Is there anything better than pizza? One thing. Your favorite movie and a great slice at the same time.
Hollywood has always known it. Sometimes the pizza on screen is a prop and the pizzeria is a set that lasts a week. But the great scenes were shot in real shops you can still walk into, order the same pie, and eat exactly where the camera stood. Sophia Loren knew the address back in 1954. Here are four worth the trip, then the scenes that never had one.
| Rank | Spot | City | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pizzeria Starita a Materdei | Naples | Sophia Loren fried pizza here in L'oro di Napoli, 1954; open since 1901 |
| 2 | L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele | Naples | Julia Roberts' Margherita scene in Eat, Pray, Love; two pizzas only since 1870 |
| 3 | Joe's Pizza | New York | Peter Parker's delivery job in Spider-Man 2; the Carmine Street slice |
| 4 | Mystic Pizza | Mystic | It named the 1988 Julia Roberts film it inspired; the Slice of Heaven |
Starita, Naples: Sophia Loren's fried pizza
Start where the movies did. Antonio Starita, Don Antonio to anyone who matters, runs a shop his family opened in 1901 on Via Materdei, up the hill and away from the tourist scrum. He helped found the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, so the man has opinions and the credentials to back them. His signature isn't even a baked pizza. It's the montanara: the dough hits the fryer first, comes out puffed and gold, then takes tomato, cheese and basil and a fast finish in the wood oven. That fried trade is exactly what got Starita on film. In L'oro di Napoli, Sophia Loren plays a Naples pizza-fritta seller, and the shop has quietly owned that link for 70 years. Get the montanara. Then order a Neapolitan Margherita off the same oven and go quiet for a minute.
Pizzeria Starita a Materdei
€€€€ · 24,673 reviews
Pizza Lovers say: "Unbelievably delicious pizza, light and pillowy dough, and the fried dough fritters with pistachio cream are a must-try. The dough is slightly chewier than some prefer."
Da Michele, Naples: the Eat, Pray, Love Margherita
A few minutes downhill on Via Cesare Sersale, the Condurro family has been at this since 1870, and they still refuse to complicate it. Two pizzas. Margherita and Marinara. Order anything else and you have misread the assignment. Michele Condurro learned the craft from the dough masters of Torre Annunziata, and the recipe has barely blinked since: tomato, fiordilatte, a wood oven pushing 485°C, 60 to 90 seconds and out. This is the counter where Julia Roberts sat down in Naples and told the world she was having a relationship with her pizza in Eat, Pray, Love. They filmed it right there. No set, no stunt pie. It lands wider than the plate. The line down the block is not there for the movie, trust me.
L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele
€€€€ · 76,171 reviews
Pizza Lovers say: "Thin, Rumali roti-like crust, simple 4-pizza menu, and great value. While delicious, it was not outstanding or 'the best' for one reviewer."
Joe's Pizza, New York: Spider-Man's slice
Cross the ocean, change the entire accent. Joe's opened in 1975, when Pino Pozzuoli, Joe to everyone, came over from Pozzuoli outside Naples and started turning out the platonic New York slice. Thin, wide, foldable, pulled off a screaming deck oven and into your hand while you are still standing up. It is the NY-Style slice with nothing to prove. Spider-Man 2 shot here in 2004, with Peter Parker sweating it as the worst delivery boy in New York, and the shop has never let anyone forget it: a banner on the wall still brags "You saw us in Spider-Man." Joe's has since slid a few doors down to 7 Carmine Street. The slice did not change a thing.
Joe's Pizza
€€€€ · 26,194 reviews
Pizza Lovers say: "delicious classic cheese pizza with a thin crust. Be prepared for long queues and a fast-paced, assembly-line service."
Mystic Pizza, Connecticut: the shop that named a movie
The odd one out is a little counter at 56 West Main Street in Mystic, Connecticut, where the Zelepos family has made pies since 1973 under a slogan you cannot improve on: "A Slice of Heaven." A screenwriter on vacation fell for the name and built a whole coming-of-age film around it. Mystic Pizza (1988) handed the world a teenage Julia Roberts, with a baby-faced Matt Damon along for one line at the dinner table. Small honest asterisk: the interior scenes were shot on a set up the road in Stonington, not in the actual shop. So you are making a pilgrimage to the pizzeria that inspired the movie, not the one that hosted the cameras. Fine by us. The Slice of Heaven is still on the menu, and the walls wear the film like a badge.
The pizzerias that only exist on screen
Some of the loudest pizza moments in movies never had a front door.
There is exactly one thing sexier than Ryan Gosling: Ryan Gosling eating a slice. Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011) proves it in a single shot, Jacob Palmer working a mall food-court slice in a tailored suit and sunglasses, seconds before he adopts a heartbroken Steve Carell and rebuilds him from the shoes up. No pizzeria, no address. Just proof that pizza makes everyone more watchable.
Sal's Famous is the most famous fake pizzeria ever filmed, the whole stage of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989). The movie barely steps outside it, then torches it: Mookie puts a trash can through the window, and people have argued about that shot ever since. Sal's was pure carpentry, built for the shoot on Stuyvesant Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant and struck the day the film wrapped. The block is still there. Go stand on the corner where the whole thing went up.
Home Alone (1990) turns on a plain cheese pizza from Little Nero's, a made-up chain winking at Little Caesars. Kevin settles the $11.80 by running a fake gangster flick, Angels with Filthy Souls, through the front door, and one line has outlived every prop in the movie: "Keep the change, ya filthy animal."
Back to the Future Part II (1989) mailed its pizza to the year 2015. Grandma Lorraine feeds a foil disc the size of a cookie into a Black & Decker hydrator, says "Hydrate level 4, please," and pulls out a full-size Pizza Hut pie. Of everything the film guessed about the future, that was the dream.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) built a whole bit around a Domino's order, Michelangelo reeling off a monster list with one non-negotiable rule, no anchovies, before Splinter docks the bill for a late delivery. Never pay full price for late pizza.
The scene that started all of this belongs to a shop that is gone. Saturday Night Fever (1977): Tony Manero stacks two slices, folds them together and struts down 86th Street in Brooklyn without breaking stride. That was Lenny's Pizza. It closed in 2023 after more than 70 years on the corner, which is the only sad sentence here.
A movie can walk you to the door. After that you are on your own, and that is the fun part. OpenPizzaMap is a hand-curated map of 5243 pizzerias across 360 cities, and we rank places like these by what people who actually came for the pizza thought, not by the cameo and definitely not by the line out front. Two of the four live in Naples, one is pure New York. Draw your own conclusions, then book the flight.