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The Cannes Film Festival is underway, which means your feed is about to be wall-to-wall red carpet looks, standing ovations, and teasers of the most prestigious movies of the year. To match the festival energy, we pulled together the most strikingly beautiful films, books, and TV shows that are worth their own 12-minute standing ovation in your living room.
Films So Gorgeous You Want
to Live Inside Them
Some films you watch for the plot. These you watch to be mesmerized by the beauty—jaw-dropping landscapes, crisp cinematography, and set design that looks otherworldly.
The Grand Budapest Hotel
A beloved concierge (Ralph Fiennes) and his lobby-boy protégé chase a stolen painting through the last gasp of old-world Europe. But nobody really watches a Wes Anderson movie for the plot—we watch for the impressive setpieces, the vibrant outfits, and the obsessive symmetry. This one cranks them all to 11.
The full list:
Hotel Spotlight
Together with Inside Hotels
Millennium Hotel Broadway Times Square
The Vibe: Smack dab in the middle of a NYC bucket list
The Location: New York City, NY
Instaworthy Accommodations:
Enjoy the best views of the Manhattan skyline from your boutique-style room’s floor-to-ceiling windows. With only 4–7 rooms on each floor, Millennium Hotel Broadway Times Square offers added privacy to every stay. Literally steps away from some of the biggest bucket list locations in the city, there’s no shortage of options for tourists excited to get the quintessential New York experience. Walk to the nearby hotspots like the iconic Broadway theaters to catch the most popular shows running, Times Square, Central Park, Carnegie Hall, The Chrysler Building, and The High Line!
Postcard Prose: Beautifully Written Novels in Beautiful Places
Novels you bookmark for the sentences alone, each set somewhere worth lingering, from a Tuscan villa to a quaint fishing village to a boutique hotel on top of a bluff.
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
On a cliffside in 1962, a young Italian innkeeper hauls in sand by hand to build his hotel a beach—then an American starlet checks in. Jess Walter's bestseller pinballs across fifty years, from Cinque Terre to Edinburgh to Hollywood. It reads like a sunset you don't want to end.
The full list:
Hotel Spotlight
Together with Inside Hotels
Hotel Indigo Asheville Downtown, an IHG Hotel
The Vibe: Bluegrass, boutique, & brews
The Location: Asheville, NC
Instaworthy Accommodations:
The 116 rooms at Hotel Indigo Asheville Downtown are individually styled—no two alike—each reflecting a different piece of downtown Asheville's mountain-town creativity. Blue Ridge views from the upper floors, rainfall showers in the bathrooms, and locally roasted Dynamite coffee in every room. When adventure strikes, the Grove Arcade is two blocks away, the Pritchard Park drum circle is around the corner on Fridays, and the River Arts District is a short walk down the hill. For travelers chasing the Asheville that food writers and content creators keep coming back for, this is the place to stay. Plus, it’s pet friendly!
10 TV Shows That Look Like Movies
Some shows look cheap and rushed. These look like stunning movies you wish you could watch in a theater.
Ripley
Patricia Highsmith's con-man thriller was shot entirely in black-and-white across Rome, Naples, and the Amalfi Coast. It wouldn’t be controversial to say this is one of the most beautifully shot TV shows of all time. Director Steven Zaillian treats every staircase and tiled floor like a cathedral.