes filmed back in the 1970s.

Chasing a suspect through the parking garage set in the bottom stories of Chicago’s Marina City Complex, Thorson heads him off with a pickup truck.

Unfortunately for the fugitive, he zags when he should have zigged and ended up flying out of the elevated garage and into the unwelcoming waters of the Chicago River.

Fight Club (1999)

Fight Club is a 1999 American film directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter. In a film all about subtext and what lies beneath the surface, parking lots and garages work nicely.

The film memorably employed the chiaroscuro ambiance of parking garages as a backdrop for the film’s explosive denouement as well as several fight scenes.

In fact, the final parking garage served as the perfect setting for the ultimate unrestrained battle between main characters Tyler Durden and the Narrator—or did it?

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