Arizona’s Most Famous Locations Aren’t Arizona At All??

Through the mid-20th Century, Westerns were the dominant form of cinema. Audiences loved following morally grey characters try to survive in the harsh landscapes of the American Southwest.

Obviously, with our history, Arizona was a prime a location for these films to take place, but you'd be surprised that many of our most famous Westerns were not filmed in Arizona at all!

The Birth of the Spaghetti Western

In the 1940s and 50s, Italian cinema had hit a bit of a plateau. The sword and sandal epics that had dominated the industry had slowly become repetitive and audiences wanted something new.

Enter: Sergio Leone. A famed Italian director who was inspired by the dying western genre in America, decided to shake things up. Alongside Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Ennio Morricone, they deviated from the standard and began to create some of the most iconic films of all time...

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Arizona Was Never Arizona

Many of these Spaghetti Westerns took place in the arid deserts of Arizona, whose history has been the inspiration for many famous western films. Films like Once Upon a Time in the West, A Fistful of Dollars, and Valdez is Coming primarily took place in the Arizona territory, but were not filmed here.

They were instead filmed in Tabernas, Spain. The reasoning behind this is simple: the landscape of Tabernas is almost identical to the Southwest United States and was more accessible to European directors like Leone. So the next time you're watching one of your favorite westerns and falling in love with the "American" landscape, just remember, you're falling in love with the Spanish countryside.

[StudioBinder][Spanish Highs]