As the nights deepen and the light shifts, our homes begin to rely on a gentle choreography of lamps, pendants and glowing corners. Lighting becomes essential: a tool for clarity at the kitchen counter, warmth beside a sofa, atmosphere around a dining table. Filmmakers understand this better than anyone. Light guides the eye, defines character, sculpts mood, and often, quietly, the lamps themselves become part of the storytelling language.

In collaboration with our friends at Holloways of Ludlow, we’re explore some unforgettable lights and lamps in film and TV — and how to bring their ideas into your own home. And to mark the moment, they’re providing an &Tradition VP9 Flowerpot Portable Lamp, worth £155 for one lucky winner — details at the end.

Lighting, whether on set or at home, rests on three foundations: ambient light that sets the scene, task lighting for focus, and accent lighting to add drama. Great films — and great interiors — balance all three.

Let’s explore the lamps that have left their mark on cinema.

Flos Arco — The Cinematic Titan

Few lamps have a filmography like the Arco Floor Lamp. Designed by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni in 1962, it arcs from a marble base like a streetlight pulled indoors — dramatic, elegant, effortlessly modern.

On screen, the Arco often signals sophistication or emotional weight. In Diamonds Are Forever it curves over a Bondian interior like a silver question mark; in The Italian Job, it helps define a world of suave urban modernism. Iron Man places it in Tony Stark’s high-tech home, while Crazy, Stupid, Love uses it as part of a stylish Los Angeles apartment. In Apartment 7A and Conclave, it appears again — a favourite choice for set decorators seeking a clean, architectural arc of light.

At home, the Arco is perfect for creating overhead lighting without drilling — ideal above dining tables, reading chairs or conversational seating.

The Flowerpot Collection — Soft Futurism, From Bond to Almodóvar

Among all lighting and lamps in film, Verner Panton’s Flowerpot collection has one of the most charming on-screen journeys. Designed in 1968, its twin hemispheres capture the joy and optimism of the late Sixties.

On film, the Flowerpot pendant light often appear in spaces where colour and character take centre stage. In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, they punctuate a modernist interior with rounded flashes of red; decades later, they light up Melissa and Nick’s kitchen in Conversations With Friends, glowing like punctuation marks against the dark painted walls. In Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door, they hang in Martha’s Manhattan apartment — a beautifully curated space where production designer Inbal Weinberg used colour and curve as emotional texture.

The original wired Flowerpot table lamp has its own cinematic story. In After The Hunt, it sits in Alma’s home like a quiet marker of cultivated, modernist taste — sculptural, warm, and unmistakably Panton.

Alongside it, the reimagined cordless VP9 Flowerpot Portable edition brings the design into the 21st century. It makes a cheerful appearance in Ted Lasso, perched in Rebecca Welton’s office, where its soft glow and cordless freedom feel perfectly in tune with her understated confidence.

At home, all versions of the Flowerpot bring brightness and character — on shelves, dining tables, bedside tables or terraces. And the portable VP9, in particular, replaces candles with a soft, warm pool of light, proving how a small, beautifully designed object can transform an evening.

WIN a Flowerpot Portable table lamp – more details at the end.

Atollo — Geometry, Mystery and Cinematic Glow

Vico Magistretti’s Atollo Table Lamp is as sculptural unlit as it is luminous. Cylindrical base, conical midsection, hemispherical top — a geometric poem.

On screen, it carries mood. In Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals, a black Atollo glows on a bedside table like a moon suspended in a dark, unsettling world. In The Last of Us, a golden version appears, a whisper of elegance amid chaos.

In real homes, the Atollo is a master of atmosphere, offering diffused, comfortable light that suits living rooms, studies and bedrooms.

Eclisse — A Little Orb With Creative Soul

Also by Vico Magistretti, the Eclisse lamp is a study in interplay: a rotating inner shell lets you dial the light from bright to moody eclipse. In Pain and Glory, Almodóvar filled the film with pieces from his own Milan apartment, and the Eclisse becomes part of that deeply personal visual language. It sits in his protagonist’s world like a small sun — sculptural, nostalgic, gently dramatic.

At home, the Eclisse is perfect for bedside tables or reading corners where you want atmosphere you can tune with a touch.

