A 1929 shopping district in white stucco and clay tile, its towers built as beacons for drivers on Wilshire Boulevard.
What Westwood Village looks like
Westwood Village is a shopping district in white and cream stucco under red clay tile roofs, with towers rising at the street corners, tall enough to spot from Wilshire Boulevard. Palm trees line Broxton Avenue between two theater towers that face each other across the street.
The taller tower belongs to the , white stucco topped with a blue and white Fox sign. The 's curved cream tower stands directly across Broxton Avenue, its marquee lit beneath twin corner pilasters. Both marquees have sat dark since 2024, with a restoration underway to reopen the Regency.
The domed Janss Investment Company Building sits at the corner where Westwood Boulevard meets Broxton and Weyburn avenues, its tiled dome ringed by palm trees. UCLA's and Powell Library sit at the top of the brick just north of the village, in a matching red brick and clay tile.
Office towers rise along Wilshire Boulevard at the village's southern edge, including the glass walled . West of the theaters, Richard Neutra's Landfair Apartments show glass walled upper floors and a curved white stair to the street. The cream high rise Marie Antoinette stands nearby on Wilshire, its balconies set into rounded television shaped window frames.
Shot in Westwood Village
American Gigolo used three real Westwood addresses in 1980, including the diner across from the Fox tower and the domed building on Westwood Plaza. The Bruin Theater has appeared on screen many times since. It played itself in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and decades earlier in The Caretakers. Crash stages its carjacking on Broxton Avenue as its couple leaves the Landmark Regent Theatre, and I Am Sam's Starbucks scenes were shot across the street on Weyburn Avenue.
American Gigolo, 1980
Michelle Stratton follows Julian Kaye down Westwood Plaza in this film, passing the domed Janss Investment Company Building on the way. Kaye is questioned by a detective at a diner on Weyburn Avenue that once sat in the shadow of the Regency's tower, called Me and Me then and a sushi restaurant now. The film also uses a botanical garden on the UCLA campus.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, 2019
Sharon Tate at the Bruin
Sharon Tate watches herself on screen in The Wrecking Crew at the Fox Bruin Theater in this film. Tarantino has said the scene came from his own memory of seeing True Romance there and convincing the staff he had written it. The production restored the Bruin's marquee and the Regency's across the street to their 1969 look, along with the storefronts around them.
Emergency!, The Steel Inferno, 1978
Oppenheimer Tower burns
Played a burning high rise office tower
A 24 story office building called Oppenheimer Tower went up on Wilshire Boulevard at the edge of the village in 1970. It stood in for a burning high rise in The Steel Inferno, a two hour NBC television movie that continued Emergency! after the series had already ended.
What Westwood Village can double for
Claremont Village in Claremont, California
Claremont Village's white stucco buildings, red tile roofs and arched openings sit directly against the Claremont Colleges the way Westwood Village sits against UCLA, so a shopping street and a campus quad are both available on one unit move. The Spanish Colonial Revival storefronts share Westwood's stucco and tile palette closely. Claremont's blocks are lower and less crowded with towers than Westwood's, so a wide shot needs to avoid the 2007 cinema and hotel wing on the Village's north side to hold the period look. Try searching arched Spanish storefronts now.
State Street's stucco facades and terracotta roofs came from one Spanish Colonial Revival rebuilding after the 1925 earthquake, giving it the same stucco and tile palette as Westwood's shops. It runs as a long straight commercial street rather than Westwood's cluster of paseos around one corner. No campus sits against State Street the way UCLA sits against Westwood, so a shot pairing a college quad with the shopping street needs a different location for the campus half. Try searching stucco facades terracotta roofs now.
Telegraph Avenue runs straight into UC Berkeley's Sproul Plaza the way Westwood Boulevard runs into UCLA, so the same town and gown unit move is available. The buildings themselves are an early twentieth century commercial mix rather than Westwood's uniform Mediterranean Revival storefronts. A wide shot of Telegraph's storefronts will not look like Westwood's white stucco and tile, so this only holds for the shot where a campus gate meets a commercial sidewalk. Try searching town and gown now.
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