London Underground in Popular Culture - Film and Television

Film and Television

Filming is now managed all over the system but most commonly takes place at stations like Aldwych (a disused tube station), formerly on the Piccadilly Line, or the non-operational Jubilee Line complex in Charing Cross. The Waterloo and City Line has occasionally been used for filming as it is closed on Sundays.

The London Underground Film Office handles over 200 requests a month

• The 1926 film The Lodger was the first feature directed by Alfred Hitchcock, in which he makes a cameo appearance as a passenger on a tube train.
• The 1928 film Underground, directed by Anthony Asquith, is a murder mystery set in the tube, much of which was shot on location in London Underground stations and on trains.
• The 1953 film "The Yellow Balloon" directed by J. Lee Thompson. One of two young boys accidentally falls to his death when playing in a bombed-out London neighborhood.........the climax takes place deep within the Tube.
• The 1967 film Quatermass and the Pit (U.S. title: Five Million Years to Earth) revolves around alien bodies and spacecraft being discovered in the fictional Hobbs End tube station.
• The 1968 Doctor Who serial The Web of Fear is set in the tunnels of the Underground and deals with an invasion by robotic Yeti. In the 1974 Serial Invasion of the Dinosaurs, "Operation Golden Age" has its secret base hidden at the Trafalgar Square tube station. In the 1986 serial The Mysterious Planet, the Doctor and his companion discover an underground civilisation in the ruins of Marble Arch tube station on a future Earth. The 1992 spin-off novel Transit shows a future Tube that has evolved to connect human colonies throughout the solar system.
• The 1968 film Séance on a Wet Afternoon features a chase scene, featuring shots of several stations.
• The 1968 film Otley, directed by Dick Clement, features a standoff between Tom Courtenay and Leonard Rossiter on the deserted Central Line platform at Notting Hill Gate tube station.
• In the film adaptation of The Bed-Sitting Room, a satirical play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus released in 1970 based three years after the nuclear holocaust, survivors wander amidst the debris of London and live in the remains of the London Underground.
• There is a sub-genre of horror based on subterranean humans living in disused sections of the London Underground and preying on any unlucky commuters they find. These include the 1972 film Death Line and 2004's Creep.
• The secret lab in the 1970s TV series The Tomorrow People was in a disused Underground station.
• In the 1981 film An American Werewolf in London, Tottenham Court Road Underground station is among the many London landmarks where the titular werewolf attacks.
• The 1987 film The Fourth Protocol features a double agent being followed on the Piccadilly Line between Hyde Park Corner and Green Park, although shot on the Jubilee line between Charing Cross and Green Park. Later in the film, Michael Caine takes his vengeance out on two racist yobs who are causing disruption in the carriage in which he is travelling, this scene being shot on the Aldwych branch.
• According to Kevin Kline's character Otto in the movie A Fish Called Wanda, the London Underground is a political movement.
• The 1992 film Split Second, the London Underground is flooded with water cause of the rising sea levels. Rutger Hauer and Alastair Duncan's characters are hunting a creature that has murdered people.
• The 1998 film Sliding Doors shows two parallel universes, hinging on whether the central character (Gwyneth Paltrow) catches a particular Tube train or not.
• The 1999 film Tube Tales features nine stories based on true-life experiences of London Underground passengers
• The James Bond film Die Another Day (2002) features the fictional Vauxhall Cross tube station, which having become defunct is used by MI6 as a secret base..
• Although most of the 2000 film Billy Elliot takes place during the 1984–1985 UK miners' strike, its epilogue takes place in the modern day, a fact presaged by the appearance of the Jubilee Line extension at its start.
• In the 2002 film 28 Days Later, two of the characters use a sweetshop in the Underground station at Canary Wharf as a hideout in the early part of the film.
• In the 2006 film V for Vendetta, Aldwych is used for some of the scenes in the film.
• The Good Shepherd (2006) and Atonement (2007) include scenes shot at Aldwych.
• The 2007 ITV thriller series Primeval featured the Underground in the second episode of the series. In it, a time anomaly leading to the Late Carboniferous period opens and releases giant extinct insects such as Arthropleura and an unknown species of spider.
• The 2007 Sky3 documentary series "The Tube" use the London Underground in all of their episodes, including the London Underground depot (21 July 2007) and the London Transport Museum (28 July 2007)series liaise
• In episode 5 of series 10 (aired 2007) of Top Gear, the team raced across London. The Stig took the Underground from the start point of Kew Gardens to the finish point at London City Airport. He took the District Line and the DLR.
• The 2008 feature film Three and Out, starring Mackenzie Crook, is centred around a London Underground driver.
• The James Bond film Skyfall (2012) features an action sequence in which a villain is pursued into the tube network. It was fIlmed at Temple and Charing Cross tube stations and on a substantial set recreation at Pinewood Studios.

Although not "filmed" as such on the Underground, there have been two animated children's television series set on and around it. The first was Tube Mice, a 1988 series concerning the adventures of a group of mice living on the Underground. The second was the 2006 series Underground Ernie, set on a fantasy version of the network and featuring a friendly Underground supervisor and his talking trains. There was also a 2004 animated short, also called Tube Mice, about mice who keep the Underground in order.

The Tube has also been used for many other major films including Bridget Jones' Diary I & II, the Harry Potter series, Code 46, Agent Cody Banks II, Love Actually, Bourne Ultimatum, to name just a few, as well as BBC dramas such as Spooks and Hustle, and the film The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.