The Most Filmed Location in Idaho May Surprise You

When it comes to major motion pictures, Idaho isn’t quite California or New York, but there are a few filmmakers that dared to take a chance on the Gem State. Which Idaho location has been shot the most? 

That’s a question that HawaiianIslands.com set out to answer not just for Idaho (or Hawaii,) but for every state in the country. They poured through thousands of film credits on IMDb to find which locations, not cities, were used the most. Think of places like Rockefeller Center, the Golden Gate Bridge or the Philadelphia Museum of Art (home of the famous Rocky stairs.)  

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Many of the movies that were shot in Idaho were actually set somewhere else. For example? Dante’s Peak was set in Washington but was shot in Wallace. Martin Scorsese used footage of mountains in Idaho for Kundun, a movie about Tibet’s Dalai Lama because he couldn’t get the ok to shoot the movie in India. So, we can’t blame you if you don’t immediately recognize an Idaho location while you’re watching a movie.

Of course, the scenes in Napoleon Dynamite were unapologetically Preston. If you’ve seen Preston High School in person, you immediately recognized it in the movie.  

After going through the data with a fine tooth comb, HawaiianIslands.com determined these were the most filmed locations in Idaho and our neighboring states. Did you correctly predict Idaho’s location?