Article summary
What this article covers: The real French Riviera in film locations behind To Catch a Thief and later Riviera films, what visitors can see at each one today, and how Grace Kelly’s story connects Monaco to County Mayo.
Who this is for: Film fans planning a trip to the Côte d’Azur, travellers with Irish heritage curious about Grace Kelly’s roots, and anyone combining a Riviera holiday with screen tourism.
Key takeaway: Most of the Riviera’s classic film locations are public streets, beaches and hotels that you can reach by train or car in a single day, but the best-known villas are private homes and should be viewed from the road.
Expert insight: “What strikes me about Grace Kelly’s story is the distance between its two ends. Her grandfather was born in a two-room cottage outside Newport in County Mayo, and two generations later his granddaughter was driving the corniche roads above Monaco for Hitchcock. When people ask us about the Riviera in film, I suggest they watch To Catch a Thief and then drive the lane out of Newport towards Drimurla, because the film only tells half of the story.” , Ciaran Connolly, Founder of ConnollyCove
Quick facts:
- Alfred Hitchcock shot To Catch a Thief (1955) on location around Cannes, Nice, Saint-Jeannet and Monaco, with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in the leads, near the end of the golden age of the Hollywood studio system.
- Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier III of Monaco in April 1956 and visited her grandfather’s birthplace at Drimurla, near Newport in County Mayo, on 15 June 1961.
- Grace of Monaco, starring Nicole Kidman, opened the 2014 Cannes Film Festival out of competition.
Table of Contents
The French Riviera in film is best explored through the real places behind To Catch a Thief: the Carlton beach in Cannes, the hill village of Saint-Jeannet, the streets of Nice and the corniche roads above Monaco. Most of these sites can be reached by train or car in a day, and the story behind them leads, perhaps unexpectedly, to the west of Ireland.
The Côte d’Azur has drawn filmmakers since the middle of the twentieth century because of its light, its sea views and its grand hotels. Hitchcock filmed To Catch a Thief there in VistaVision, and Grace Kelly made it shortly before she left acting for Monaco.
ConnollyCove is an Ireland-based travel and culture platform founded by Ciaran Connolly, and it covers film locations as places to visit rather than as trivia. This page sets out where each Riviera film was made, what you can see there today and which sites are private, then follows Grace Kelly’s family from the Riviera back to Newport in County Mayo.
The French Riviera became a film location for its light and its hotels
The French Riviera, or Côte d’Azur, offered post-war filmmakers bright Mediterranean light, sea and mountain views within a short drive of each other, and hotels that already attracted wealthy visitors. Those three things suited glamorous stories about money, romance and crime, which is why the same stretch of coast appears in films from the 1950s to the present.
Cannes and Saint-Tropez gave productions harbours full of yachts, while hill villages such as Èze and La Turbie gave them views over the sea from high above the coast. Grasse, inland from Cannes, is known as the centre of the French perfume industry, and the jasmine and lavender grown around it are part of why the region looks and smells so different from northern Europe.
Hitchcock’s film marked the moment the Riviera became a summer film destination for Hollywood. It won the Academy Award for Best Colour Cinematography for Robert Burks, and its location work set the pattern later productions followed: real streets and hotels for the exteriors, with many interiors shot back at Paramount in Hollywood.
To Catch a Thief locations run from Cannes to Monaco
To Catch a Thief was filmed largely in the Alpes-Maritimes, with Cannes, Nice, the village of Saint-Jeannet and the roads above Monaco as the main French Riviera locations. Researchers working on Hitchcock’s locations have also identified scenes around Gourdon, Tourrettes-sur-Loup, Le Bar-sur-Loup, Èze and La Turbie, so a full trail covers both the coast and the hills behind it.
Cannes and the Hotel Carlton
The Hotel Carlton on La Croisette in Cannes is the film’s grandest location, where Grace Kelly’s character, Frances Stevens, stays with her mother. The hotel is now the InterContinental Carlton Cannes, and its terraces and private beach are still in use; the beach where Robie is dropped off by boat is the same strip of sand that festival guests use each May.
Above the seafront, Le Suquet, the old town of Cannes, is worth the climb for views back over the bay. When you visit, you can walk the Croisette from the Carlton to the Palais des Festivals in about 15 minutes, which links the film’s main hotel to the festival that made Cannes famous.
