Ridley Scott’s The Dog Stars is one of the most visually ambitious post-apocalyptic films of 2026. Based on Peter Heller’s acclaimed 2012 novel, the movie follows Hig, a pilot and survivor living in a devastated world after a pandemic has wiped out most of humanity. With his loyal dog Jasper and survivalist companion Bangley, Hig lives in isolation until a mysterious radio transmission gives him a reason to leave his carefully protected home.
The film stars Jacob Elordi as Hig, Josh Brolin as Bangley, Margaret Qualley as Cima, Guy Pearce, Benedict Wong, and Allison Janney. It is directed by Ridley Scott, with a screenplay by Mark L. Smith.
Although the story is set primarily in post-apocalyptic Colorado, viewers may be surprised to learn that much of the movie was actually filmed in Italy, with several Italian landscapes transformed into the American West. The production traveled through Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Abruzzo and Lazio before finishing in and around Rome. Additional studio work was completed at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom.
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The result is a mixture of dramatic mountains, forests, abandoned-looking airfields, urban ruins, studio environments and carefully designed post-apocalyptic locations.
So, where exactly was The Dog Stars filmed? Here is a complete guide to the movie’s major shooting locations.
The Dog Stars Release Date
The Dog Stars was released in U.S. theaters on August 28, 2026. The movie is distributed by 20th Century Studios and has an R rating. Its runtime is approximately 1 hour and 59 minutes.
The film had an international rollout beginning around August 26, with Italy among the countries receiving the movie earlier than its U.S. release.
The principal cast includes:
- Jacob Elordi as Hig
- Josh Brolin as Bangley
- Margaret Qualley as Cima
- Guy Pearce
- Benedict Wong
- Allison Janney
The movie is adapted from Peter Heller’s novel The Dog Stars, with Mark L. Smith handling the screenplay and Ridley Scott directing.
Where Was The Dog Stars Filmed?
Bordano, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy
One of the most important filming locations for The Dog Stars was Bordano, a small town in northeastern Italy.
Principal photography began in this area in April 2025, making Bordano one of the first major locations used by Ridley Scott’s production. What makes Bordano especially important is its surrounding landscape.
The film needed an environment that could convincingly represent a deserted Colorado airfield and the wilderness surrounding Hig’s isolated home. The production found that landscape near the Tagliamento River and the local flying area. The local landing area at Bordano was transformed into the abandoned airport where Hig and Bangley live. Recent reporting from the region confirms that the Campo Volo Bordano area was converted into the movie’s post-apocalyptic airport.
This is one of the most interesting location choices in the entire movie because the fictional story takes place in Colorado, while the actual filming happened thousands of miles away in Italy. The production reportedly spent around three weeks filming around Bordano and the Tagliamento area, using more than 100 local extras and local crew members.
The result is one of the film’s most recognizable environments: a remote airfield surrounded by rugged countryside and mountains.
Tagliamento River and Surrounding Landscape
The Tagliamento River and the surrounding landscape were also crucial to creating the film’s Colorado setting.
The filmmakers were attracted to the area’s wide-open spaces and natural appearance. Rather than making the post-apocalyptic world entirely through digital effects, Scott used real landscapes to create a sense of scale. The Tagliamento landscape provides the kind of empty, exposed environment needed for a story about a civilization that has collapsed.
In the movie, these Italian landscapes are presented as part of the American West. The transformation works because the area offers expansive riverbeds, vegetation, mountains and large stretches of undeveloped land. Local reports have specifically highlighted how the Tagliamento landscape was transformed into a post-pandemic version of Colorado for the film.
This location also helped give the movie a more realistic visual texture than a completely computer-generated environment would have provided.
Cansiglio Plateau, Veneto
After Bordano, the production moved toward the Cansiglio plateau, located in the Alpine foothills.
Filming took place here from May 12 to May 16, 2025, according to production information. Cansiglio was another perfect substitute for the mountainous wilderness of Colorado.
The area is known for its forests, alpine scenery and rugged terrain. Those characteristics allowed Scott’s team to create the feeling of an enormous wilderness where civilization has almost disappeared.
The production used several parts of the Cansiglio area, including:
- Polcenigo
- Cansiglio Forest
- Vallorch
- Cimbrian villages
- Le Rotte
- La Genzianella
These locations were selected after extensive scouting by the production team.
