Well, we're sorry to say that Hollywood really doesn't seem to do all that much homework on some of these locations. That's why you may come away thinking ...

Even if you've never left your hometown, you have a mental picture of virtually every famous city in the world. That's what movies are for, right? You'll never go to Moscow, but you know what you'll find there -- huge buildings with onion-shaped roofs and lots of snow.

6 Washington, D.C., Has Skyscrapers

Getty

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

America's capital turns up in everything from political thrillers to alien invasion movies, yet very few movies are actually shot there. Usually they'll nab a few shots of the U.S. Capitol and then head to New York City (or if they're on a budget, Toronto) and fill in the blanks. Why not? Every city pretty much looks the same, right?

This is why movies get so many little things wrong about D.C. -- people who actually live there can chuckle when The Invasion showcases the capital's many nonexistent newspaper stands, or when Live Free or Die Hard sticks in tollbooths, which the city actually has none of. But, like we said, those are little things. When you're trying to pass off another city as Washington, D.C., it's better to focus on the bigger giveaways, like maybe the freaking skyline.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

That's a shot of D.C. in the newest Die Hard film. See that big building there? How tall do you think that is? We're guessing about 30 floors. And next to it is a building with about 15 floors.

Here's the thing: There are no skyscrapers in D.C.

The highest commercial building in D.C. is One Franklin Square, which reaches a whopping ... 12 stories.

In fact, the highest anything in D.C. is the Washington Monument, followed by the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which is only 329 feet tall.



The ratio of skyscrapers to dinosaurs is exactly the same.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

And yet in Live Free or Die Hard ...



This picture is riddled with inaccuracies.

And it's not like Die Hard is the only one. Check out the view from Nicole Kidman's office in The Invasion.