Movies filmed in Connecticut? Oh, there are way more than you'd think. We're right between New York and Boston, we've got leafy suburbs, salty fishing villages, Ivy League quads and old mill towns, so Hollywood has been sneaking over the state line for more than seventy years. Sometimes the movie is set here. Sometimes Connecticut is playing Maine, or some made-up town nobody can find on a map. Either way, if you grew up here, somebody's cousin swears they were an extra in something.
One ground rule before the lights go down: every film on this list actually put cameras on Connecticut soil. Being "set in Connecticut" doesn't count, and you'll see why in a minute. Grab the popcorn, here are 12 films shot in the Nutmeg State, oldest to newest.
1. Strangers on a Train (1951): Hitchcock Takes the Train to Danbury
Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller about two strangers who "swap" murders needed a hometown for its tennis-star hero, Guy, played by Farley Granger. Hitchcock found it in Danbury. The crew spent six days shooting on location at Penn Station in New York, around Washington, D.C., and at the Danbury railroad station, which played Guy's hometown of Metcalf. The best part? That station is still standing. The old 1903 Union Station is now the Danbury Railway Museum, and its curved platform is the same one you see in the movie. Most of the rest was shot on Warner Bros. soundstages, but Danbury got the train scenes, and that's the good stuff.
2. The Swimmer (1968): Burt Lancaster Swims Across Westport
This one is wicked strange, in the best way. Burt Lancaster plays a suburban ad man who decides to "swim home" one summer afternoon, pool by pool, across his rich Connecticut neighborhood. It's based on a John Cheever short story from The New Yorker, and it was filmed largely on location in Westport, the hometown of director Frank Perry. Here's the twist: Lancaster was a trained athlete but had a fear of the water, so he took swimming lessons to get ready for the part. Some scenes were reshot in California later, but those backyard pools were pure Fairfield County.
3. Rachel, Rachel (1968): Paul Newman Directs at Home
Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were Westport neighbors to a lot of folks around here, and when Newman stepped behind the camera for the first time, he kept it local. Rachel, Rachel stars Woodward as a shy small-town Connecticut schoolteacher in her mid-30s, and it was filmed in August 1967 in Bethel, Danbury, Georgetown and Redding. Their daughter Nell even plays young Rachel in the flashbacks. Talk about a family business. Newman went on to do a lot more for this state, from Newman's Own to helping preserve land around Westport.
4. The Stepford Wives (1975): Fairfield County Gets Creepy
If you've ever called a too-perfect neighbor "a Stepford wife," thank Connecticut. The original Stepford Wives, starring Katharine Ross, was shot entirely on location in Connecticut in 1974, mainly in Darien, Westport and Fairfield, and no sets were built for it. That spotless supermarket where the wives glide around? A Grand Union in Darien. The spooky climax was filmed at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion in Norwalk. Jordan Peele has even named it as an inspiration for Get Out. Remember that mansion, because it shows up again at the end of this list.
5. Mystic Pizza (1988): A Slice of Heaven in Stonington
You can't do a Connecticut movie list without it. Mystic Pizza follows three young waitresses at a pizza shop in Mystic, and it gave us an early Julia Roberts and the film debut of a young Matt Damon. But here's the local secret: most of it wasn't shot in Mystic. The pizza parlor was a converted home on Water Street in Stonington Borough, which also hosted the pool hall and the fishing docks. The Araújo family home was in Pawcatuck, and the lobster business and wedding church were in Noank. The real Mystic got the Mystic Seaport planetarium and the Bascule Bridge. After the movie came out, the real Mystic Pizza downtown was redone to look like the movie version. Hungry yet? Our Pizza Addict T-Shirt was basically made for this movie.
6. The Ice Storm (1997): New Canaan in the Deep Freeze
Ang Lee's grown-up drama about two suburban families over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973 is set in New Canaan, and that's where most of it was filmed, along with nearby Westchester County, New York. Look at that cast: Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Joan Allen, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood and Katie Holmes. The funniest behind-the-scenes story is about the ice itself. The crew drove around Connecticut at night with hoses and a water truck, spraying down streets and trees to make ice. Then it turned into a snowstorm and they couldn't use most of it. Classic New England weather. You can't even fake it.
7. Amistad (1997): Mystic Seaport Plays New Haven
Steven Spielberg's movie about the 1839 revolt aboard the slave ship La Amistad, and the court fight that followed, tells a story with deep Connecticut roots. For the filming, Mystic Seaport doubled as 1800s New Haven. The crew spent four days there and hired about 300 extras. Plenty of other scenes, like the courthouse and prison, were shot over in Newport, Rhode Island, so call this one a two-state production. It's one of the films in our list of movies you'd never think were filmed in New England, and Spielberg wasn't done with Connecticut yet.
