10 Best Movies About Motels That You Should Watching Update 04/2024

Movies About Motels

We all appreciate a relaxing vacation at some point in our lives, no matter where in the world we are. So why not include movie characters in the appreciation of a great hotel? Big-screen hotels and motels almost play an important role as an additional movie character, in addition to providing a backdrop for the action.

Movies About Hotels/Motels: The Best of the Best

The following are a few examples of movies in which hotels and motels figure prominently and play a significant role in the plot and theme. Cinematic room service has never been more hospitable than this.

1.) The Best Exotic Manigold Hotel(2011)

The Best Exotic Manigold Hotel(2011)

Deception in advertising, exotic travel, and cultural clashes all feature in John Madden’s The Best Exotic Manigold Hotel. With a group of veteran British actors, Madden creates an idyllic location for them to spend their golden years. The Best Exotic Manigold Hotel appears to be the pique the curiosity of these wanderlusting seniors.

Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton, all veterans of the big screen, travel to Jaipur, India to take advantage of an opportunity to experience the magic of a unique hotel when they respond to an online ad. Although the run-down hotel has a loyal and pleasant young host Sonny Kapoor, the elderly Britons are unaware that they have invested in it for the aim of settling down (Dev Patel).

The walls of the Best Exotic Manigold Hotel may have been shabby at first, but they are still a wonder to behold.

2.) California Suite (1978)

The Beverly Hills Hotel, which served as the setting for the comic antics in Neil Simon’s (screenplay) California Suite, was the real star of the film. Jane Fonda, Maggie Smith, Michael Caine, and Walter Matthau were among the hotel’s many award-winning guests. Alan Alda and Bil Cosby, both Emmy winners, joined in on the fun as well. And who can forget Richard Pryor, Elaine May, and Herb Edelman’s comedic talents as well?

Simon’s play, California Suite, was inspired on the film’s title. Only Simon is capable of spotting the oddities in the guests of the Beverly Hills Hotel’s California Suite. Star-studded farces that playedfully depicted nutty mayhem at a fair price seemed to be the paradise of late seventies farce production. Try gathering a who’s who of notables to do an updated version ofCalifornia Suite in the millenium without looting Fort Knox in this day and age of high-priced Hollywood hotshots.

3.) The Grand Budapest Hotel(2014)

The Grand Budapest Hotel(2014)

This wacky comedy from writer-director Wes Anderson delves into the lore of a great European hillside hotel and the ties that bind its staff, guests, and the times of war and financial hardship that surround the fictional legendary edifice with brilliance and wit.

An all-star cast of A-list actors joins Anderson for another surrealist comedy about a swanky 1920s boarding house in The Grand Budapest Hotel. For all of its irreverent and contemplative happenings, the Grand Budapest Hotel holds its own against its human inhabitants, including Ralph Fiennes’ concierge Monsieur Gustave H. and Zero Moustafa (played by Tony Revolori and F. Murray Abraham, respectively) (older version).

It’s a bit like Neil Simon and his California Suite collaborator’s ability to conjure up an impressive roster of familiar names to perform wonders for him in his off-kilter gems with Budapest participants like Harvey Keitel, Bill Murray Adrien Brody Jeff Goldblum Jude Law Tom Wilkinson Jason Schwartzman Owen Wilson Saoirse Ronan Tilda Swinton and Willem Defoe to name but a few.

4.) Grand Hotel(1932)

In director Edmund Goulding’s 1932 film Grand Hotel, former Hollywood heavyweights got the red carpet treatment. Grand Hotel, a lavish motion picture based on the 1930 play of the same name, won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, and Wallace Beery were among the stars of old-time Hollywood.

While staying at a posh Berlin hotel, guests of the Grand Hotel engage in spectacular encounters with each other.

There are a number of patrons whose overlapping conflicts are highlighted in the film, including Grand Hotel permanent resident Dr. Otternschlag (Lewis), former moneybags-turned-card-playing jewel thief Baron Felix von Geigern (John Barrymore), deathbed soft-spoken accountant Otto Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore), wealthy businessman Preysing and his female employee Flaemmchen (Beery and Crawford), and down-and-out Russian ball (Garbo). Elegant and full of intrigue, Grand Hotel is…well…grand.

5.) Hotel(1967)

Hotel(1967)

It is possible that Richard Quine’sHotel will not be as memorable as some of the other hotels/motels included on this list. There are some similarities to other hotel tales in that it portrays the bustle and bustle of both the hotel personnel and their customers. Another time,Hotel mimics the formula of showing big-name stars and allowing them to mingle in the shadows.

