The Surprising Filming Locations of the Top 9 Awards Nominees

Hollywood movie magic often means one location standing in for another. See where these top 9 awards finalists were actually shot.

By: Felicia Feaster

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Get Out

Daniel Kaluuya stars as Chris Washington in Get Out, a brilliant race-informed take on a classic horror film scenario. In Get Out Chris uncovers a conspiracy afoot when he travels to his girlfriend's family's remote, rural home. Though it appears to be set in upstate New York, this provocative first film from one half of the Key & Peele comedy duo, Jordan Peele was shot principally in the Alabama town of Fairhope, where the entire cast and crew lived and worked together for three weeks. Coincidentally, Get Out was also the first time a debut film from an African-American director topped $100 million at the box office.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

A strangely pitched rollicking comedy and drama rolled into one about the anguish of a mother Mildred Hayes (Francis McDormand) following the gruesome murder of her daughter, British-Irish director Martin McDonagh's award-nominated feature was filmed at multiple locations outside Asheville, North Carolina including the town of Sylva which stands in for the fictitious town of Ebbing. Sylva has created a trip guide for the town that directs visitors to key shooting locations.

The Shape of Water

Mexican-born director Guillermo del Toro has shot previous films like Mimic in Toronto. He also shot a good portion of his award-nominated latest, The Shape of Water, near the waterways and in the historic theaters of the city. The film, about a star-crossed romance between an amphibious fish man modeled on the Creature from the Black Lagoon and a government facility cleaning lady is drenched in period atmosphere. Locations include the University of Toronto's Scarborough campus, the historic Elgin Theatre and another theatrical venue Massey Hall.

Darkest Hour

Lily James stars as Elizabeth Layton and Gary Oldman as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in director Joe Wright's best picture-nominated Darkest Hour. The film, centered on Churchill's difficult decision involving entry into World War II and possibly making peace with Hitler, was shot in government buildings in London, and also in Yorkshire, which doubled as the country's capital. The film's producers were offered the chance to shoot scenes in the Palace of Westminster but since the House of Commons had been refurbished in the 1950s (after bomb damage during WWII), it would have been historically inaccurate. Instead, a set was built outside London to stand in for the House of Commons. The fact that the film was centered on a national icon meant director Wright was allowed unexpected access to actual locations where the crew shot exterior scenes at the Palace of Westminster and Downing Street.

Phantom Thread

Vicky Krieps stars as Alma and Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Reynolds Woodcock in the richly atmospheric drama about a 1950s London fashion designer and the emotional demands he places on the women in his life in director Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread. Though mostly set in a Georgian townhouse on Fitzroy Square in London, the film occasionally veers to the British countryside, where it was shot in the Cotswolds and in North Yorkshire's Victoria Hotel, located in the small village of Robin Hood's Bay near Whitby.

The Post

Tom Hanks (as Ben Bradlee) and Meryl Streep (as Kay Graham) star in Steven Spielberg's film about the suppression of press freedom and the tortuous decision faced by the staff and publisher of The Washington Post about whether to publish the Pentagon Papers during the early Seventies. Locations in Washington D.C., the home of the newspaper, and New York City, home of its rival paper The New York Times, figure prominently in the film, but the actual Washington Post headquarters stand-in was a 1950s-era former AT&T building in White Plains, NY that doubled for The Post newsroom, press room and executive offices.

Dunkirk

Centered on a decisive moment during World War II when 400,000 Allied troops were rescued from a French beach by civilians in the "Battle of Dunkirk," Christopher Nolan's director, cinematography, editing and best picture-nominated Dunkirk was shot mostly at the actual location in Dunkirk, France where low tide still reveals buttons and buckles from soldiers' uniforms embedded in the sand and a shipwrecked boat. Actual Spitfire airplanes, long retired, were also used to film the incredible aerial scenes in Dunkirk. But portions of the film were also shot in the Netherlands (including Ijsselmeer lake), Los Angeles and Swanage and Weymouth in England.

Lady Bird

No surprise here: director Greta Gerwig set her love letter to her misfit adolescence in Sacramento, her own home town. Some of the featured real-life locations include the McKinley Rose Garden, Thrift Town, where Lady Bird shops for a prom dress, the American Market and Deli with its unmistakable bright mural and in a neighborhood known as the Fabulous Forties (once home to Ronald and Nancy Reagan during his tenure as the state's governor) for its elegant homes coveted by the title character.

Call Me by Your Name

The poignant romance between a visiting American research assistant (Armie Hammer) and an Italian teenager (Timothee Chalamet) is the basis of the powerful award contender Call Me by Your Name, filmed entirely in Northern Italy including at a 17th century villa in the Northern Italian town of Lombardy that director Luca Guadagnino had once even considered buying. The filmmakers added a chic, lived-in aesthetic (thanks to set design from an Italian duke's daughter Violante Visconti di Modroneto) to the space to suit the cerebral family of intellectuals who lived there. The film's locations also included the sister lake to Como, Lake Garda, the Serio Waterfalls and the town of Bergamo where Hammer and Chalamet have their final rendezvous.

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The Surprising Filming Locations of the Top 9 Awards Nominees

Shop This Look

Get Out

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

The Shape of Water

Darkest Hour

Phantom Thread

The Post

Dunkirk

Lady Bird

Call Me by Your Name

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