Roma: Cleo's Mexico City, 1970–71

Cleo is a Mixtec live-in maid in an upper-middle-class household in Mexico City's Colonia Roma, and the film begins in 1970 inside that house. It is Alfonso Cuarón's own childhood home: he lived on Tepeji Street, and the original address was Tepeji 21, built in the 1930s. The art director called the house "the heart of the film". The real house was too altered and too poorly lit to film inside, but its exteriors were shot on the real Tepeji Street, with temporary panels, green screen and the neighbouring façades. Roma Sur became internationally known because of the film. The house is private; the pin marks the street.

Location precision: Cuarón's family house at Tepeji 21 is private; the pin marks Tepeji Street, not the house.

When Cleo tells her boyfriend Fermín she may be pregnant, he pretends to be supportive and then abandons her at a movie theatre. The recurring cinema location in the film is the Teatro Metropólitan, the same venue where Cuarón's earlier Mexican film Y tu mamá también premiered in 2001. Built as a movie palace, it opened on 8 September 1943. Today it is a live venue staging mainly rock concerts, at Independencia 90, one block south of the Alameda Central.

Visitor guidance: A live-music venue on Independencia, one block south of the Alameda Central; check the event calendar for opening times.

Back in the city, Cleo takes the children and their grandmother to see Marooned at the old Cine Las Américas, on Avenida de los Insurgentes at Avenida Baja California, and outside they glimpse Antonio running the other way with a young woman. You cannot see it as it was: the production rebuilt the corner as its biggest set, two and a half blocks in the Industrial Vallejo area, and added the buildings and neon signs with visual effects. Cuarón called it the largest set of his career. The same set staged the drive where Sofía takes Cleo to the hospital.

Location precision: The cinema is gone and the scene was shot on a set in Industrial Vallejo; the pin marks Avenida Baja California in Roma Sur.

Teresa takes Cleo shopping for a crib downtown when a student protest outside the shop turns into the Corpus Christi massacre. Los Halcones chase a student into the store and murder him, and Cleo's water breaks as the violence slows traffic on the way to the hospital. In real life nearly 120 protesters died that day, and the march was heading along the Mexico-Tacuba Causeway toward the Zócalo. Cuarón shot with dozens of extras at the exact site on 22 and 23 January 2017.

Location precision: The film places the scene on Calzada México-Tacuba; the exact store is not identified, so the pin marks nearby Calle Tláloc.

Visitor guidance: A busy city street; take care in traffic.

In the closing scenes Sofía takes Cleo and the children to the beaches at Tuxpan and tells them that she and their father are separating. A strong current almost drowns Sofi and Paco; Cleo wades in and saves them, though she does not know how to swim. Yalitza Aparicio, who like Cleo could not swim, was most terrified by this scene. Afterwards Cleo confesses that she did not want her baby to be born.

Location precision: The film names the beaches at Tuxpan, Veracruz, but not one beach; the pin marks Playa Tuxpan.