Where was Eddington shot? Revisiting key filming locations of Joaquin Phoenix's upcoming western comedy

Director Ari Aster's fourth feature film, Eddington, will be among us in just a couple of days, which will see Joaquin Phoenix as Joe Cross and Pedro Pascal as Ted Garcia. The film also stars Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Luke Grimes, and more. It has already premiered at some film festivals and currently holds a 68% critics approval based on 80 ratings.

The story takes place in the fictional town of Eddington, located in New Mexico, in the movie. Its synopsis reads,

"In May of 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) and mayor (Pedro Pascal) sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico."

As of this writing, there are a couple of places where the movie was shot, so we will see where the filming took place in this list.

Eddington filming locations

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Albuquerque was the primary location for filming. It is the most populous town in New Mexico as of this writing. The place provided some good infrastructure for the film, as it's a major area in the US state. The place has always been an attraction for film companies, and Netflix even has a production hub here called Albuquerque Studios. You will find all the facilities a person living in a metropolitan region needs.

While Eddington is the latest cinematic project releasing that will feature the location, a range of movies and TV series have been shot here. Breaking Bad (2008-2013) and its spin-off series Better Call Saul (2015-2022) should be at the top of the list of projects featuring Albuquerque. For movies, No Country for Old Men (2007), Hell or High Water (2016), Natural Born Killers (1994), and more were shot here.

Truth or Consequences, New Mexico

This is a kind of name you won't realize is the name of a place upon first hearing it. It's the second filming location used for Ari Aster's Eddington and is comparatively smaller than Albuquerque. A fun fact about the place is that it was renamed after a radio show of the same name in 1950. Since then, it has been denoted as the mentioned name or just T-or-C. It is mainly known for its hot springs, whose combined flow is said to be 99 liters per second.

Unlike Albuquerque, a few projects have been shot here, but Eddington appears to be the only major project as of this writing. Other films that featured this location include The Space Between Us (2017), Mad Love (1995), and more. There's also a documentary based on the town itself, which focuses on the life of the desert community here.

Why did Ari Aster choose New Mexico for Eddington?

When the director was promoting Beau is Afraid, which also stars Joaquin Phoenix in the lead, he said he wanted to direct a Western, which he later said would also take place during the COVID-19 pandemic. They scouted locations in New Mexico that would fit what Ari Aster had in mind for the movie.

Interestingly, this would have been his first movie, as he had conceived an idea for it before Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019).