Nice and the flower market chase
Nice provides the film’s busy street scenes, including the Promenade des Anglais and the flower market where Robie slips away from the police. The market is often placed on the Cours Saleya in the old town, but Hitchcock researchers place the sequence on Boulevard Jean Jaurès a few streets away, so treat both as part of the same walk.
The Cours Saleya still holds a flower and produce market most mornings, and it is the easiest place to get a sense of the scene today. Allow a morning for Nice before heading inland or along the coast.
Saint-Jeannet and the hill villages
John Robie’s hilltop villa is in Saint-Jeannet, a small village north-west of Nice at the foot of the rocky outcrop known as the Baou. The villa is a private home, so the respectful approach is to see the village and the view rather than to look for the house itself.
The car chase and several driving scenes used the hill roads around Gourdon, Tourrettes-sur-Loup and Le Bar-sur-Loup. These are narrow and busy in summer, and travellers exploring this region by car should allow more time than a map suggests.
The corniche roads and Monaco
The film’s best-known drive, with Grace Kelly at the wheel of a blue Sunbeam Alpine, was shot on the corniche roads above Monaco. Sources differ on whether the main sequence used the Grande Corniche or the Moyenne Corniche, and both give the same sweeping views of the coast.
A restored Sunbeam Alpine of the same model, finished to match the film car, is part of the Prince of Monaco’s car collection, which is open to visitors. It is a simple way to connect the film to the principality Grace Kelly joined a year after its release.
The table below gathers the main Riviera films and what a visitor can see today. Use the last column to decide which films fit the part of the coast you are staying on.
| Film | Year | Where it was filmed on the Riviera | Public access today | Our recommendation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| To Catch a Thief | 1955 | Cannes, Nice, Saint-Jeannet, the hill villages and the roads above Monaco | Hotel, seafront and streets are public; Robie’s villa is private | Start here, with a full day by car from Nice |
| And God Created Woman | 1956 | Saint-Tropez and Pampelonne beach in Ramatuelle | Town and beach are public | Combine with a day in Saint-Tropez |
| La Piscine | 1969 | A private villa in Ramatuelle near Saint-Tropez | Private | View the Pampelonne bay rather than seeking the villa |
| Magic in the Moonlight | 2014 | Villa Eilenroc in Antibes, Hôtel Belles Rives, Nice Observatory, Hôtel Negresco and Opéra de Nice | Villa gardens on set days; hotels as guests | Best for travellers based in Antibes or Nice |
| Grace of Monaco | 2014 | Monaco and the south of France, with other scenes shot elsewhere in Europe | Monaco’s public areas | Pair with a visit to the Prince’s Palace |
Grace Kelly moved from the film set to the palace in Monaco
Grace Kelly met Prince Rainier III during the 1955 Cannes Film Festival and married him in Monaco in April 1956, in a ceremony the press called the Wedding of the Century. She then retired from acting, and the international attention her marriage brought helped raise Monaco’s profile as a destination.
Prince Rainier was often called the builder prince for modernising the principality’s infrastructure and economy during his reign. Princess Grace took on charitable and representative work, and Monaco’s link with cinema continued long after her last film.
That link returned to Cannes in 2014, when Olivier Dahan’s Grace of Monaco, with Nicole Kidman in the title role, opened the festival out of competition. The film dramatises the early 1960s dispute between Monaco and France and was shot in Monaco, the south of France and several other European locations. Princess Grace died in September 1982, a day after her car left the road on the hills above Monaco.
Grace Kelly’s Irish roots lead back to County Mayo
Grace Kelly’s paternal grandfather, John Kelly, was born in a small cottage at Drimurla, a townland about two miles from Newport in County Mayo, before emigrating to Philadelphia. Princess Grace and Prince Rainier visited the cottage on 15 June 1961 during their state visit to Ireland, and she later bought the house and land.
The 1961 trip also took the couple to Croagh Patrick, the mountain pilgrimage site above Clew Bay, and to a gathering of Kelly relatives around Westport. Clew Bay is also the home waters of the sixteenth-century pirate queen Grace O’Malley, so a Mayo itinerary built around Princess Grace naturally takes in two very different Graces.
The cottage is now a ruin on private farmland, and in 2023 Prince Albert II unveiled a statue of his mother in Newport. The Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco, founded in her memory, holds her collection of Irish books and music and runs talks on her Mayo ancestry.
