Presenting My Atlas of Albuquerque Filming Locations

Many movies have been based in the City of Albuquerque, particularly in the past quarter century. Each film team has had a different vision of the Duke City: a hotbed of romance, a comedic home, a land of forgetfulness and regret, a drugged-out metropolis caught in cross-border realpolitik, a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Yet, it’s hard to recall all these visions while driving around the city.

Today, I unveil my latest project - an illustrated, online Atlas of Albuquerque Filming Locations, specifically for movies of an hour’s length, or more. I count about 385 such movies filmed in or around Albuquerque, through 2018.

Stage 1 of this project has been to tackle the easiest-to-identify filming locations gathered from DVDs of those movies that I was able to find at my local Sacramento Dimple Records store. I watched 89 such movies, exhausted the local supply, and gathered a total of 547 filming locations.

It’s interesting to observe where film crews have concentrated their efforts – Central Avenue is a big favorite – as well as those places filmmakers tend to avoid.

Stage 1 just scratches the surface of the cinematic richness out there. Stage 2 will consist of ordering more films to view, as well as digging deeper into the films that I already have.

The Atlas Introductory Page is here. Take a look. I hope this resource will prove helpful to fans of Albuquerque-based movies.