New Orleans hotel Hotel tells the narrative of a sprawling establishment with a perpetual whirlwind of turmoil. Despite the fact that Warren Trent (Melvyn Douglas) owns the St. Gregory’s Hotel, the property manager Peter McDermott is responsible for the daily management of the hotel’s problematic situations (Rod Taylor).

Karl Malden, Richard Conte, Catherine Spaak, Michael Rennie, Carmen McRae, Merle Oberon, and Kevin McCarthy are among the supporting cast members forHotel. Before and after its debut, the Hotel presentation template was reused innumerable times. Fortunately, the St. Gregory’s Hotel is the focus of the action…or at least the source of considerable anxiety.

6.) Lost in Translation(2003)

Writer-director Sophia Coppola’s dramedy “Lost in Translation” did not disappoint in its meditative reflections about finding happiness in one’s emotional and professional incompleteness. LOST IN TRANSLATION takes place in Tokyo in the Park Hyatt Hotel, a modern-aged and immaculately golden-structured construction.

In order to jumpstart his sluggish acting career, American actor Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is currently in Japan. For the sake of regaining some of his lost glory, he has flown to Tokyo to film a Japanese commercial. Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), a young housewife whose husband is too busy at work and leaves her alone and bored in her luxurious hotel room, soon comes to Bob’s attention. To help one other cope with their feelings of isolation and unease, Bob and Charlotte form a close friendship within the hotel as well as around Tokyo. If it weren’t for the opulent surroundings of the Park Hyatt, Lost in Translation wouldn’t have the enthralling mystique.

7.) The Motel(2005)

Featuring 13-year-old Ernest Chin (Jeffery Chyau) as the young protagonist, Michael Kang’s coming-of-age film The Mote offers an endearing look at the impressionable years. Ernest works and lives in a squalid motel off the town’s deserted main drag. Ernest, who is about to enter puberty and is having difficulty asserting himself in the context of his extended family, is a helpless victim of a perplexing existence.

Toiling at the sleazy motel for the silently dissatisfied Ernest is like being stuck in an endless loop of the same routine. Sam Kim (Sung Kang) shows up to the motel and introduces the youngster to his off-kilter antics, overshadowing the humdrum times at the motel and family issues. Despite the fact that Sam is a questionable figure, he at least diverts Ernest’s attention from the monotony of his current job. The Hotel is an unconventional look at male bonding and the growing pains of a motel mop-top in search of direction and stability.

8.) Plaza Suite(1971)

Plaza Suite(1971)

The dramatist Neil Simon has left his imprint all over the Plaza Suite. It’s based on Simon’s play of the same name, which inspired the film. The Arthur Hiller-directedPlaza Suite takes place at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, where three separate acts take place in the same hotel suite at various times.. In all three acts, Walter Matthau plays various roles as Sam Nash, Jesse Kiplinger, and Roy Hubley.

Simon’s Plaza Suite is a pricey hotel that’s worth every penny because to the hilarious interplay between Matthau’s different alter egos and the various eccentric characters featured in the light comedy.

9.) Psycho(1960)

A thieving office worker (Janet Leigh) who steals $40,000.00 from her employer promises a brighter future than the one she’s currently leading, of course. Marion, exhausted, decides to make a fatal pit stop along the dark highway and checks into the inconspicuous Bates Motel while on her way to meet her lover Sam with the stolen riches. To meet the motel proprietor, Marion encounters Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), a disturbed young man with a serious case of Mommy domination issues. Hitchcock’s enthralling Psycho wouldn’t be as well known without the Bates Motel’s traditional spooky walls and the tragic mother-son duo known as the bombastic Bates.

10.) The Shining(1980)

The Shining(1980)

Stephen King’s inquisitive novel and devious creative imagination may be responsible for The Shining’s horrible origins. It’s a stark contrast to the real-world backdrop of Timberline Lodge at Mt. Hood National Forest in Oregon, where Kubrick’s gruesome greatness takes place.

Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson) and his family, Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and Danny (Danny Lloyd), become winter guardians at a barren hotel where spectral spirits and past images of mayhem overpower the spook-ridden grounds in the movie’s premise..

Both Danny and Jack are allowed to fall to the craziness of the haunted hotel by the psychic monster known as “The Shining.” In a world of twisted horror, The Shining and its hotel in the middle of a warped winter wasteland are two of the greatest horror films of all time, thanks to the talents of director Stanley Kubrick and author Stephen King.