Norway's geology has provided natural scale for some of international cinema's most ambitious action sequences — while many equally extraordinary locations remain largely unexplored on screen. Trollveggen, Europe's tallest vertical rock face, is seen in Netflix's climbing thriller Apex, Troll, and in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning. Preikestolen's 604-metre drop over Lysefjord provided the backdrop for the climactic sequence in Mission: Impossible – Fallout. Adventdalen, Svalbard's permafrost and open tundra, became the Fortress of Solitude in Superman. The Jostedalsbreen glacier system lent Ex Machina an otherworldly stillness.
Discover the range of locations in Norway, from cliffs and glaciers to fjords and canyons, rock formed at the bottom of an ocean and rock ground smooth by ice-age meltwater.
The scale of these landscapes can suggest remoteness, but many of Norway's most dramatic filming locations are located within established production regions. An extensive network of roads, airports, ferries and railways connects locations across the country, while regional film commissions and local production service companies can assist with scouting, access, permits and logistics.
Sheer Cliffs & Vertical Drops
Norway's cliffs rise directly from fjord and sea, offering steep, exposed terrain and an immediate sense of scale.
Trollveggen / Troll Wall
Europe's tallest vertical rock face, rising a thousand metres above Romsdalen. Seen in Apex, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and Troll.
Preikestolen / Pulpit Rock
A 604-metre drop over Lysefjord. Its wide plateau provided the real ground beneath the climactic cliff sequence in Mission: Impossible – Fallout.
Kjeragbolten
A glacial boulder wedged in a mountain crevice, 900 metres above the Lysefjord.
Trolltunga
A flat shelf of gneiss overhanging Ringedalsvatnet.
Hornelen
Rising 860 metres straight out of the water, the highest sea cliff in Europe.
Glaciers & Ice
Norway's ice ranges from mainland glaciers to Arctic permafrost, giving productions everything from otherworldly stillness to genuinely alien terrain. The scale shifts with the location: glacier arms reaching down into forested valleys in the south, open permafrost plains under near-constant daylight or darkness in Svalbard. As film locations, both extremes offer unique ice and snow landscapes that are real, not simulated.
Jostedalsbreen
Mainland Europe's largest ice cap, feeding glacier arms down into the surrounding valleys.
Nigardsbreen
An outlet glacier of Jostedalsbreen. Appears in Ex Machina, alongside other Western Norway locations including Juvet Landscape Hotel.
It’s Promethean, prehistoric landscapes, and a really smart juxtaposition of technology and this machine set against the enormity of this landscape.
Svalbard
Permafrost, glacier and open Arctic tundra, standing in for the Fortress of Solitude in Superman and used for location filming on BBC's Vigil Season 3. Despite its remote Arctic setting, Svalbard is supported by established production infrastructure in Longyearbyen, including an international airport, accommodation and experienced local logistics providers.
Rare & Unusual Rock Formations
Some of Norway's most striking terrain has nothing to do with height or scale — it comes from rocks or shapes so unusual that they seem designed, rather than natural.
Leka
Exposed oceanic crust and mantle rock, pushed to the surface through tectonic collision. Recognised as Norway's Geological National Monument, Leka's rust-red rock and sparse vegetation create a landscape that can read as prehistoric or otherworldly, entirely different from contemporary Norway.
Marmorslottet
A marble gorge near Mo i Rana, carved by the river, its pale rock cut into smooth, curved channels. The marble, turquoise water and sculpted look give Marmorslottet a visual character far removed from Norway's more familiar mountain landscapes.
Kannesteinen
A single boulder on Vågsøy island, worn into its distinctive shape by centuries of coastal erosion.
Gloppedalsura
Northern Europe's largest boulder field, a 100-metre-thick mass of rock deposited by a landslide roughly 10,000 years ago.
Trollholmsund
Dolomite rock pillars in Porsanger, locally known as "the trolls," shaped by erosion from bedrock formed around 700 million years ago.
Straumøya
In Saltfjorden, Saltstraumen: intensely folded and banded gneiss, its swirled layering the result of deep tectonic pressure rather than water or wind erosion.
Hamningberg
The road through Varanger/Várjjat cuts between steep, parallel rock ridges, formed as folded layers of sandstone and shale weathered at different rates.
Iconic Peaks & Silhouettes
Norway's geological development has produced a striking range of mountain profiles, from pointed summits and knife-edge ridges to broad, rounded massifs. Differences in bedrock, resistance to weathering and the effects of repeated glaciation have all helped shape these contrasting forms. Together they give the country a coastline and skyline that rarely repeats itself from one region to the next.
Torghatten
A mountain pierced by a natural tunnel, shaped by erosion during repeated periods of glaciation and higher sea levels.
