Where was Killers of the Flower Moon filmed? Every major location explored

Killers of the Flower Moon is slated to hit theaters on October 20, 2023. The Apple TV+ production has been in the making for a long time and is based on David Grann's nonfiction book published in 2017. The book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, is about the Osage Indian murders that happened during the 1910–1930s.

Killers of the Flower Moon, the film, was expected to hit the ground in February 2021, with the team setting up camp in Oklahoma. The principal photography, when the bulk of the shooting takes place, finally commenced on April 19, 2021.

The primary location tapped by the crew was Oklahoma, with Osage County and Washington County being the main spots.

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Killers of the Flower Moon was shot where the real events took place

Osage County and Washington County are almost three hours (168.0 miles) away from one another. To note, Osage County is where the events mentioned in Grann’s novel were set, which means Killers of the Flower Moon was not filmed on any erected set.

It was shot in real locations. When the movie started rolling, its director, the genius Martin Scorsese, issued a statement where he said:

“To be able to tell this story on the land where these events took place is incredibly important and critical to allowing us to portray an accurate depiction of the time and people.”

Expressing his gratitude to Apple, the Oklahoma Film and Music Office, and The Osage Nation, he added that they are excited “to bring this story to life on screen and immortalize a time in American history that should not be forgotten.”

Before the shooting schedule commenced, portals reported that the Academy Award-winning filmmaker’s team was seeking Oklahoma-based crew members for departments like construction (propmakers, painters, greensman, laborers), catering, wardrobe and costumes, and hair stylists and make-up artists, among others.

Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell touted Killers of the Flower Moon as the “largest film production in state history.” Not just Scorsese, even the film’s lead actor and his favorite collaborator Leonardo DiCaprio met with the cultural leaders of the Osage Nation in Bartlesville in February 2021.

Bartlesville, a city primarily in Washington County, Oklahoma, served as one of the production locations for the film. A local portal, the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, stated in December 2020 that the entire production may go on for seven months from February to September 2021.

It added that the team also “rented out 55,000 square feet of a building in Osage County for production.” As for Osage County, its city Pawhuska (for Osage Nation tribal) and town Fairfax (the bank and Rita Smith’s home that was bombed) were tapped for lensing in pivotal sequences of the Western crime drama.

In reality, though, the schedule went on from April 19, 2021, to October 1 of the same year. In March last year, Geoffrey Standing Bear, Osage Nation Principal Chief, told the Tulsa Press Club that the team was back in Osage County in mid-May to shoot “additional scenes of a traditional community dance.”

Killers of the Flower Moon, boasting a reported production budget of $200 million, stars DiCaprio as Ernest Burkhart, Mollie's husband, Robert De Niro as his uncle William King Hale, Lily Gladstone as Ernest's Native American wife Mollie Burkhart, Jesse Plemons, and Brendan Fraser, among others.

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Killers of the Flower Moon will be released on October 20, 2023.