CREDITS MINORITY REPORT, 2002 dir: Steven Spielberg Tom Cruise Colin Farrell Max Von Sydow Samantha Morton Lois Smith Peter Stormare

I'm a long-standing Steven Spielberg fan, so I had serious doubts after A.I. – Artificial Intelligence, his worst film since the ghastly Hook. But he redeemed himself with two beauts which couldn't be more different: the light-as-air, pastel-coloured, retro-style Catch Me If You Can and the bleak, monochrome, futuristic Minority Report.

The film is set in Washington DC, but an awful lot of the movie is shot around LA.

It's based, like Blade Runner, on a story by Philip K Dick and, like the Ridley Scott classic, part of the movie was shot on the Warner Bros backlot. If you take the Warner Bros VIP Tour, you'll see the street where Detective John Anderton (Tom Cruise) evades arrest with a flying backpack. A false facade was built along one side of the street set to narrow it into a cramped alleyway.

Minority Report: The ‘Department of Pre-crime’: Reagan Trade Center, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC Photograph: Nils Reucker

The futuristic department of ‘pre-crime’ is based in Washington DC, where there is some filming around the historic Georgetown district setting for The Exorcist). The ‘Department of Precrime’ exterior is the Reagan Trade Center, 13th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

After being mysteriously accused of a ‘pre-crime’, Anderton goes on the run, and is recognised by his new eyes as ‘Mr Yakamoto’ in the GAP store at 1258 Wisconsin Avenue near M Street, Georgetown.

The waterside home of Anderton’s estranged wife is on Ware Point Road, near Beulah, Gloucester, on Virginia’s east coast. After escaping via a car production line (a sequence dreamed up, but never filmed by, Hitchcock), Anderton drives the red Lexus through Beaverdam Park, 8687 Roaring Springs Road, Gloucester, on the way to see Iris Hineman (Lois Smith).

Most of the movie, however, was filmed in LA, and the home of the reluctant inventor of Precrime, where Anderton is attacked by poisonous plants, is Descanso Gardens, 1418 Descanso Drive in La Cañada-Flintridge. Itís seen also in Congo and The Jungle Book. Open every day except Christmas.

The scuzzy apartment block where Anderton hides from the spyders is the, currently defunct, El Dorado Hotel, 416 South Spring Street, downtown LA.

Minority Report: Anderton takes precog Agatha to the Mall: Hawthorne Plaza Mall, Hawthorne

The shopping mall, to which Anderton takes precog Agatha (Samantha Morton) is the Hawthorne Plaza Mall, Hawthorne Boulevard at 120th Street, Hawthorne. The mall had been closed and shuttered for some time. The mall was seen also in Evolution, Ivan Reitman's 2001 attempt to repeat the Ghostbusters magic, with David Duchovny and Julianne Moore.

The highrise, where the precogs predict Anderton will shoot Leo Crow, is Angelus Plaza, 255 South Hill Street, downtown. Itís a subsidised condominium of five highrises built for the elderly in 1980 in Bunker Hill, alongside the Second Street Tunnel (itself a frequent filming location seen in Con-Air, Independence Day, The Terminator and The X-Files). It’s the Noontide North building (the blocks have wonderfully kitschy names – Dawn, Evensong and Jubilate.

It’s back to DC for the premature celebration, as Pre-crime goes national, in the Willard Room of the Willard Intercontinental Washington, 1401 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.