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Some movies are the ultimate travel flicks.

If you’d like to go to Rome, you watch “Roman Holiday.” If you want to go to Paris, there’s “Midnight in Paris.” If it’s Tokyo you want to visit, there’s “Lost in Translation.” A movie like “Under the Tuscan Sun” has today become like a bible for traveling to Tuscany.

But it gets boring watching the same movies over and over. It’s time to update the list. Here are some films that will satisfy the lovers of both travel and cinema.

Columbus, Indiana: Columbus (2017)

“Columbus” could be said to represent for the millennial generation what “Lost in Translation” did for Generation X. Directed by Korean American filmmaker Kogonada and starring Korean American actor John Cho, it’s set in the titular small city of 40,000 people.

It’s an unusual place known mainly to architecture enthusiasts, with its Modernist buildings designed by figures like Eero Saarinen and Deborah Berke. The characters in the film meet by chance amongst these Modernist structures and gradually come to understand each other’s lonely souls. After watching this film and all its quiet beauty, you’ll find yourself wanting to travel right away to the small Indiana city.

Appalachian Trail: A Walk in the Woods (2015)

If I had to recommend just one travel writer whose books are a must-read, it would be Bill Bryson. Bryson’s specialty is his endless complaining about his destinations — complaints that come across as expressions of love.

Bryson grouses even when he’s looking at the most beauteous landscapes in the world. If you find that as funny as I do, you’ll be hooked on his writing style. “A Walk in the Woods,” which may be his masterpiece, was turned into a movie starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte. Redford may overdo it a little in the role of Bryson, but as you watch the two older adults madly tackling the Appalachian Trail, you’ll want to head out and do some weekend hiking on Mt. Bukhan.

Los Angeles: 500 Days of Summer (2009)

You either love it or hate it. As a romantic comedy, “500 Days of Summer” may be one of the most polarizing along gender lines. And wait: you said this is a “travel movie”? How is that possible? Yet it’s true. The backdrop of “500 Days” is just as important as the main characters.

Historically, LA has often been used as a setting for crime films, thanks to its massive sprawl and bleak landscapes. But “500 Days” takes the city’s long-misunderstood downtown area and presents it as the perfect backdrop for a 21st-century romantic comedy. It’s time to rediscover the city that Koreans call “Naseong.” The movie has currently been re-released in theaters.

Paris: Paris Can Wait (2016)

Diane Lane is perfectly suited to roles where she plays middle-aged women traveling the world searching for life and love. While “Under the Tuscan Sun” was a fable of sorts where she played a woman who loses everything only to find happiness in Italy, “Paris Can Wait” is a travel-based tale about a woman who experiences a brief, forbidden “amour” in France in her later years. Lane’s protagonist rides to Paris with one of her husband’s French co-workers, and the two of them eat, drink, and argue on a journey that keeps getting sidetracked. This was the first feature film directed by Eleanor Coppola, wife of Francis Ford Coppola. It’s a bit lumpy, but it has an unmissable charm for film fans who love French food.

England’s Lake District: The Trip (2010)

When it comes to the great travel film series of the 21st century, no conversation is complete without mentioning the series “The Trip” by British master director Michael Winterbottom. Consisting of six episodes in all, it starts with a journey to northern England. (Later installments would take it to Italy in 2014, Spain in 2017, and Greece in 2020.)

The concept is simple. Two actors, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, have been asked by the newspaper The Observer to go on a tour of the best restaurants in their destination. The buffet of travel pleasures and culinary thrills is flavored even more by the self-deprecating humor of the two middle-aged actors. The best episode in the series is unquestionably this first one.

Naples, Capri, and Pompeii: Journey to Italy (1954)

This choice is for the true film buffs. The adulterous romance between Italian director Roberto Rossellini and Swedish-born American actor Ingrid Bergman was one of the big scandals of its era. Despite the widespread condemnation they faced, the two of them made several small films together, all of which are seen today as incredible classics of modernist film.

The greatest of them, “Journey to Italy,” tells of the travels of a couple whose relationship has been strained almost to its breaking point. This masterpiece conjures up a bewitching mood simply by following Bergman as she walks through the slightly ruin-like beauty of postwar southern Italy.

Bruges: In Bruges (2008)

This black comedy is a hidden masterpiece, adding subtle genre film delights to its tale of two assassins fleeing Britain after assassinating an archbishop. But as you watch the film, you may find your attention drifting away from lead actor Colin Farrell and focusing on the beauty of Bruges. Called the “Venice of northern Europe,” the Belgian city is one of Europe’s most beautiful and least-known tourism destinations.

As the title suggests, the film treats the city of Bruges as one of its unspoken protagonists. It’s a superb choice for those who’ve grown tired of movies set in Paris, Rome, and Venice.

Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture: Tokyo Story (1953)

You may be wondering why I included this movie here. Rated the third greatest film in cinema history by the British film magazine Sight and Sound, “Tokyo Story” captures the changing meaning of “family” as it shows the sad experience of an elderly married couple who travel to Tokyo to see their children.

The images of 1950s-era Tokyo are beautiful, but the truly beautiful landscape is the one shown in Onomichi, the port that the couple calls home. A small city located along a narrow strait in the Seto Inland Sea — described as “Japan’s Mediterranean” — it is sure to be the high point of any tour of smaller Japanese cities you may be planning.

By Kim Do-hoon, former editor of the Huffington Post Korea

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