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Aug 04, 2023

Where Inception Was Filmed: All Filming Locations

The filming locations for Christopher Nolan's Inception are almost as complicated as the film's plot, traversing the globe. Inception is arguably one of the most confusing movies of all time, with

The filming locations for Christopher Nolan's Inception are almost as complicated as the film's plot, traversing the globe.

Inception is arguably one of the most confusing movies of all time, with some profound themes about reality that left most people's heads spinning after leaving the theater. Over a decade after its release, Inception is still a mind-blowing film. Any film led by Leonardo DiCaprio and written and directed by Christopher Nolan is bound to garner attention. However, Nolan's genius storytelling and direction have kept the film relevant so many years later. Aside from its brain-twisting plot, Inception is visually stunning, as any film with such a complex story has to be. While most of Inception is set in a fictional reality, it was shot in the real world.

Inception was shot in various locations all around the world. With a budget of $160 million and Warner Brothers backing the project, this wasn't hard to achieve. His success with 2008's The Dark Knight proved his capabilities meaning the company was confident they would get their money's worth with Nolan's project. Lucky for them, they were right. The budget allowed Nolan the freedom to create the film of his dreams, which shot everywhere from Los Angeles, California, to Morocco. Scenes were also shot in France and Japan, making Inception the masterpiece it is.

Related: It Took Christopher Nolan 9 Years To Make Inception (Here's Why)

Inception starts off in Los Angeles, filming at a beach in Rancho Palos Verdes. This is where DiCaprio's Inception character Cobb washes up on the beach. In the film, the scene is meant to take place in Japan, but with a little movie magic, they created the illusion while staying in the United States. The beach is used again at the end of the film when Cobb washes up with Ariadne (Elliot Page). However, most of the scene was created using CGI.

Cobb is then taken from the beach to a Japanese castle. Sadly, this wasn't in Japan either, and the glamorous building was actually a Hollywood set. However, the castle's exterior was built on the beach and is visible in the scene where Cobb escapes by climbing down the building. The building set was a lot smaller than the film made the castle appear, allowing DiCaprio to easily climb down the wall and safely make it to the ground.

Los Angeles was also used as Mombasa, Kenya, where Cobb goes to find his forger named Eames. The Mombasa casino Cobb finds Eames at was actually shot at the Barclay Hotel. The hotel interior is pretty bland, and the Casino set was built in the hotel's lobby. Not far from the hotel, the cast filmed another scene on Wilshire Boulevard and Hope Street. In front of what was then a convenience store called Famima, the characters discussed their plan with Eames. The location is now a café called 85 °C Bakery Cafe.

This was also the location of another scene where Cobb enters the dream world during a plane ride, though it was meant to look like New York. The scene takes place in the rain and continues down other streets in the area. In the next scene, when the characters drive to an abandoned warehouse, this was a real warehouse in Los Angeles' industrial area.

Related: Inception: All 5 Levels In The Movie Explained

Cobb and Ariadne revisit hope street toward the end of the film when they go to the limbo world they created. However, because it was a world of their creation, much of the area was changed using CGI, making it unrecognizable from the real location they shot at.

Another building that was used many times throughout Inception was the CAA building. The interiors are used as a hotel, but a talent agency actually resides inside the building. However, the bar in the hotel was not shot in the CAA building and was actually a set that filmmakers could tilt to create the gravity scenes. The hotel hallways and rooms were also built on sets for the same reason.

For the scene where Ariadne and Cobb revisit his memories, filmmakers shot on a beach in Malibu called Leo Carillo State Park. Cobb shows Ariadne a memory of his wife, Mal on the beach with their two children. His next memory is of his house, which is located in Pasedena.

The Chester Williams building in Los Angeles is where Cobbs and Mal celebrated their anniversary before Mal jumped from the window and killed herself. In the scene, Cobb is looking at the window across from his at Mal, who is sitting on a ledge. However, the scene was shot with both actors at the same hotel window. In editing, filmmakers made it appear that they were at opposite windows talking to each other. While this was a strange decision, it plays into the weird dream nature of the film.

In the scene where Yusuf drives the white van off the road and then continues onto a bridge, filmmakers used the Commodore Schuyler F. Heim Bridge in Los Angeles.

During an ending scene, Cobb and Ariadne enter the John Ferraro Building, which is the Los Angeles department of water and power. This building is where Cobb and Ariadne go up to Mal via elevator and end up in Cobb and Mal's home. The building was used as the dream home that Cobb and Mal created that could be both a high-rise apartment and a family house simultaneously.

Inception takes its cast across the world to Paris when Cobb needs an architect in order to see his dream plan through. Cobb travels to Paris to find Professor Stephen Miles at the College of Architecture. Unsurprisingly, the filming location wasn't a university but was actually a fashion museum called Palais Galliera. However, only the exterior was used for Cobb's entrance into the building. For the scene when he's inside meeting with Miles, filmmakers shot in London.

Paris is also where Cobb teaches Ariadne what she needs to know about the job. The exterior of the training facility was filmed at a train station in a neighborhood called Passy. It's unclear where the inside of the facility was filmed, though it was most likely a set. Cobb and Ariadne return to this area in the scene where Ariadne builds a staircase and bridge with her mind. The real bridge they filmed at is called Pont de Bir-Hakeim.

Cobb and Ariadne also visit a café called Café Debussy. It's here that Ariadne learns she's in the middle of a dream, and the city around her starts to combust. This is a real café in Paris, but its actual name is Il Russo. About a block away from the café, in the streets of Paris, DiCaprio and Page filmed the iconic scene where the city appears to fold itself in half.

The interior of the College of Architecture was actually shot at University College London. It's in the university's library where Cobb finds Miles. However, the room Miles is in was not shot in the library but on the floor above. When Cobb looks through a glass window at Miles, the professor is in the university's Gustave Tuck Theatre. The room was adjusted for filming as the windows seen in Inception don't actually exist in the theater. In the school's Flaxman Gallery, Cobb meets Ariadne for the first time and offers her the architect job.

Morocco was only briefly used in Inception. When Cobb talks to Eames and later chases him down the streets of what is supposed to be Mombasa, this was actually filmed in Morocco. There's no explanation why, but it seems some of the filming logic is as confusing as the film itself.

As mentioned earlier, the beginning scenes of Inception were not actually shot in Japan. However, the East Asian country was included in the film, but none of the actors ever had to shoot there. Filmmakers traveled to Japan in 2009 to shoot exterior and aerial shots. The Japanese castle that was filmed in Los Angeles was actually based on a real Japanese castle called Nijo Castle.

During the Inception dream sequence in the snow, filmmakers shot at The Fortress Mountain ski resort in Alberta, Canada. The resort was enhanced for the scene, but most of it was kept the same. The film crew didn't spend much time at the resort as they only needed it for one scene. Currently, the resort is being used to gather information on the effects of Climate Change on the region.