Crime Thriller Filmed in Kentucky to Be Screened at Venice Film Festival

Kentucky has become a hotbed for filmmakers over the last two or three years. It's quite a thrilling development to have directors and producers look our way to create their art and, let's face it, to save money.

Gus Van Sant Movie Filmed in Louisville

Legendary director and Louisville native Gus Van Sant is the latest auteur to turn the cameras on in the Commonwealth. And he turned them on It boy (quite literally), Bill Skarsgård and Oscar-winning icon Al Pacino, who joined Van Sant for Dead Man's Wire, the true story of a real estate agent who took a mortgage banker hostage in a downtown Indianapolis office in 1977. Two-time Academy Award nominee and 2025 Emmy nominee Colman Domingo is also in the cast. The film was shot in Louisville and is scheduled for a screening at the Venice Film Festival, which ends on September 6th.

Other Films Shot Recently in Kentucky

In 2022 and 2023, two-time Oscar-nominated actor Ethan Hawke (Training Day, Boyhood), also a director, wrapped shooting in Louisville, Shelbyville, and Frankfort for his film about controversial author Flannery O'Connor. Ironically, it's called Wildcat even though it has little to do with Kentucky.

Go back a few months before Hawke arrived in Kentucky, and you'll probably remember Katy Perry living temporarily in the Commonwealth while her fiancé, Orlando Bloom, was filming the crime thriller Red Right Hand in Campbellsburg, Shepherdsville, and New Castle.

As exciting as this influx of Hollywood artists might be, Kentucky has been no stranger to movie cameras over the decades, as this list will show you.