An Atlas Obscura of Film Locations
January 1, 2019 1:14 PM   Subscribe

Where filmmakers go to find their next film location. Shooting a film and need a covered bridge? Wondering where you can film in front of an impressive public art mural? Do one room school houses still exist? Yes, take your pick! Maybe you want something more industrial: abandoned structures, old factories and mills, or shipyards. How about one of these drive-in theatres in Ohio, Texas, Pittsburgh, or Utah?

Locations Hub is a centralized website for filmmakers to find locations, both at home and abroad, for their next movie. Although it costs money to create an account, the search option is free and open to the public.

United States
If you're in Alaska, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming... guess what?
Your state doesn't have any locations listed on Locations Hub yet! Maybe your location could be the first?

US States with fewer than 10 listings
- Delaware
- Idaho
- Nebraska
- Vermont
- Wisconsin

Canada
- British Columbia has over 8000 filming locations
- Nova Scotia and the Yukon have over 200
- Ontario has 11 [as of the time of this post]
- The other CA provinces have fewer than ten listings, or none at all

Listings outside of the US/Canada are sparse, with some exceptions such as the UK and Australia
United Kingdom
Ireland
Australia
posted by nightrecordings (25 comments total) 35 users marked this as a favorite
 
I went to look up Jacksonville, FL and one of the locations offered was the closed John Gorrie Middle School, which was my school in the late 1980's. The pictures of the derelict interior brought back some very strong memories. Unfortunately, those pictures are all that's left given that the school was converted to condos back in 2010.

So on the bad side, the website is at least eight years out of date in some places, but on the good, a nice little flashback.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 1:27 PM on January 1, 2019


Nothing for Niagara Falls Ontario, which is odd as Superman was filmed on location here. But then again, maybe it's not listed because you can't book Niagara Falls anymore. It'd probably be insanely expensive.

This is legit cool though.
posted by Fizz at 1:34 PM on January 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


the website is at least eight years out of date in some places

Seeing as they listed it on there, I'm going to have to blame the Florida Office of Film and Entertainment. Apparently they don't pay attention to their inventory!
posted by nightrecordings at 1:34 PM on January 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


maybe it's not listed because you can't book Niagara Falls anymore

Right, not everything is going to be there. Which is a shame. I don't think the website is intended as an encyclopedic guide to all places that are available for filming. I think it's a bit more AirBNB style.

Hopefully, this won't take away from how much fun this site is just to browse. The number of weird places to film in Virginia, alone, astounds me. I feel like I have a lot of day trips ahead of me soon.
posted by nightrecordings at 1:38 PM on January 1, 2019


Wow. My entire neighborhood is available. Go Davis Square?
posted by pangolin party at 1:41 PM on January 1, 2019 [4 favorites]


I guess it just lists places you can book for filming? I was hoping it would show me cool places in San Diego to take steampunk or Star Wars cosplay pictures.
posted by feersum endjinn at 1:41 PM on January 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


I was hoping it would show me cool places in San Diego to take steampunk or Star Wars cosplay pictures.

Try searching by architecture, like High Tech / Futuristic. That's all listings; San Diego only had one. Likewise, Victorian architecture, which you can narrow down to California/San Diego. Searching by location category, like Industrial [General], also yields some results that may be of interest.
posted by nightrecordings at 1:48 PM on January 1, 2019


Flipping through locations, I spied the Hansel and Gretel house, location: Stamford, CT. It’s near me, so I clicked through. Nope, it’s actually Stamford, NY.
posted by sundrop at 2:03 PM on January 1, 2019


Go Davis Square? posted by pangolin party

Thanks for reminding me of my long-ago life on Jay Street. Looks like things have really cleaned up since they finally got that T-stop in!
posted by StickyCarpet at 2:10 PM on January 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


Ooh, the Mustangs of Los Colinas, just outside of Irving, TX. My parents would take us here and we'd splash in the fountains. This is also where Office Space was filmed. Very cool.
posted by Fizz at 2:17 PM on January 1, 2019 [3 favorites]


To be more specific, the Flingers restaurant in Office Space, was a Chilli's located in Los Colinas.
posted by Fizz at 2:21 PM on January 1, 2019 [2 favorites]


My street is on there. Not surprising as they're constantly filming around here.
posted by octothorpe at 2:35 PM on January 1, 2019


Right, not everything is going to be there.

