Blenheim Palace announce reimagined Lights, Camera, Action film trail featuring new blockbuster films and series

From 1st October, visitors can walk in the footsteps of movie and television stars and experience the silver-screen at Blenheim Palace in the newly updated film trail which now features Napoleon (2023), The Diplomat (2024), Heads of State (2025), as well as one of the earliest major productions ever filmed at the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948).

Most recently, Blenheim Palace was the filming location for Ilya Naishuller’s high-octane action comedy, Heads of State featuring John Cena and Idris Elba, which served as a dramatic backdrop for scenes involving global leaders and covert operations. The Palace’s grandeur was used to full effect, standing in for Buckingham Palace using the State Rooms.

In Season 2 of Netflix’s political drama The Diplomat, Blenheim Palace appears as itself, providing a majestic backdrop for key exterior scenes. The Palace features in the lead-up to a formal dinner, where characters arrive and mingle on the grand steps and in the Great Hall. As the ancestral home of Winston Churchill, Blenheim was chosen to lend the series a sense of real-world political gravitas and historical resonance.

Newly added to the film trail is Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, in which the Oxfordshire Heritage Attraction was transformed into a breathtaking stage for revolution and empire. The historic Estate doubled as France, Italy and Russia during filming, capturing the tale of Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise to power. Intense battle scenes unfolded across the grounds, while dramatic moments were filmed in the Great Hall, Long Library, Saloon and State Rooms.

The hit Netflix series, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story has also been added to the trail, as it was filmed between the Great Court and Water Terraces. The six-episode series from Netflix and Shondaland is a prequel to the record breaking period drama, focusing on young Queen Charlotte’s rise to prominence and power.

Saraband for Dead Lovers was Ealing Studios’ first Technicolor production, a tragic historical romance set in the 17th Century, and Blenheim Palace was used for a Baroque backdrop standing in for royal courts and palatial interiors.

In addition, visitors to Britain’s Greatest Palace can also see the filming locations of some of the most famous blockbusters in cinematic history, from the spellbinding Harry Potter to the spytastic James Bond. Along the way learn fun film facts like how Billy Connolly saved a wedding day when filming Gulliver’s Travels in 2010, and feast your eyes on the photos that captured it all.

Along the trail, you can visit:

  • The Great Hall (Napoleon, A Little Chaos, Cinderella, Queen Charlotte, The Diplomat)
  • The Great Court (Queen Charlotte, Gulliver’s Travels, James Bond Spectre, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation)
  • The Green Writing Room (Mission:Impossible – Rogue Nation)
  • The Saloon (Bridgerton: Season 3, The Libertine, A Little Chaos, Queen Charlotte, Napoleon)
  • The Long Library (Napoleon, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Cinderella, Queen Charlotte)
  • The West Colonnades (James Bond: Spectre, The Libertine)
  • The First State Room (Napoleon and Heads of State, A Little Chaos)
  • The Water Terraces (Bridgerton: Season 3, Queen Charlotte)
  • The South Lawn (Bridgerton: Season 3, Gulliver’s Travels)
  • The Grand Bridge (Cinderella)
  • The Walled Garden (Inspector Morse)
  • The Italian Gardens (BFG)
  • Bladon Bridge (Cinderella)

To find out more about the Lights, Camera, Action film trail, visit hwww.blenheimpalace.com/whats-on/events/lights-camera-action/

ENDS