Stunning alpine scenery in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta in Canada, where The Revenant was filmed.īollywood backdrop: The Jungfrau train below Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland. Alberta's Rocky Mountains also steal the show in movies such as Unforgiven, Brokeback Mountain and Interstellar, often standing in for American locations. Photo: iStockĪLBERTA, CANADA: In The Revenant, Leonardo DiCaprio's character is supposed to be mauled by a bear and survive a wilderness trek in South Dakota, but it's the landscapes of Alberta (and especially Kananaskis County and the Bow Valley) that provide magnificent backdrops for this critically acclaimed tale. Transformers: Age of Extinction is one of the latest movies to return to this classic landscape. The opening scene of Mission: Impossible II shows Tom Cruise climbing the spectacular rock columns.
MONUMENT VALLEY, UTAH: Movie buffs of a certain age might recall The Magnificent Seven (1960), the best of dozens of westerns to showcase this desert landscape's red buttes, which have also graced Forrest Gump and Thelma & Louise. The craggy island rises from the buffeting Atlantic waves and is World Heritage listed for its ancient monastic cells, which resemble giant beehives made of stone. SKELLIG ISLANDS, IRELAND: No, it isn't a galaxy far, far away, although the climactic scene of The Force Awakens, most recent movie in the Star Wars franchise, was filmed on a rather remote Irish island with a name like a sci-fi planet: Skellig Michael. Huangshan also stood in for Pandora in Avatar. Nearby Hongcun village and its surrounding bamboo groves, scene of the flying fight scenes, featured too. Some of the movie was filmed in Huangshan (Yellow Mountain), its twisted pine trees, wreathes of mist and strange rock formations all providing a ready-made backdrop for this gorgeous martial-arts epic.
HUANGSHAN, CHINA: Think the landscapes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are mythical? Not so. The Mummy Returns and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen were also shot here.Ī glimpse of the Treasury building from the Siq canyon in Petra, Jordan. PETRA, JORDAN: It might be another oldie, but it's too much of a goodie to ignore: the 1989 action flick Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade concludes in spectacular scenes featuring the ancient desert ruins at Petra, where the archaeologist (played by Harrison Ford) finds the Temple of the Holy Grail, actually the site's famous rock-carved Treasury.