Good Will Hunting: Boston and Cambridge

Good Will Hunting starts with a janitor and a blackboard. Will Hunting, a young man from South Boston, works as a janitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and anonymously solves a complex mathematical problem that Professor Gerald Lambeau has posted as a challenge for his graduate students. That one anonymous solution sets the whole story in motion. The campus used in the film is MIT itself, which stretches more than a mile along the Charles River in Cambridge.

Location precision: The film does not name a building; the pin marks the MIT campus as a whole.

Visitor guidance: MIT is a working campus on the Charles River in Cambridge; check what is open to visitors before you go.

Will spends his free time drinking with his friends Chuckie, Billy and Morgan, and the L Street Tavern in South Boston is the bar tied to the film. Established in 1962 at 658 East 8th Street, at its intersection with L Street, it came to prominence as the dive bar frequented by Will and Chuckie, played by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

Location precision: No reliable pin was found for the bar; it stands at East 8th Street and L Street in South Boston.

Harvard is where Will's world meets a very different one: Skylar is a student about to graduate from Harvard, and Clark, a Harvard student, is someone Will argues with. The production shot scenes in front of Dunster and Lowell House. Dunster House is one of 12 undergraduate residential houses at Harvard University.

Location precision: The film shows Harvard in general; the pin marks Dunster House, one of two houses where scenes were shot.

Will starts dating Skylar but lies to her about his background. One of their dates took place at the Tasty Sandwich Shop in Harvard Square, now defunct. Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street, and it is listed among the film's locations, along with an Au Bon Pain store and the Bow and Arrow Pub.

Location precision: The Tasty no longer exists; the pin marks the centre of Harvard Square.

Visitor guidance: Harvard Square is a public plaza and business district in Cambridge.

Lambeau turns to Sean Maguire, who teaches psychology at Bunker Hill Community College. Unlike Will's earlier therapists, Sean challenges his defense mechanisms, and he helps Will by repeatedly stating, "It's not your fault." The college, founded in 1973 in Charlestown, is the real location where Sean teaches in the film.

Visitor guidance: A public college in Charlestown; check access to its buildings before visiting.