"Location, location, location," is the sage advice given by Sylvia Miles playing a grizzly real estate agent in Wall Street, a film whose title discloses both its address and theme. In most films, location is as significant an element as character and plot — sometimes even more so. Would Lost in Translation make any sense out of Tokyo? Is there any other city for Roman Holiday? Would anyone go see a Woody Allen film called Manhasset? From films such as Walter Ruttman's Berlin, Symphony of a Big City through to Patrick Keiller's London (which our own Keith Griffiths wrote about here) and beyond, cities beguile filmmakers with their elusive and unique qualities.

To mark the upcoming DVD release of In Bruges — a film about a city if there ever was one — we asked five travel writers to pick their five favorite movies about cities.