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The Shining

1978

Boulder

Feature Film

Jack Torrance laughs at the glowing Gold Room bar as a bartender in a red jacket serves him, with 1920s partygoers behind
Still from The Shining (1980). © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved.
Jack Torrance grins wildly through the splintered gap he has chopped in a white bathroom door
Still from The Shining (1980). © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved.
Jack Torrance, hair wild and teeth bared, staggers toward the camera through the snow-covered hedge maze at night
Still from The Shining (1980). © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved.
A bearded man in glasses and a young boy watch a small video monitor on a dim film set, a camera rig behind them
Behind the scenes of The Shining (1980). © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved.

DIRECTED BY

Stanley Kubrick

STARRING

Jack NicholsonShelley DuvallDanny LloydScatman CrothersBarry Nelson

PRODUCTION TYPE

Feature Film

PRODUCTION COMPANY

Hawk FilmsPeregrine ProductionsThe Producer Circle CompanyWarner Bros.

IMDb

See on IMDb (opens in new tab)

RELEASE DATE

May 23, 1980

FILMED IN BOULDER

Boulder County’s contribution is a single exterior shot, and it is easy to miss. Location researchers identify the Torrance family’s Colorado apartment block as a three-story complex on Bixby Lane near the University of Colorado, filmed looking west toward the Flatirons. The finished film does contain that shot: the post-production script carries the slug “EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING/BOULDER - DAY” with the camera tracking in on an apartment building with mountains behind it.

That footage was gathered by a second unit. Kubrick, his cast and every interior stayed in England, including the apartment’s own rooms, which were built on a stage at EMI Elstree. Two things worth knowing while browsing this archive: the Overlook’s establishing shots show the Timberline Lodge in Oregon, and the Stanley Hotel so often tied to this story sits in Estes Park, in Larimer County, and never appears on screen.

ABOUT

A struggling writer accepts a job minding a grand mountain resort through the Colorado winter, moving his wife and young son into the building after the last guests and staff drive down the mountain. The boy has a quiet gift for perceiving things other people cannot, and the empty hotel seems to have a great deal it wants to show him. As the months close in, the isolation starts to work on his father.

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