The Dark Knight: Chicago as Gotham and Hong Kong

The film opens with a bank robbery in which a masked gang turns on itself until only the Joker is left. It was the first scene shot for the film, filmed in IMAX inside the Old Chicago Main Post Office, which stood empty after the postal service moved out in 1997. After a long restoration the building now holds corporate offices; its huge facade is easy to see from the street.

Lau, the mob's accountant, flees to Hong Kong, out of reach of Gotham's law, so Batman goes to fetch him. The crew took aerial footage from the International Finance Centre, and the scenes around Lau's office were filmed at the IFC2 tower on Finance Street. The two International Finance Centre towers still stand over Victoria Harbour in Central, with a shopping mall and a 55-storey hotel at their base.

Visitor guidance: The IFC complex, with its mall, stands in Central.

Bruce Wayne throws a fundraiser for Harvey Dent, and the Joker walks in uninvited. It is the first time Batman and the Joker meet face to face, and the scene ends with the Joker throwing Rachel from a window. The party was filmed in Two Illinois Center on East Wacker Drive, and Wayne's penthouse was built in the lobby of One Illinois Center next door, a tower designed by Mies van der Rohe and finished in 1970.

Visitor guidance: The Illinois Center complex stands on East Wacker Drive.

The Joker ambushes the armoured convoy carrying Dent, and the chase runs along Wacker Drive before ending on LaSalle Street, where Batman and the Joker face off in the middle of the road. The chase was filmed in July 2007, and LaSalle also served for the police funeral procession earlier in the film. The street through the Loop is Chicago's financial district, closed at its south end by the Board of Trade Building.

Visitor guidance: The street runs through the Loop; the Board of Trade closes the view at its south end.

The Joker visits the burned Harvey Dent in Gotham General, pushes him towards revenge and then blows the hospital up. The explosion was filmed in August 2007 at the former Brach's candy factory at 401 North Cicero Avenue, a building the production could destroy for real. Nothing of the scene remains to visit; the pin marks the factory address.

Now Two-Face, Dent hunts down the people who betrayed him, starting with the corrupt detective Wuertz in a bar, where a coin toss decides his fate. The bar is the Twin Anchors at 1665 North Sedgwick Street, one of the oldest restaurant-bars in Chicago and still open.

Visitor guidance: Twin Anchors still serves food and drink at 1665 North Sedgwick Street.

The Joker's social experiment is the film's moral climax: two ferries of evacuees, each given the detonator for the other's bombs, and neither willing to use it. The harbour scenes were filmed at Navy Pier on Lake Michigan, standing in for Gotham's waterfront. Navy Pier is now one of Chicago's biggest attractions, drawing more than nine million visitors a year.

Visitor guidance: Navy Pier is open daily on the Lake Michigan shoreline.

The Joker waits out the ferry experiment in the half-built Prewitt Building, and Batman fights his way up to him for their final confrontation. Its exterior was the Trump International Hotel and Tower on North Wabash Avenue, then under construction (it was built between 2005 and 2009). The tower now stands finished on the north bank of the river.

Visitor guidance: The tower is on North Wabash Avenue at the river; its hotel and restaurants are open to the public.