8. War of the Worlds (2005): Aliens Crash in Naugatuck
Spielberg was back with Tom Cruise and a whole lot of alien tripods. Filming bounced around New Jersey, New York, Virginia, California and Connecticut. Our big moment? The scene where a tripod gets shot down and crashes through a factory was filmed at an abandoned chemical plant in Naugatuck. A second unit also shot an eerie scene on the Farmington River in Windsor. Naugatuck vs. the aliens. We like our odds.
9. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008): Indy Goes to Yale
The fourth Indiana Jones movie needed a campus for Indy's fictional Marshall College, and Spielberg picked Yale University in New Haven, where his son Theo was a student at the time. The big chase, with Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf's motorcycle-riding Mutt tearing through campus, was filmed there between June 28 and July 7, 2007. Imagine heading out for a slice of apizza and bumping into Indiana Jones.
10. Revolutionary Road (2008): Leo and Kate Move to Darien
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet reunited for the first time since Titanic (Kathy Bates came along too) to play a 1950s couple stuck in the suburbs. The movie is set in suburban Connecticut, and director Sam Mendes shot it mostly in sequence and on location in Darien. He even filmed the Wheeler home interiors inside a real house instead of on a set, to make it feel more closed-in. It's a heavy one, not a date-night comedy, but it's beautifully shot, and those Darien streets look like a time machine.
11. Hope Springs (2012): Stonington Plays Maine
Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones play a long-married couple who head to a fictional Maine town called Hope Springs for couples therapy with Steve Carell. Except "Maine" was Connecticut. Filming took place in September and October 2011, and Stonington Borough became Hope Springs for almost two weeks. Noah's Restaurant on Water Street turned into the "Nor'easter Diner," and a jewelry shop became a hardware store. Streep also filmed at the Guilford Food Center and Breakwater Books on the Guilford Green, with more scenes in Darien, Stamford, Milford and South Norwalk. (Carell's scenes were reportedly shot somewhere else.) Stonington Borough, two movies deep. Not bad for one little peninsula.
12. Mr. Harrigan's Phone (2022): Stephen King Comes to Fairfield County
This Netflix movie is based on a Stephen King story, and like most King stories, it's set in Maine. But it was shot entirely in Connecticut, starting October 20, 2021, and wrapping that December. Donald Sutherland plays the reclusive billionaire, and his spooky mansion is our old friend the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion in Norwalk, the same place where The Stepford Wives filmed its climax almost 50 years earlier. An empty storefront in South Norwalk became a 2010 cell phone store, and crews also worked in Fairfield and, reportedly, Westport, Greenwich, Portland and Barkhamsted. Connecticut playing Maine yet again. For the real thing, check out our list of movies filmed in Maine.
Set in Connecticut, Shot Somewhere Else
Now the twist every Nutmegger eventually figures out: a bunch of the most famous "Connecticut" stories never came near the state. A few of the big offenders:
- Bringing Up Baby (1938): the leopard chase on a Connecticut farm was mostly shot at a ranch in California's San Fernando Valley
- Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948): the author really built his house in New Milford, but the movie house went up in the hills near Malibu
- Gilmore Girls (TV): Stars Hollow was inspired by towns like Washington Depot, but the pilot was shot outside Toronto and the rest on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank
- The Haunting in Connecticut (2009): based on a Southington story, filmed in Manitoba, Canada
That's why the movies above deserve a little extra love. They did it the real way, on real Connecticut streets.
Roll Credits on the Nutmeg State
From Hitchcock at the Danbury station to Stephen King in Norwalk, Connecticut keeps proving it can play itself (and Maine, and old New Haven) better than any back lot. And there's plenty more where these came from. Jonathan Demme shot Rachel Getting Married in Stamford, the Stone family house in The Family Stone was filmed here, and Western Connecticut State University stood in for RISD in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. Next time you're in Stonington, Darien or New Haven, look around a little. You might be standing on a movie set.
Want to rep your favorite filming town? Our Custom Connecticut Zip Code T-Shirt lets you put your own zip on it, whether that's Stonington, Westport or right outside the Yale gates.
Got a story about being an extra, or spotting a movie star at the packie? Tell us on our socials. We want the gossip.
Stay wicked cinematic, Connecticut,
Ryan & the Chowdaheadz Crew