Holiday hotspots where famous movies like Mission Impossible and The Lord of the Rings were shot

The massive sums of money pumped into Hollywood films these days mean extravagant and exotic locations can be picked out as ideal places to shoot scenes.

From Britain's beautiful countryside to beaches in southeast Asia, there are a number of different kinds of holiday hotspots you can visit to see where Hollywood's biggest stars were once at work.

Films such as Mission Impossible and The Lord of the Rings have also grown to become greatly associated with certain areas where filming took place

NationalWorld takes a look at some holiday hotspots where high-profile filming has taken place.

Peak District, Derbyshire

One big scene in the latest Mission Impossible film (Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One) was filmed at a Derbyshire quarry in the Peak District.

A scene where a steam engine crashes into a quarry off a cliff was filmed at Darlton Quarry, Stoney Middleton, in 2021.

The scene starts with Tom Cruise fighting a villain on top of the speeding train - but then we wouldn't expect anything different would we?

The Peak District sees 13 million visitors every year.

New Zealand

Since its release in the early 2000s, The Lord of the Rings has become synonymous with New Zealand. So much so that there are tours to take you around certain filming locations.

In fact, more than 150 locations were used for the three films. Matama is perhaps the most famous location as this became the Shire in the films and remains the only set that is still standing.

Mount Ngauruhoe become Mount Doom in the films and is in Tongariro National Park, where Morder is depicted in the films.

The Putangirua Pinnacles are another location that features in the films.

Thailand

Beautiful areas in Thailand such as Koh Phi Phi Leh have always been popular with tourists - and perhaps even more so after film fans saw it on the big screen.

Danny Boyle's 2000 film The Beach was famously shot here and featured a young Leonardo DiCaprio.

The film made a small cove on the western side of Koh Phi Phi Leh famous across the world.

James Bond film The Man With the Golden Gun was also partly filmed on a Thailand beach - Koh Ping Khan in Phang Nga Bay.

Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith was also shot in Thailand where the limestone cliffs and vegetation in Krabi Province were used to represent Kaashyyk.

Las Vegas

If you were part of a friendship group desperate for a trip to Vegas after The Hangover, don't worry because you certainly weren't alone!

Seeing inside Caesar's Palace and other epic landmarks in Vegas gave the city a glamour that tourists needed to see for themselves.

Ocean's Eleven was also set in Las Vegas.

The Caribbean

Home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, the Caribbean is rightly seen as paradise by many people.

And given where the films are set, it - of course - served as a major location for Pirates of the Caribbean. It seems the crew greatly favoured filming locations around St Vincent and the Grenadines - while locations in St. Lucia and the remote Tobago Cays also feature.

But this isn't the only famous film shot on the Caribbean islands.

James Bond's infamous crocodile stunt from Live and Let Die was filmed here too. Here, Bond (who was actually stuntman Ross Katanga) runs across a number of crocodiles in the water to make an escape.

Not only was the scene real and performed by a stuntman whose father is thought to have been eaten by a crocodile, but it also took Katanga five attempts to complete the routine in Trelawny, Jamaica and he needed more than 190 stitches afterwards.

Dubai

Another Mission Impossible entry here. A scene from Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol shows Tom Cruise scaling an 830-metre building.

That building was the Burj Khalifa Tower - one of the biggest tourist attractions in Dubai and also the tallest building in the world.

A stunt not for the faint-hearted regardless of who is doing it. But it does look more impressive on camera when you realise Tom Cruise actually did it himself!