Movies and shows that make you want to go on vacation

IF YOU WISH YOU WERE HEADED TO: THE ROCKIES WATCH THIS INSTEAD: _A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT_ (1992) [embedded content] I've never been fly-fishing in my life, but after recently watching

director Robert Redford celebrate the pastime in _A River Runs Through It_, I was ready to book a ticket to Montana. I still am. Although the movie centers on the fraught relationship

between a stern minister and his two sons, it's the peaceful, burbling sounds of the Blackfoot River that seem to call to audiences like a siren's song, beckoning them to leave

their nine-to-fives behind, buy a pair of waders and head to Big Sky Country. ESCAPE HERE: Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube IF YOU WISH YOU WERE HEADED TO: THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST WATCH THIS

INSTEAD: _THE SEARCHERS_ (1956) [embedded content] Hollywood legend John Ford shot several of his classic Westerns in Monument Valley near the Arizona-Utah border. But his most famous (and

most jaw-dropping) was this John Wayne revenge saga about a Civil War veteran who comes home to discover that his niece (Natalie Wood) has been kidnapped by Comanches. _The Searchers_ is a

haunting film, but in between its heavier moments it's also a picture-postcard advertisement for visiting the natural wonders of Monument Valley and its otherworldly red sand and mitten

buttes. This is what movie lovers think of when they think of the Old West. ESCAPE HERE: Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube IF YOU WISH YOU WERE HEADED TO: PARIS WATCH THIS INSTEAD: _AMELIE_ 

(2001) [embedded content] Paris has been captured on celluloid so many times that it feels familiar even if you've never actually been there. But when viewed through the eyes of Audrey

Tautou's pixie-waitress heroine in this transportingly quirky romantic comedy, it feels brand new again — a whimsical, candy-colored urban confection of cafes, fairy-tale magic and

glittering jewel-box lights. The city has never looked so hypnotic. ESCAPE HERE: Prime Video IF YOU WISH YOU WERE HEADED TO: VIENNA WATCH THIS INSTEAD: _THE THIRD MAN_ (1949) [embedded

content] Vienna has obviously changed quite a bit since the days immediately following World War II when Joseph Cotten chased Orson Welles’ elusive smuggler Harry Lime through the Austrian

capital's shadowy, rain-slicked cobblestone streets. But the city's intoxicating air of history and mystery (especially in the old town district) is still there. As is the

Reisenrad Ferris wheel, where Welles delivers his famous monologue about the invention of the cuckoo clock. (Note for when you actually do go to Vienna: There's a museum dedicated to

Carol Reed's noir-ish cat-and-mouse classic.) ESCAPE HERE: Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube IF YOU WISH YOU WERE HEADED TO: BRUGES WATCH THIS INSTEAD: _IN BRUGES_ (2008) [embedded

content] Martin McDonagh's delirious bruise-black comedy about a pair of squabbling Irish hitmen waiting for instructions in the unlikely medieval Belgian town of the title is one of

those movies that didn't get nearly enough love when it came out but has since become a bit of a cult classic. Set amongst Bruges’ gingerbread backdrop of spires and street performers,

Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson take in the city's sights while awaiting a potential double cross. If this quaint Belgian city wasn't on your bucket list already, it definitely

will be by the time the end credits roll. ESCAPE HERE: Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube IF YOU WISH YOU WERE HEADED TO: MEXICO CITY WATCH THIS INSTEAD: _SPECTRE_ (2015) [embedded content]

Since James Bond's cinematic debut in 1962's _Dr. No_, the 007 films have given moviegoers a reason to keep renewing their passports and head off to the exotic locations depicted

on screen. And, for our money, one of the most vibrant and unusual settings in recent memory was the opening Dia de los Muertos sequence in _Spectre_. This Bond pic has Daniel Craig racing

through a teeming parade of skeletons and ghoulish floats in Mexico City to foil a terrorist bombing plot. The race-against-the-clock mission was all well and good, but it was the festive

chaos and masked revelers that really stuck with us. ESCAPE HERE: Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube IF YOU WISH YOU WERE HEADED TO: SAVANNAH, GEORGIA WATCH THIS INSTEAD: _MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN

OF GOOD AND EVIL_ (1997) [embedded content] When John Berendt published his best-selling murder mystery in 1994, readers flocked to Savannah to get a taste of the book's seductive

Southern milieu. But when Clint Eastwood directed his big-screen adaptation of the novel three years later, the city was overrun with tourists drawn by the old-world mix of horse-drawn

carriages, dandified eccentrics and haunted history. It's the kind of place where cemeteries seem to come alive at night with ghosts whispering secrets. Things have died down a bit

since then. Which, of course, makes it the perfect time to take a walk under the hanging Spanish moss with a planter's punch in hand. ESCAPE HERE: Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube IF YOU

WISH YOU WERE HEADED TO: ENGLAND'S LAKE DISTRICT WATCH THIS INSTEAD: _THE TRIP_ (2011) [embedded content] The first in Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's quartet of barbed buddy-comedy

travelogues sets the pair of one-upping British comedians in England's scenic Lake District. As with all of their Trip installments (in which they also hopscotch through Italy, Spain

and Greece), Coogan and Brydon are on a newspaper assignment to wine and dine their way to some sort of middle-aged enlightenment. But the real reason to watch is to soak up their hilarious

banter and drool over the five-star meals they tuck into as the punch lines fly. ESCAPE HERE: Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube IF YOU WISH YOU WERE HEADED TO: SICILY WATCH THIS INSTEAD: 

_CINEMA PARADISO_ (1988) [embedded content] One of the most ravishing and romantic movies of the ‘80s, Giuseppe Tornatore's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner was partially shot in

the director's Sicilian hometown of Bagheria (as well as in Cefalu on the Tyrrhenian Sea). Told in flashback, the story is a bittersweet memento mori about a simpler time in the wake

of World War II, when a doe-eyed local boy named Toto learned everything he knows about love, life and the magic of cinema in a rustic, run-down movie house from the theater's humble

projectionist. Not only will it make you swoon, it will make you want to hop on the next flight to Sicily. ESCAPE HERE: Prime Video