Last week’s Golden Globe Award nominations highlighted the year’s best movies, and some of the year’s best filming locations. Three nominated films in particular – Hell or High Water, Manchester By The Sea, and Moonlight, made me take notice. Here’s a look at where each was filmed.
Hell or High Water
For me, Hell or High Water was the travel-inspiring movie of the year. My favorite movies show me the beauty in a part of the country that maybe I haven’t seen, or haven’t seen in a particular way. Movies like this are the reason I don’t have much of a retirement fund, but I do have mountains of amazing memories from road tripping around the country.
Hell or High Water was set in Texas but primarily filmed in the New Mexico towns of Moriarty, Estancia, and Tucumcari. All three towns are located off of Interstate 40, east of Albuquerque. A road trip from Albuquerque through these three small New Mexican towns could easily be done in a day. As you pass through take note of the Blue Ribbon Bar & Grill, located at 315 5th St in Estancia, this is where they wait outside for the bank robbers but, unfortunately it is closed now. If you want to eat at another restaurant featured in the movie, check out Bill’s Jumbo Burger in Clovis, NM, on the Texas border. The restaurant seems to revel in it’s role in the movie and has photos from the shoot on the walls. The breakfast burrito is a must, too!
Moonlight
Moonlight was filmed in Miami but not on the beach or along Ocean Dr, the areas most people are familiar with, either from visiting the city or seeing it in the movies. Instead, Moonlight was shot in Liberty Square, a part of Miami rarely seen on the big screen, as explained by Emanuel Levy:
Cinematographer James Jenkins and his crew shot Moonlight in an area of Miami known as Liberty Square, part of the greater Liberty City public housing scheme inhabited by Paula and Chiron during the second chapter of the movie. The neighborhood is frequently cited as among the most dangerous in America, having appeared in numerous episodes of the documentary crime series “The First 48” and in the lyrics of hardcore rap combo the 2 Live Crew, whose members came of age in nearby projects. “We wanted to tell an authentic story so we went into neighborhoods and used locations that felt authentic to our characters’ lives,” Romanski notes. “For some of our crew, it was their first time working in a tough neighborhood, even those crewmembers who had lived in Miami for decades.”
This might not be an area people flock to after seeing this movie, but it is another example of how much is going in cities that we, as tourists, never see, but maybe we should.
Manchester By The Sea
Manchester By The Sea’s dark subject matter is matched by the gloomy setting of later winter in Massachusetts.
“We really were in agreement that this town should be kind of a character in and of itself,” production designer Ruth De Jong says. I just kind of ensconced myself. There was lots of scouting, meeting people, and going to bars and restaurants. One person would lead me to another, who would lead me to another. It was kind of like being a journalist in a sense.”
The research paid off and the film was shot entirely on location in the small towns of Cape Ann, including the real Manchester-by-the-Sea, Gloucester, Essex, Rockport, and Beverley. Last year, the crew spent an entire day filming scenes with the movie’s star, Casey Affleck, walking along Lothrop St. in Beverley, with the ocean in the background. A beautiful stroll, but I’d recommend taking it in the summer.
Find out if one of these movies wins the Golden Globe on Jan. 8.
