Spike Jonze’s near-future Los Angeles – all warm light, high-waisted trousers and gentle melancholy – is really two cities stitched together. The soft, walkable metropolis where Theodore falls for his operating system is part downtown LA and part Shanghai, whose gleaming Pudong skyline stands in for the future.
Where was Her filmed?
Her was shot in Los Angeles and in Shanghai, China. Downtown LA – Bunker Hill, the Financial District, the Walt Disney Concert Hall – supplied the ground-level city, while Shanghai’s futuristic Pudong district provided the skyline and elevated walkways that make this LA feel like tomorrow.
The mix is deliberate: Jonze wanted a future that felt soft and liveable rather than dystopian, and Shanghai’s pedestrian skywalks and pastel towers gave him a city of the future that already existed.
Every Her location, explained
Shanghai’s Pudong – the future skyline
The elevated walkways and glass towers of future Los Angeles are Lujiazui in Pudong, Shanghai, along with People’s Square and the Wujiaochang district. Those clean, car-free skywalks are the film’s signature look.
Downtown Los Angeles – Theodore’s world
Theodore’s apartment is the Watermarke Tower on West 9th Street in downtown Los Angeles, and his office is a Bunker Hill tower on South Hope Street. The Walt Disney Concert Hall appears in the people-watching scenes.
The beach trip and the pier
The trip to the beach heads out through the Hollywood Bowl area and reaches the coast at Manhattan Beach, while the fairground scenes were shot at Santa Monica Pier.
Around the city
Other LA landmarks fill in the world, from a downtown hotel where Theodore and Catherine sign their divorce papers to a boat trip out of Long Beach and San Pedro’s harbour.
Planning a visit
In Los Angeles, the film’s spine is walkable: the Watermarke Tower, the Disney Concert Hall and the Bunker Hill towers are all within downtown, with Santa Monica Pier a short drive west. For the future half of the film you’d need to go to Shanghai, where the Lujiazui skywalks in Pudong are exactly as luminous as they look on screen.
