With her exotic swamps and bayous, imposing plantation locations, and unrivaled cityscapes, Hollywood has been casting Louisiana as a leading lady for over a century.
Louisiana has long been a frontrunner in the film industry. New Orleans opened the first indoor seated theater in 1896 and when Tarzan of the Apes appeared on film (1918), Morgan City served as the jungle. The movie premiered at the Broadway Theatre in New York and became an instant box office hit. It was one of the first six films to earn over $1,000,000, a significant amount in 1918.
More than 2,500 films have been shot in Louisiana and although you may not be familiar with Creature, Red River Ode, or The Ninth, you’ve probably heard of Beasts of the Southern Wild, 12 Years a Slave, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Pelican Brief, and Monster’s Ball.
Explore some of the most iconic movies in history and imagine Tom Cruise, Elvis Presley, Sean Penn, John Wayne, Dolly Parton, Brad Pitt, Charlton Heston, Jack Nicholson, and Julia Roberts in those same spaces.
Whenever you find yourself in Louisiana, explore these unique sites and dig into all the other adventurous experiences Louisiana has to offer.
Belizaire the Cajun (1986)
Belizaire the Cajun tells the story of a traiteur, or a Cajun healer, who goes on a series of adventures to save his community in Louisiana in 1859. Belizaire the Cajun was filmed by Louisiana native Glen Pitre on location in the heart of Cajun country in 1986.
Renowned film critic Roger Ebert liked the approach of the main character, saying he “doesn’t play the Cajun like an action hero. He plays him sort of like a bayou version of Ghandi, restraining his anger, always able to see the comic side of his predicament, trying to talk his people out of a situation they clearly cannot win by force.” The Acadian House at Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site served as Perry Plantation in the film.
Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site honors the story of Evangeline and the author (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) who made her famous. The main attraction here is Maison Olivier, a Creole plantation built around 1815 that once grew indigo, cotton, and sugar. Sitting on the banks of Bayou Teche in the town of St. Martinville, Maison Olivier features a mix of French, Creole, and Caribbean architectural influences that were typical of the early 1800s.
Christmas In Louisiana (2019)
Christmas in Louisiana is a Lifetime Original Movie, filmed in New Iberia. This family Christmas movie stars country singer Jana Kramer; Percy Daggs III, Moira Kelly, Barry Bostwick, and Dee Wallace. Numerous locations in New Iberia star as the backdrop; The Evangeline Theater, Shadows on the Teche, Bayou Teche Museum, and more.
A drive down Main Street during filming in September 2019 felt like traveling from the Queen City of the Teche to a Christmas village, albeit one with 90-degree weather. Experience your own Christmas in Louisiana by visiting all the locations from the film and while you’re there you can even visit the other filming locations on their complete movie trail.
Evangeline (2013)
Although not the original film adaptation of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic about the journey of the Acadians, the film’s most popular screen version was released in 1929 by United Artists. Legendary actress Dolores Del Rio starred as the namesake character Evangeline and Roland Drew as her love Gabriel.
Del Rio was so enamored of the state and its people that she contributed to a fund to restore the supposed burial place of the real Evangeline. A statue of Evangeline—posed for by Ms. Del Rio—was donated to the town of St. Martinville by the film’s cast and crew and is still on display just outside St. Martin de Tours chapel, the Acadians’ Mother Church. Visitors can also complete a walking tour of St. Martin Square or Evangeline Oak Park.
Swamp People (2010–present)
Currently, in its 13th season on the History Channel, Swamp People gets the viewer practically nose-to-snout with the month-long alligator season in Louisiana. Probably the most unique tale of living off the land, Troy Landry and his crews cull alligators for a living while maintaining their proudly Cajun way of life.
Take a swamp tour with the show’s own R.J. Molinere’s Rising Sun Swamp Tours, and get your own personal “behind the scenes tour” of the biggest, swampiest filming location ever!
White Rose (1923)
In 1923, legendary film director D. W. Griffith, known as the father of American cinema, came to south Louisiana to shoot the 1923 film White Rose, based on the story by Irene Sinclair. The film starred Mae Marsh, Carol Dempster, Ivor Novello, Neil Hamilton, Lucilla LaVerne, and Porter Strong.
The controversial plot involves a wealthy young Southern aristocrat who graduates from a seminary and, before he takes charge of his assigned parish, decides to go out and sow his oats. He winds up in New Orleans and finds himself attracted to a poor, unsophisticated orphan girl. One thing leads to another, and before long the girl finds that she is pregnant with his child.
The Bayou Teche area served as a background and the majority of the scenes in White Rose were filmed on location at Shadows-on-the-Teche Plantation in New Iberia, Bayou Teche, Franklin, and St. Martinville. The short parade sequence was filmed during Mardi Gras 1923. Located in New Iberia’s Main Street District, set among towering live oak trees draped with Spanish moss on the banks of Bayou Teche, The Shadows-on-the-Teche was built in 1834 for sugar planter David Weeks.
More stops along the Louisiana Film Trail
Louisiana’s antebellum plantations on the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge remain a magnet for blockbuster films. In recent years, 12 Years a Slave was filmed at Felicity Plantation. For the classics enthusiast, the tours at Houmas House Plantation and Gardens explain the mansion’s role in making Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte.
In Baton Rouge, visit Louisiana’s State Capitol to see where All the King’s Men, a story based on Huey P. Long, was filmed. Just a few blocks away sits the USS KIDD, a WWII-era battleship where Tom Hanks’ Greyhound was filmed.
Get in the Christmas spirit and see the settings of Lifetime movies A Christmas Wish in Ponchatoula and Christmas in Louisiana in New Iberia.
Take a look at other famous movies and TV shows filmed in Louisiana.
Worth Pondering…
Goodbye joe, me gotta go, me oh my oh
Me gotta go pole the pirogue down the bayou
My yvonne, the sweetest one, me oh my oh
Son of a gun, well have good fun on the bayou
—Lyrics and recording by Hank Williams, Sr., 1954