The Cansiglio sequences are particularly important because the movie’s landscape needs to feel wild and unpredictable. Forests provide a strong contrast with the open spaces around Hig’s airfield. The area also helped Scott create the visual impression of a world where nature has begun reclaiming spaces once occupied by people.
Polcenigo, Italy
Polcenigo, in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, was another location connected to the Cansiglio portion of the production.
The town and surrounding countryside were used as part of the film’s wider wilderness environment. Production reports identify Polcenigo among the locations selected for the Cansiglio shoot. Rather than relying on recognizable American landmarks, Scott’s production used the natural character of northern Italy to represent a devastated Colorado.
This approach also helped the filmmakers avoid making the movie look like a typical studio-built post-apocalyptic film.
Ovindoli and Val d’Arano, Abruzzo
The production later moved to Abruzzo, a mountainous region in central Italy.
One of the major locations was Ovindoli, including the Val d’Arano area. The Abruzzo landscapes were particularly useful because their mountains and high-altitude terrain can convincingly resemble parts of the Rocky Mountain region.
Production records identify the Sirente-Velino area, Secinaro and Ovindoli as important shooting locations. The region’s combination of rugged mountains, open valleys and relatively untouched natural landscapes helped the movie create the enormous scale required for its post-apocalyptic setting. This is also where the visual connection between Italy and Colorado becomes especially fascinating.
The story may take place in America, but the mountains seen on screen are largely European.
Sirente-Velino Regional Park
Another significant location was Sirente-Velino Regional Park.
Located in Abruzzo, the park provided the production with dramatic mountain scenery and large areas of wilderness. The park and surrounding areas near Secinaro and Ovindoli were selected as part of the movie’s Italian location strategy.
The setting was particularly valuable for scenes requiring a sense of isolation. That is essential to The Dog Stars, because Hig’s world is supposed to feel almost empty. The collapse of civilization isn’t simply shown through destroyed buildings—it is communicated through huge spaces where people are rarely visible.
The mountains of Abruzzo therefore become part of the film’s storytelling. They make Hig’s journey feel long, dangerous and lonely.
Parchi dell’Aquila Airport, Preturo
One of the most important locations in the story was the Parchi dell’Aquila Airport in Preturo, near L’Aquila.
The movie centers on Hig’s life around an abandoned airport, so finding a real aviation location was essential. Production information identifies the Parchi dell’Aquila airport in Preturo as one of the Abruzzo filming locations. This area provided the production with an authentic aviation environment that could be adapted to the story.
It also helped connect the movie’s central character with his identity as a pilot. Instead of creating every aircraft-related environment digitally, the production could use real aviation infrastructure and surrounding landscapes. That authenticity is particularly important in a movie where flying and aircraft are central parts of the story.
Avezzano, Abruzzo
The production also filmed in Avezzano, another location in the province of L’Aquila.
Filming took place in the area during May 2025, after the production completed portions of its work farther north. Avezzano and the surrounding Marsica area offered another combination of mountains, roads and open terrain that could be transformed into the fictional American landscape.
The area is part of the broader Abruzzo section of the production, which was used extensively for the film’s wilderness sequences. Local reports noted that The Dog Stars used Ovindoli, Avezzano, the Sirente-Velino area and the Parchi dell’Aquila airport during its Abruzzo shoot.
Cinecittà Studios, Rome
After filming across Italy’s natural landscapes, production moved to Rome.
One of the main facilities used was the legendary Cinecittà Studios. Cinecittà served as the production’s base during the Rome portion of filming, with some scenes requiring the controlled environment of a studio.
For a large-scale post-apocalyptic movie, studio filming is useful for scenes involving complicated production design, special effects, controlled lighting, stunts or environments that cannot easily be created on location. The combination of real landscapes and studio work allowed Scott to maintain a large cinematic scale while still controlling the most technically demanding sequences.
EUR District, Rome
One of the most striking urban filming locations was EUR, a district in southern Rome.
The production transformed parts of EUR into a post-apocalyptic city environment. Filming took place around several streets and locations in the district, including areas around Via Cristoforo Colombo, Viale della Civiltà del Lavoro, Viale dell’Arte and Via della Pittura.
The filmmakers created a dramatic ruined-city atmosphere here, including a sequence involving a burning helicopter crashing into buildings, with buses and vegetation also set alight as part of the action. This is a major contrast to the wilderness locations. While Bordano and Abruzzo represent the open American landscape, EUR provides the urban side of the apocalypse.