For visitors from Ireland, the Mayo connection makes the Riviera feel closer than it looks on a map. The same county gave cinema The Quiet Man, and ConnollyCove’s guide to where The Quiet Man was filmed in Cong is a natural second stop on a Mayo film trip.
Princess Grace sits within a much wider story of Irish emigrant families whose descendants became public figures abroad, and ConnollyCove’s profiles of famous Irish people cover several of them. ConnollyCove’s Irish heritage coverage connects places in Ireland to the people and stories that left from them.
Saint-Tropez, Antibes and Monaco carried the Riviera into later films
Later directors moved west to Saint-Tropez and east to Antibes and Monaco, and their films are now as useful to travellers as Hitchcock’s. Each one points to a different part of the coast.
Roger Vadim’s And God Created Woman (1956) made Brigitte Bardot an international star and was filmed in Saint-Tropez and on Pampelonne beach in neighbouring Ramatuelle. The film is often credited with turning Saint-Tropez from a fishing port into a celebrity resort, and the harbour front is still the place to see why.
Jacques Deray’s La Piscine (1969), with Romy Schneider and Alain Delon, was filmed almost entirely at a villa and pool in Ramatuelle, overlooking the bay of Pampelonne. The villa is private, so the bay itself is the part to enjoy.
Woody Allen’s Magic in the Moonlight (2014) is set on the Riviera in the late 1920s. It used Villa Eilenroc on Cap d’Antibes for the family estate and ball, the Hôtel Belles Rives in Juan-les-Pins for its bar and restaurant scenes, the Nice Observatory for the rainstorm scene, the bar of the Hôtel Negresco and the Opéra de Nice.
Pascal Chaumeil’s Heartbreaker (2010), with Vanessa Paradis and Romain Duris, is set in Monaco and makes the most of its hotels and seafront. Together these films give travellers a reason to look beyond Cannes and Nice.
The Cannes Film Festival has a free public programme
Most Cannes Film Festival screenings require professional accreditation, but the Cinéma de la Plage is open to everyone. Every evening of the festival, usually from 9.30pm, Macé beach on La Croisette becomes an open-air cinema showing restored classics and some premieres, with no ticket or badge required.
The festival takes place over about 12 days in May at the Palais des Festivals. Hotels in Cannes fill early and prices rise sharply during that fortnight, so many visitors stay in Nice or Antibes and travel in by train.
If the festival dates do not suit your trip, the Palais and its red-carpet steps can be seen from the street year-round. For a broader look at how film history is presented to visitors, ConnollyCove’s round-up of cinema museums worth a visit covers collections elsewhere in Europe and beyond.
Riviera screen tourism works much like Irish screen tourism
The French Riviera and Northern Ireland both show how film turns real places into travel destinations, and the same habits help in both. Visitors want to stand where a scene was shot, but many locations are private homes, working farms or busy roads, so the best trips mix public sites with views from a respectful distance.
Northern Ireland’s Game of Thrones locations
Castle Ward in County Down plays a similar role to the Carlton in Cannes, as a historic property that still welcomes visitors and leans into its screen history. ConnollyCove’s guide to Castle Ward as Winterfell covers the estate, the archery and the courtyard used in the series.
Castle Ward, County Down, on the ConnollyCove YouTube channel
The Winterfell Festival at Castle Ward shows how a filming location can become an event in its own right, in the way the Cannes festival grew around the Croisette. Re-enactors, archery and costumed visitors give fans something to do beyond taking photographs.
Knights at the Winterfell Festival, Castle Ward
Belfast and the Antrim coast
Belfast marked the end of Game of Thrones with the Glass of Thrones stained-glass trail, a reminder that screen tourism can be built into a city as well as found in the countryside. The windows sit in public places, so they are free to see on foot.
Glass of Thrones, Belfast
Ballygally Castle Hotel on the Antrim coast has its own Game of Thrones connection, much as the Carlton trades on its Hitchcock history. Both show how a hotel can become part of a film trail while still working as a place to stay.
Game of Thrones at Ballygally Castle Hotel
Film trails elsewhere in Europe
The same approach works across the Mediterranean. ConnollyCove’s guide to film locations in Italian cities and countryside follows the pattern of public sites first and private ones viewed with care, and it pairs well with a Riviera trip that continues east past Menton.
