Watch An Architecture Expert Weigh In On Iconic Movie Buildings

In Vulture’s video series, Expert Witness, we ask scientists, historians, and other professionals to give Hollywood movies a good old-fashioned fact-check.

Buildings in movies can play a multitude of roles. They can be world-building backdrops, as in sci-fi epics like Blade Runner or Metropolis, or they can be expressions of character, like in The Sopranos or any Wes Anderson flick. As with many aspects of film, these details can often go unnoticed. So we turned to Kate Wagner, architecture and culture writer, and author of the viral blog McMansion Hell, to break down some iconic buildings in film and television.