Stetind
Norway's national mountain, a granite obelisk rising sharply from the Nordland coastline. Its exposed granite is around 1.8 billion years old, later sculpted into its distinctive form by erosion and glaciation.
Segla
A knife-edge peak on Senja, dropping steeply towards the sea on either side.
Galdhøpiggen
The highest mountain in Scandinavia at 2,469 metres, rising above the glaciers and high alpine terrain of Jotunheimen.
Gaustatoppen
A pyramid-shaped quartzite peak in Telemark, rising to 1,883 metres. The rock's resistance to weathering meant it held its height and sharp form as the softer terrain around it wore down over millions of years.
Rondane
Norway's oldest national park, its rounded, lichen-covered peaks worn down over vastly longer timescales than the sharper alpine ranges elsewhere in the country.
Kinnaklova
Twin granite-gneiss peaks on Kinn island, split by Kinnaklova, a 220-metre-high gap eroded along a weakness zone in the rock. Transformed into the coastal fortress of Caladan in Dune.
Canyons, Gorges & River-Carved Landscapes
While Norway's cliffs and peaks were shaped over millions of years, these landscapes tell a more dramatic story — water cutting through rock in a single flood, or grinding a gorge wider and deeper over thousands of years. The results are striking vertical cuts through the surface.
Sautso (Čávžu), Alta Canyon
One of Europe's largest canyons, ten kilometres long and 300–420 metres deep, cut by the Alta River down from the Finnmarksvidda/Finnmárkkoduottar plateau. In its walls, a sequence of late Precambrian and Cambrian sedimentary rock is exposed — a cross-section of millions of years of geological history laid bare in a single rock face.
Jutulhogget
A 2.4-kilometre gash in the landscape of Innlandet county. Around 8,500 years ago, a glacial lake burst and released a megaflood, carving the canyon in a single catastrophic event.
Bordalsgjelet
A narrow river gorge cut into the bedrock near Voss.
Ravnejuv / Raven’s Gorge
A 350-metre gorge in Telemark.
Reisadalen (Ráisávži)
A long valley in Troms, carved by the Reisa River through an upland plateau, home to Mollisfossen, one of Northern Europe's highest waterfalls.
Nattfjelldalen
A stream cutting down through layered bedrock cliffs on the open tundra plateau in Varanger/Várjjat, the same terrain that preserves the Bigganjarga Tillite, among the first documented evidence of "Snowball Earth" glaciation.
Gudbrandsjuvet
A gorge cut into gneiss by the Valldøla River, framed by one of the Norwegian Scenic Routes' architectural viewing platforms. The weathered steel walkway curves directly over the rushing water, pairing raw geology with contemporary architecture. Norway's landscapes can offer more than untouched wilderness, with built structures adding a deliberate, modern edge.
Caves & Underground Spaces
Beneath and beside Norway's more familiar landscapes lies a different kind of terrain — caves carved by dissolving limestone and marble, sea caves hollowed out by centuries of wave action, and rock shelters where the stone itself has sheltered people for thousands of years.
Grønligrotta
A limestone cave system near Mo i Rana, its network of passages carved over roughly 700,000 years by water and ice.
Trollkirka
A system of marble and limestone caves in Hustadvika, formed over thousands of years as running water dissolved the calcium-rich bedrock. An underground river with its own waterfalls runs through the caves, and daylight reaches in at certain points along the way.
Kirkhelleren
A rock shelter on the remote island of Træna, used by people since the Stone Age.
Smellerglova
A narrow sea cave near Flekkefjord, where contrasting rock types create striking bands of colour around the clear coastal water.
Helleren
A natural rock overhang in Jøssingfjord, sheltering two small houses that have stood beneath it for generations. People have likely sheltered under Helleren since the Stone Age.
Hanshelleren
A granite cave overhang near Flatanger, its solid rock and steep angles making it one of the world's most significant sport climbing sites, home to routes including the first confirmed ascent of grade 9c, among the hardest climbing grades ever recorded.
Fjords
The fjord is Norway's most recognisable landscape, and its formation began long before the Ice Ages. Many fjords follow older valleys, fractures and weaker zones in the bedrock that were later widened and deepened by repeated glaciations. As the ice retreated, seawater filled the deep glacial valleys, creating the steep walls, great depths and branching waterways seen today.
The scale can extend far below what is visible on screen: in Hardanger, glacial erosion excavated parts of the fjord basin to more than a kilometre below today's sea level before sediments accumulated on the fjord floor.
Hjørundfjorden
A narrow, steep-walled fjord in Sunnmøre. Seen as a location in The Woman in Cabin 10 and in Fjord, winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes 2026.
