Thursday, July 1, 2021

Movies filmed solely in these states.

I've been on several road trips in the past couple months, traveling mostly on secondary roads. The landscapes varied greatly... mountains, gorges, valleys, red rocks, prairies, desert...

Blue Mesa, Petrified Forest National Park (Arizona)

Moseying through the ever-changing scenery, I couldn't help but think of the lyrics to America the Beautiful...

Oh, beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!

Of course I spotted a lot of areas that seemed ideal for film locations! And since it's time to celebrate this country's Independence Day, I decided to re-publish a post from four years ago.

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(originally posted on July 4, 2017)

The 50 United States of Filming

In honor of Independence Day, I created a list of movies filmed in each state. I have visited all 50 of the United States and each one has its own beauty and charm... and filming locations.

Except where noted, these movies were filmed entirely in that particular state according to IMDb (I linked each title to the listed filming locations).

So if you see these films, know that the scenery really is from the state it was filmed in. For instance, if you watch Runaway Bride, all locations are in Maryland (think that's NYC? Nope, it's Baltimore posing). Whereas if you watch Dances with Wolves, you'll see lots of South Dakota, but also Nebraska, Wyoming, and Kansas (thus the movie did not make this list).

As much as possible,  I selected feature-length narrative films that showed in theaters rather than documentaries and small independent flicks.

And of course, this is not perfect or all-incluseive. Sometimes I found copious films to choose from so I limited the selection to three or four, and other times it seemed like scraping the bottom of the barrel to find one or two (a good indication those particular states don't offer decent film incentives).

(NOTE: Many of these movies contain content I would not recommend.)


Alabama:

Alaska:

Arizona:  

(Popular state for filming!)

Arkansas:

California

(No surprise... there are pages and pages of movies filmed exclusively in California, so I selected some with plots linked to the movie industry.)

Colorado:

Connecticut:

Delaware

(This state only recently formed a film commission, so maybe we'll see more films there in the future.)

Florida:

Georgia:

Hawaii:

Idaho:

Illinois:

Indiana:

Iowa:

Kansas:

Louisiana:

Maine:

Maryland:

Massachusetts:

Michigan:

Minnesota:

Mississippi:

Missouri:

Montana:

Nebraska:

Nevada:

New Hampshire:

New Jersey:

New Mexico:

New York

(Many, many movies filmed in New York, so I selected three with themes of Broadway.)

North Carolina:

North Dakota

Ohio:

Oklahoma:

Oregon: 

(Popular state for filming with many filmed exclusively in Oregon.)

Pennsylvania:

Rhode Island:

South Carolina:

South Dakota:

Tennessee:

Texas:

Utah:

Vermont:

Virginia:

Washington:

West Virginia:

Wisconsin:

Wyoming:


Well? Did the list hold any surprises for you?


3 comments:

  1. Congratulations on visiting all 50 States! That is a goal of mine. I'm more than halfway there I think. Recently I watched "The Goldfinch" and was surprised to see it was filmed in New Mexico! Crews are expert at making streets or neighborhoods appear to be somewhere else. The magic of film!

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    1. Cool! Did you recognize any of the scenes that were filmed in New Mexico?

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    2. There were some scenes that featured homes in a desert area. It was supposed to be Las Vegas, not a far stretch because the landscape is similar. The indoor scenes could have been filmed anywhere. Good film, by the way.

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