Further north, our guide to James Bond’s Scottish Highlands shows how a single film can bring visitors to remote roads and glens. The same advice on parking and private land applies there as on the hill roads behind Nice.
Closer to home, ConnollyCove’s guide to films made in Ireland lists Irish locations you can combine with a Mayo trip. Several are in the west, within a short drive of Newport and Cong.
Seasonal conditions and planning your visit
Spring and early autumn are the easiest times to follow the French Riviera film trail, with warm weather, lighter traffic on the hill roads and lower hotel prices than in July and August. Summer brings the longest days but also heavy traffic on the corniche roads and crowded villages, especially around Saint-Tropez.
May is dominated by the Cannes Film Festival, and the Monaco Grand Prix usually follows in late May, closing streets in the principality. If you want the festival atmosphere, book accommodation months ahead; if you want quiet roads, avoid that fortnight.
The coastal railway links Cannes, Antibes, Nice, Villefranche-sur-Mer and Monaco, which makes the seafront locations easy without a car. A car is useful for Saint-Jeannet and the hill villages, and drivers should expect narrow roads and limited parking.
Many travellers from Ireland and the UK reach the Riviera by flying to Nice, while others combine it with a city break in Paris and take the high-speed train south. Check the official SNCF and festival websites for timetables and dates before you travel, as both change each year.
Paris, France, on the ConnollyCove YouTube channel
Questions about the French Riviera in film
Where was To Catch a Thief filmed?
To Catch a Thief was filmed on the French Riviera around Cannes, Nice, Saint-Jeannet and Monaco, with many interiors shot at Paramount in Hollywood. Key locations include the Hotel Carlton in Cannes, the streets of Nice, John Robie’s villa in Saint-Jeannet and the corniche roads above Monaco. Hitchcock researchers have also placed scenes in hill villages such as Gourdon and Tourrettes-sur-Loup.
How has the To Catch a Thief house changed over time?
The villa used as John Robie’s home is a private house in Saint-Jeannet, and it is not open to visitors. We could not verify reports of renovations, so the best way to see it in context is to visit the village and the surrounding views. Please respect the owners’ privacy and do not enter the grounds.
What happens at the end of To Catch a Thief?
At the end of To Catch a Thief, the real cat burglar is unmasked as Danielle Foussard, the daughter of one of Robie’s old Resistance comrades, and Robie clears his name. Frances Stevens follows him back to his villa, and the film closes there with the couple together.
Which hotel was used in To Catch a Thief?
The Hotel Carlton in Cannes, now the InterContinental Carlton Cannes, was used as the hotel where Frances Stevens and her mother stay. It sits on La Croisette, a short walk from the Palais des Festivals. Its terraces and private beach still look much as they do in the film.
What landmarks in Nice appear in To Catch a Thief?
The Promenade des Anglais and a flower market in central Nice both appear in To Catch a Thief. The flower market chase is often linked to the Cours Saleya, but Hitchcock researchers place it on Boulevard Jean Jaurès nearby. Both are in easy walking distance of each other in the centre of Nice.
Where did Grace Kelly’s family come from in Ireland?
Grace Kelly’s paternal grandfather came from Drimurla, a townland near Newport in County Mayo. Princess Grace visited the family cottage with Prince Rainier on 15 June 1961 and later bought it. The ruin stands on private farmland today, and a statue of Princess Grace was unveiled in Newport in 2023.
Can the public attend the Cannes Film Festival?
The public can attend the Cinéma de la Plage, the festival’s free open-air screenings on Macé beach each evening, without a ticket or accreditation. Most other screenings require a professional badge. The festival runs for about 12 days each May.
When is the best time to visit French Riviera film locations?
Spring and early autumn are the best times, with good weather and quieter roads. July and August bring crowds and traffic on the hill roads, and late May is busy because of the Cannes Film Festival and the Monaco Grand Prix.
Plan your Riviera film trip from Ireland
The simplest plan is two or three days: one for Cannes and the Croisette, one for Nice, Saint-Jeannet and the hill villages, and one for the corniche roads and Monaco. Travellers with more time can add Saint-Tropez and Antibes for the later films.
ConnollyCove, the Ireland-based travel and culture platform, covers film locations from the Riviera to County Mayo. For more screen tourism, start with our Castle Ward and Mayo film guides linked above, or watch our location videos on the ConnollyCove YouTube channel.