Molladalen
A side valley branching off Hjørundfjorden, flanked by needle-thin rock spires.
Trollfjord
A narrow, steep-sided fjord in Vesterålen, used as a location in Downsizing.
Giant's Kettles
As the last Ice Age's glaciers began to melt, swirling meltwater trapped stones in bedrock hollows and spun them for centuries, grinding perfectly circular holes straight into solid rock. The result looks almost engineered — smooth, rounded cavities that seem out of place in raw stone.
Nissedal
A roughly 300-metre stretch of riverbed in Nissedal, Telemark, densely packed with potholes, ranging from small hollows to deep pools.
Svartisgryta
Giant’s kettle near Engenbreen, an arm of the Svartisen glacier in Meløy.
Historic Mining Landscapes
Alongside Norway's dramatic, untouched terrain are landscapes carrying centuries of human industry. These are landscapes shaped as much by mineral deposits and the people who worked them as by ice or tectonics, offering productions built heritage and period texture on top of the raw rock.
Norway has many historic mines open to visitors, from copper at Røros (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and Sulitjelma, to silver at Kongsberg and pyrite at Løkken.
Svalbard's coal mines were shaped by permafrost, isolation, and almost complete darkness for months on end. Longyearbyen's Gruve 3, open to visitors, stopped operations in 1996. Abandoned rail lines and cable-car towers still stand as visible traces of the industry on Svalbard.
Christianus Sextus, Røros
A copper and pyrite mine in Nordgruvefeltet, located just north of Røros, discovered in 1723 and worked in phases until around 1940. The timber structures and rust-stained rock left behind are part of the same UNESCO World Heritage mining landscape as Røros itself.
More Than Scenery
Norway's landscape took billions of years to take its current shape, resulting in dramatic and visually impactful sites. Combined with excellent infrastructure aiding accessibility, and experienced, specialised local production service companies, these locations offer spectacular framing to stories as varied in range as the landscape itself.
The Norwegian Film Commission assists in turning creative ambition into practical production. We connect filmmakers with experienced crews, exceptional locations, regional partners and production expertise across the country. The Norwegian Film Institute's Norwegian Film Production Incentive offers a 25% cash rebate on qualifying local spend for eligible international productions.
Explore our Filming in Norway guide, learn more about the Film Production Incentive and other funding opportunities, or contact the Norwegian Film Commission and the regional film commissions.
FAQ
What types of geological filming locations are available in Norway?
Norway offers a wide range of geological filming locations, including sheer mountain walls, fjords, glaciers, Arctic tundra, canyons, caves, marble formations, exposed oceanic crust and unusual coastal rock formations. This diversity creates natural settings suited to action, adventure, fantasy, science fiction and productions seeking remote or otherworldly landscapes.
Where can productions find dramatic mountain and cliff filming locations?
Norway's mountain filming locations range from the vertical wall of Trollveggen and the exposed plateau of Preikestolen to Kjerag, Trolltunga, Hornelen, Stetind and the distinctive peaks of Senja. Several have already appeared in major international productions, including Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and Apex.
Where can productions film glaciers and Arctic landscapes?
Mainland Norway offers glaciers including Jostedalsbreen and its glacier arms, while Svalbard provides Arctic valleys, glaciers, permafrost and polar desert landscapes. These environments have appeared in productions including Ex Machina and Superman.
Can Norway double for fantasy, science-fiction or otherworldly landscapes?
Yes. Norway's geological diversity includes landscapes with unusual colours, textures and formations that can read very differently on screen. Leka's exposed oceanic crust and mantle rock, the marble formations of Marmorslottet, Svalbard's Arctic terrain and the distinctive geology of Varanger/Várjjat offer alternatives to Norway's more familiar fjord and mountain landscapes.
How accessible are Norway's natural filming locations?
Accessibility varies by location, but Norway has an extensive network of roads, airports, ferries and railways connecting its filming regions. Some dramatic landscapes can be reached directly or closely by road, while glaciers, mountain locations and protected areas may require specialist transport and additional planning.
Can productions film at glaciers, national parks and protected geological sites in Norway?
Filming may be possible, but requirements depend on the location, scale and impact of the production. Activities such as restricting public access, traffic control or using motorised vehicles on uncultivated land can require permission, while protected environments may have additional restrictions. Productions within Sápmi and traditional reindeer-herding areas are to consult the International Sámi Film Institute's pathfinder guidelines for responsible collaboration with Sámi culture, communities and land use.
Major productions have successfully filmed at locations such as glaciers, national parks and protected sites, through close collaboration with production service providers. Regional entities, including Norway’s five regional film commissions, can help assess feasibility, navigate permissions and identify the right local stakeholders.