Its monumental architecture also makes the destruction feel larger and more dramatic.
Casal Bernocchi, Rome
The production also filmed in Casal Bernocchi, a neighborhood in Rome.
The area was used for post-apocalyptic sequences during the June 2025 Rome shoot. Casal Bernocchi gave the filmmakers another urban environment that could be altered through production design, vehicles, props and visual effects. Using real streets helped the ruined-world sequences feel physically grounded.
Rather than creating an entirely digital city, Scott could photograph real buildings and streets and then transform them into locations that appeared abandoned or damaged after civilization’s collapse.
Bosco Macchia Grande, Manziana
The final stages of the Italian shoot took place at Bosco Macchia Grande, near Manziana, north of Rome.
According to production information, filming continued here for approximately one month before the production wrapped in late June 2025. The forest offered another natural environment for the movie’s post-apocalyptic wilderness.
It is particularly interesting because it demonstrates just how much variety Scott’s production obtained from Italian landscapes. The movie moves between alpine forests, mountain valleys, river landscapes, urban environments and forests—all of which were photographed in Italy but presented as different parts of a devastated American world.
Pinewood Studios, United Kingdom
Although the majority of the movie was filmed in Italy, Pinewood Studios in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, was also used.
Production listings identify Pinewood as an additional studio location, and Pinewood itself has promoted The Dog Stars as a film featuring scenes shot at the facility. The Pinewood work would have allowed the filmmakers to create controlled environments that were difficult or impractical to shoot outdoors.
For a production involving aircraft, action, stunts and post-apocalyptic environments, studio facilities can be particularly useful. So while Italy supplied most of the movie’s recognizable landscapes, the United Kingdom also played a role in completing the film.
Why Was The Dog Stars Filmed in Italy Instead of Colorado?
This is probably the most interesting question about the movie’s production.
The story is set in Colorado, but most of the movie was filmed in Italy.
The reason is largely visual.
Ridley Scott and his location team wanted landscapes that could convincingly reproduce the mountains, forests and open spaces described in Peter Heller’s novel. Italy offered an enormous variety of locations within a relatively manageable production area. The Dolomites and northern Italian mountains could represent the Rockies, while Abruzzo’s highlands could create the rugged Colorado wilderness. Meanwhile, Rome offered urban environments that could be transformed into post-apocalyptic cities.
The strategy also allowed Scott to combine multiple landscapes to create a single fictional geography. A viewer does not necessarily realize that one scene was filmed in Friuli, another in Abruzzo and another near Rome. The landscapes are edited together to create the fictional world of the film.
When Was The Dog Stars Filmed?
Principal photography took place during spring and early summer 2025.
Production records place the Italian shoot from approximately late April through late June 2025, covering around nine weeks of filming.
The production moved through several regions in sequence:
Bordano → Cansiglio → Abruzzo → Rome → Manziana
This was a large international production involving hundreds of professionals. Italy for Movies reports more than 400 Italian professionals and more than 100 international professionals connected with the production.
The extensive location work was essential to achieving the movie’s visual scale.
So, where was The Dog Stars filmed?
Despite being set in a post-apocalyptic Colorado, Ridley Scott’s movie was filmed primarily in Italy, with additional studio work in the United Kingdom.
The major locations include:
- Bordano and the Tagliamento area, Friuli-Venezia Giulia
- Polcenigo and Cansiglio
- Ovindoli and Val d’Arano
- Sirente-Velino Regional Park
- Secinaro
- Avezzano
- Parchi dell’Aquila Airport in Preturo
- Cinecittà Studios in Rome
- EUR district
- Casal Bernocchi
- Bosco Macchia Grande in Manziana
- Pinewood Studios in England
The most fascinating part of the production is the transformation of these European landscapes into post-apocalyptic America. Bordano became an abandoned Colorado airport, the Dolomite and Alpine landscapes stood in for the Rockies, Abruzzo supplied rugged mountain wilderness, and Rome became part of the devastated urban world.
That location strategy is a major reason The Dog Stars has such a large cinematic appearance. Rather than relying exclusively on computer-generated environments, Ridley Scott used real mountains, forests, airfields, roads and city streets to build the world of the film.
And that makes the movie especially interesting for location fans: the Colorado you see on screen is, in large part, Italy in disguise.