Indeed. There are a mere eleven listings for Ontario and two listings for Toronto. IMDb has about eleven thousand movies which list Toronto as a filming location.

I spent a few years as a walking tour guide in Toronto; I reckon if I thought about it for ten minutes I could find you at least one corner or building that has appeared in eleven different movies.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:50 PM on January 1, 2019 [3 favorites]


Location scouts are who find locations. This site is a place where property owners can pay to list their sites.
posted by Ideefixe at 5:57 PM on January 1, 2019 [3 favorites]


FLIM
SPRINGFIELD
posted by BiggerJ at 6:32 PM on January 1, 2019


So I grew up in Georgia in the town where lots of films and specifically the Walking Dead is filmed. So, of course, I looked up the house I grew up in. AND it was there!
posted by abigailKim at 7:30 PM on January 1, 2019


Wasn’t there a location scout who used to hang around here on Metafilter?
posted by slogger at 7:33 PM on January 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


I spent a few years as a walking tour guide in Toronto; I reckon if I thought about it for ten minutes I could find you at least one corner or building that has appeared in eleven different movies.

Via Projects and MeFite avocet:

My pals at the University of Toronto Media Commons and I mapped out all the films and TV shows set (not just filmed) in Toronto to highlight their amazing lending and archival collections.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:49 PM on January 1, 2019 [2 favorites]


Wow, I wonder how one finagles access to these train tracks. CN railway cops are constantly ticketing trespassers in this area. Maybe I'll check costs though I can't imagine it is amateur friendly.
posted by Mitheral at 9:23 PM on January 1, 2019


oh god if this had existed in film school my production design class would have been so much less stressful
posted by Hermione Granger at 10:24 PM on January 1, 2019


I went to that Drive-In 20 times easy. It finally succumbed to land pressure and now it's a Sheetz.
posted by M-x shell at 10:35 PM on January 1, 2019


Davis Square

Looks like things have really cleaned up since they finally got that T-stop in!


I lived in Davis Square while they were building that station. Literally in Davis Square, one floor above Store 24. You had to walk on wooden scaffolding above the excavation that they erected just for people in our building to get to the front door. Every morning at 7 the vibratory rollers would wake us up while clouds of dust rolled in the windows. Traffic over the metal plates on College Avenue was so loud guests thought there was thunder. All night long. But rent was cheap and they forgot to raise it when the station was complete.
posted by M-x shell at 10:54 PM on January 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


Nothing for Niagara Falls Ontario, which is odd as Superman was filmed on location here.

... also filmed in Calgary and southern Alberta... Heh I got to quickly "see" Richard Prior while he was taking a break from filming Superman III, at the base of the Petro Canada Tower.
posted by jkaczor at 6:39 AM on January 2, 2019


Via Projects and MeFite avocet:

Thanks!

... also filmed in Calgary and southern Alberta...

That was subsequent to the initial movie(s), with diminishing returns on each successive movie. ISTR that Superman IV was filmed in a shed. At least, it sure looked like it.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:21 AM on January 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


ISTR that Superman IV was filmed in a shed. At least, it sure looked like it

Milton Keynes and one or more soundstages for interior shots (maybe the same one as Willow)...

... I had confused my sequels and was researching prior to my post to determine exactly which had Richard Prior - and, from reading, apparently the main reason many exterior/landscape shots were filmed in Canada, was to take advantage of government funded tax breaks/grants...
posted by jkaczor at 8:51 AM on January 2, 2019


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