Since 1896, Brighton has served as a location for countless movies... here are a selection of genre highlights:

Two of the earliest examples— The Haunted Castle and The X-ray Fiend—were filmed by G.A. Smith in 1897. The following year he made a version of Cinderella, Faust and Mephistopheles, The Mesmerist, Photographing a Ghost and Santa Claus. In 1899 Smith filmed Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp.

Arthur Charrington's The Grip of Iron (1913) was based on a play by Arthur Shirley adapted from the novel Les Estrangleurs de Paris by Belot.

Brighton's world-famous Palace Pier, situated just across the road from The Royal Albion Hotel, was of course the location for the chilling murder scene in Graham Greene's classic 1938 novel Brighton Rock. Richard Attenborough portrayed the teenage psychopath Pinkie in the 1947 film version (released in the US as Young Scarface).

Glynis Johns played a love-struck mermaid in Mad About Men (1953), in which Brighton locations stood in for Cornwall.

Hammer Film's Quatermass II (aka Enemy from Space, 1957) was partly filmed on the South Downs, and The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) included an aerial shot of the Palace Pier.

Brian Rix portrayed a Brighton antique dealer who thought his dead partner had been reincarnated as a talking parrot in the comedy The Night We Got the Bird (1964).

Pete Walker's The Flesh and Blood Show (aka Asylum of the Insane, 1972) was filmed in the Palace Pier Theatre and starred Jenny Hanley, Robin Askwith and singer Jess Conrad.

Scripted by Neil Gaiman and director Dave McKean, the live-action sequences in MirrorMask (2005) were shot in Brighton.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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