Artemide Nesso / Nessino — The Glow of Sterling Cooper

The Nesso table lamp (and the Nessino it’s smaller cousin) by Giancarlo Mattioli are pure space-age delight: mushroom-shaped domes that glow as though lit from within. They steal the scene in Roger Sterling’s office in Mad Men — a polished monochrome environment where every object is chosen with intent. The Nesso’s soft, diffused light is the perfect counterpoint: warm, slightly playful, quietly rebellious.

Their curves work beautifully on desks, sideboards and bedside tables.

PH Table Lamps and Pendants — Danish Precision, Cinematic Quiet

Poul Henningsen’s mastery of glare-free light is unmatched, and his PH table lamps for Louis Poulsen work their magic across genres.

They appear wherever the narrative requires clarity, focus or understated elegance: in M’s office in Quantum of Solace, in ministerial interiors in Borgen, across the glossy sets of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, in Devon and Ricken’s mid-century haven in Severance. 

Their opaline glass diffusers cast a beautifully even light, perfect for reading, writing or creating a calm visual anchor in a room.

The PH Pendant versions carry the same refinement. In Paddington, a pastel PH5 hanging above the Browns’ kitchen. In Widows, a bold red pendant becomes the focal point of the Rawlings’ otherwise monochrome kitchen — intense, atmospheric, assertive.

Above dining tables or kitchen islands, PH pendants give controlled, downward light with soft, enveloping edges — a cinematographer’s dream, and a homeowner’s secret weapon.

Crown Chandeliers — Contemporary Drama in Grey’s Penthouse

Modern candlelight meets contemporary engineering in the Crown chandelier series by Nemo.

Available in several sizes and finishes, these chandeliers adapt beautifully to different interiors — and in Christian Grey’s penthouse dining area in Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, it’s the Crown Major Pendant Light that takes centre stage. And naturally, for Christian Grey, one simply wouldn’t suffice: a pair of these masterful lights hovers above the dining table like glowing constellations, bringing a sense of ritual and precision — the kind of sculptural ambient light that makes a dinner scene feel charged.

Their indirect, atmospheric glow works particularly well above dining areas, mezzanines and double-height spaces.

Moooi Perch Tree — Kinetic Poetry and Cinematic Entranceways

Umut Yamac’s Perch Tree Pendant Light turns light into movement. Perched birds, folded like origami, sway gently on their brass branches.

In Sirens, it anchors the grand entrance lobby of the Kell family’s mansion — the perfect fusion of theatricality and serenity. As characters move through the hall, the Perch Tree adds life: a quiet rustle, a sense of the unexpected.

This piece sings in generous spaces — entrance halls, stairwells, gallery landings — where its kinetic grace can be fully appreciated.

Noguchi Akari — Paper, Shadow and Cinematic Tenderness

Isamu Noguchi’s Akari light sculptures have an ethereal presence: handmade washi paper, bamboo ribs, weightless glow. They are part sculpture, part illumination.

In Pulp Fiction, an Akari lamp sits in the Wallace home — subtly softening a scene that is otherwise sharp with tension. In Severance, multiple Akari pieces help define Devon and Ricken’s home, amplifying the show’s themes of duality.

Akari lights bring calm to small rooms and drama to large ones. Their diffused glow flatters skin, furnishings and architecture alike.

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Win an &Tradition VP9 Flowerpot Portable Lamp

To celebrate our collaboration on lighting and lamps in film, Holloways of Ludlow have gifted us one of our favourite contemporary design pieces for a UK-based giveaway: the &Tradition VP9 Flowerpot Portable Lamp, worth £155.

Cordless, rechargeable and beautifully sculptural, it’s equally at home on a dining table, a patio, a bedside table or a cosy reading nook.

How to Enter:

• Enter your details HERE by Friday 19 December, 2025, 12:00 midday.

• Open to all UK-based Film and Furniture members and newsletter subscribers. Not yet subscribed? No problem – entering will automatically sign you up to our newsletter, and we’ll upgrade you to Classic Membership for FREE, bringing you the best in film interiors, design stories and exclusive giveaways. By entering, you’ll also receive insider updates from Holloways of Ludlow.

Good luck — and may your winter nights be beautifully lit.