5 of the Absolute Best Midcentury-Modern Interiors Ever Onscreen—From Mad Men to North by Northwest

Through the years, midcentury-modern design has been used onscreen to a variety of ends. In the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, for example, the events in the story actually take place during the mid 20th century. The high-flying spirit of the time is embodied in the film’s main character, Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio), a con man who pretends to be a pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer, traversing the country in the process. The design of this Steven Spielberg film is true to the period, yes, but the character’s aspirations for more, more, and more also feel inextricably linked to the embrace of conspicuous consumption, which resulted in the colorful, expressive look. Then there are productions like Severance, the Apple TV+ show, where midcentury-modern design is used as a symbol for delusion and conformity. Half of the show takes place in modern-day America, while the other half is set in a midcentury-modern-style office (shot on location at the Eero Saarinen–designed Bell Labs building in Holmdel, New Jersey) in which workers have no memories of their lives in the 21st century.

Suffice it to say the period was not one-note, nor is its depiction onscreen. Regardless, it remains visually sumptuous. The bright colors, the geometric patterns, the chrome—you could call it the original era of dopamine decor. Born from the hopeful spirit in America after the end of World War II, the booming economy, and other cultural factors, like the increase in international travel for the jet set, it was a more optimistic time—and that often translates incredibly well on the screen. Below, we’ve selected five of our favorite TV shows and films that depict midcentury modern design.

Mad Men (2007–2015)

In terms of scope and attention to detail, there’s no film or movie that captures midcentury-modern design quite like Mad Men. It has duration on its side—with seven seasons and 92 episodes, the creators had more time to showcase midcentury-modern design than any other television show set in the era. It also ran during a moment of prestige TV, when per-episode budgets had inflated drastically, meaning more money to put toward authentic depictions.

Unlike a multicam network show that depends on using the same fixed sets shot from the same angles again and again, Mad Men was able to capture midcentury-modern life with a naturalism that other TV shows hadn’t been able to before. With the number of spaces it was able to show—offices, restaurants, hotels, and homes of characters both wealthy and not—it captures what life looked like in the ’60s from a number of angles. Even with all that to choose from, Don’s penthouse apartment from season five, with its sunken living room, wood-paneling, and floor-to-ceiling windows, takes the cake.

Don’t Worry Darling (2022)

Whether or not you find the twist in Don’t Worry Darling entirely satisfying, it’s hard to deny the cleverness of the film’s production design. Shot in the Palm Springs, California, suburb of Canyon View Estates, the psychological thriller perverts the oh so perfect aesthetics of midcentury-modern life to illustrate the mental torment of the film’s main character, Alice Chambers (Florence Pugh). As she cleans the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, the panes begin to squeeze her up against the flanking wall—it seems suburban life is literally killing her. Other real-life modernist structures displayed in the film include the 1968 Volcano House by architect Harold Bissner Jr. and the Palm Springs Visitors Center. The latter, designed by Albert Frey, opened in 1965 as an Enco gas station with its dramatic triangular overhang protecting the pumps from the heat.

North by Northwest (1959)

There are plenty of American movies released during the time in question that you can watch to learn about the period’s design, but North by Northwest just might be the best. One of the most memorable shots from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 film is of the fictional Vandamm House. In reality, the establishing exterior shot is a matte painting, and the interior of the structure and closer exterior shots were built out on the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot. Though the Vandamm House was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, which was built in the ’30s, the interiors feel quite midcentury modern, with oversized table lamps and geometric decor details. Plus, the architectural details that Frank Lloyd Wright was known for—like open living plans and floor-to-ceiling windows—were more common by the MCM period.

In the film, Hitchcock uses these architectural details intentionally: The lead character Roger Thornhill spies on the film’s villains from outside of the floor-to-ceiling windows, hanging from the cantilevered edges, then once inside the reflection in the TV and the open floor plan are crucial to the subsequent events. This entire sequence skillfully deploys these architectural attributes for narrative purposes—it would have been entirely different had the events taken place in a home of a different architectural style.

Though not all of the film’s buildings are midcentury modern; others do appear, including 430 Park Avenue, which was converted to a modern-style building in the mid-’50s and memorably appears in the opening credits. The United Nations General Assembly Building, which was completed in 1952, also appears in the film.

Hairspray (2007)

Captured with the giddiness that only a musical can offer, the sets of Hairspray employ color and midcentury design motifs to match the energy of the romance and strife of the ’60s-set narrative. The sequence for Welcome to the ’60s, led by the characters Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) and her mother Edna Turnblad (John Travolta), who hasn’t “left this house since 1951,” emphasize the aesthetic and temperamental difference between the beginning and middle of the midcentury-modern era. The primacy of the space race, and its impact on the visual culture of the time, is acknowledged in the final number, You Can’t Stop the Beat, when Tracy descends in a floating rocketship platform onto the stage, above which Sputnik chandeliers hang.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017–2023)

The mega success of Mad Men spawned a cornucopia of midcentury-set television shows in the 2010s, including Masters of Sex, Pan-Am, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. In terms of the production design, the latter is arguably the most satisfying of this newer crop. The sets are similarly intricate in their high level of detail, but Maisel begins a decade earlier, in the ’50s, and its vision of the period as a whole is much more optimistic (both because this was true of the two decades, and because of the shows’ distinct attitudes). Though there is variation depending on the locale, on the whole, the color-happy interiors in the show are closer to the idealistic vision of homes displayed in the era’s advertisements. Production designer Bill Groom referred to their take on the period as “magical realism” in an interview with Set Decor, stating, “[We’re] as true to the period as we can be, but at a certain point we push it.”