The Eiffel Tower celebrates its 125th anniversary: ​​the tower filmed

In this 1914 newsreel, a lavishly decorated dining room atop France’s most iconic monument is the scene of a formal lunch for foreign dignitaries. The cameraman climbs into the elevator for a spectacular view of the city glimpsed beyond the iron fretwork.

In René Clair’s charming 1923 short, the guardian of the Eiffel Tower wakes up to find the citizens of Paris all frozen in unexpected positions – the handiwork of a mad scientist with a magic ray gun.

Alec Guinness leads a gang of British bank robbers who smuggle gold into Paris in the form of souvenir Eiffel Towers in this classic Ealing comedy.

The tower serves as the backdrop for the climax of the “Bonjour Paris” number in this 1957 musical starring Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn as a fashion photographer and her latest muse.

Adapted from Raymond Queneau’s novel, Louis Malle’s wacky French New Wave film features a 10-year-old girl visiting Paris from the countryside who escapes the clutches of her uncle to explore the city on her own energetic steam.

Among the many films to have faked the destruction of Gustave Eiffel’s monument, this star-studded chase movie ends with daredevil pilot Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon) missing a cannon that leads to the tower’s collapse.

The Eiffel Tower serves as the backdrop for a fight between King Kong and Mechani-Kong – the robot monkey created by evil mastermind Dr Who (no relation) in this action-packed entry in the Kaiju monster movie franchise from the Toho studio.

Fascist agent Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) comes to Paris to assassinate his former college professor in Bernardo Bertolucci’s ultra-sleek 1930s thriller.

Herbie does indeed go to Monte Carlo in this third entry in Disney’s series about the adorable 1963 Volkswagen Beetle with a spirit of its own. But it all begins in Paris (with a symbolic appearance for the Eiffel Tower), as Herbie and his driver Jim Douglas (Dean Jones) embark on the fictional Trans-France Race.

The views to die for in this 1985 Bond film (Roger Moore’s last appearance as 007) are the result of a climactic fight atop San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and – earlier – a scene from Assassination and pursuit amidst the wrought iron of the famous Paris landmark.

The tower is a ubiquitous backdrop in Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 musical mashup, an idealized but joyfully anachronistic take on life in the Parisian Belle Epoque.

Michael Moore looks at the Eiffel Tower and wonders about the state of free universal health care in France, the UK and Canada, in its impassioned 2007 plea for a comparable system in the WE.

Another idealized vision of the City of Light, this cheerful animation from the Pixar team features a rodent master of the kitchen taking a job in a great Parisian restaurant.

For the first French film by Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien, he pays homage to the city and one of its cinema classics (Le Ballon rouge by Albert Lamorisse in 1956) with this story of a puppeteer (Juliette Binoche ) who takes on a new nanny for her young son.

One more love letter to the cinema and to Paris, this time from Martin Scorsese. The eponymous Hugo is a 12-year-old boy whose view from Gare Montparnasse (from where he repairs clocks) embraces the majestic view of Gustave Eiffel’s famous creation, towering over the city.