Where Was ‘65’ Filmed? Discover the Filming Locations for Adam Driver’s Dino Movie

Adam Driver’s 65 movie, about an alien who crash-lands on Earth 65 million years ago, began streaming on Netflix on Saturday, and it quickly rose to the top of the streaming service’s trending titles. In fact, as of today, 65 is No.1 on Netflix’s “Top 10 Movies in the U.S.” list. People weren’t willing to go to theaters to watch Adam Driver fight dinosaurs, but it seems they are more than willing to do so from the comfort of their couch.

65 was written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, aka the same duo who wrote A Quiet Place. The premise for this one is even simpler than that of A Quiet Place: Adam Driver is an alien who crashes his spaceship on a pre-historic Earth, and he has to battle the dinosaurs in order to save himself and the young alien girl (played by Ariana Greenblatt). In other words, it’s a big, dumb dinosaur action movie, and if the Jurassic World franchise has taught us anything, it’s that audiences love big, dumb dinosaur action movies.

But the difference between 65 and Jurassic World is that 65 was shot on a modest $45 million production budget, and features significantly less computer animation. That means a lot a less blue screens, and a lot more practical locations. Read on to learn more about the 65 movie filming locations.

Where was 65 filmed?

The 65 movie was filmed mostly in Louisiana, in the New Orleans area, as well as in the Kisatchie National Forest in Vernon Parish, in the winter of 2020 and 2021. According to The Leesville Daily Leader, who covered a press conference on the Louisiana production, Louisiana’s only national forest—located in the center of the state—was chosen for its “hills, and thick forests. That’s exactly the look the film needed to double as a prehistoric Earth, according to site manager David Thornsberry.

Additional filming was also done in Oregon, including—according to a report from Oregon Live—Meyer’s Creek Beach, in Gold Beach; Coos Bay; Whaleshead Beach, in Brookings; Agness; and Elk Creek Falls. In other words, while there may not have been dinosaurs chasing him, Adam Driver really was running around in the wilderness.

“It was a tough shoot,” co-director and co-writer Bryan Woods said in an interview with Collider, “because we shot this thing in 40 days. It’s all practical locations in a world where pretty much every movie is shot on a VR sound stage at this point. You know, to be able to go to waterfalls and hike up a mountain to find a particular forest that’s never been put on film before, it was challenging.”

So there you have it! If you, too, ever want to pretend you’ve crash-landed on a prehistoric Earth, Louisiana’s Kisatchie National Forest is the place to be.