In depth · Film and the city
Valencia on Film: Tomorrowland, Doctor Who and the castle of El Cid
Santiago Calatrava’s white City of Arts and Sciences looks like the future, and film-makers have treated it that way ever since it opened. Up the coast, the castle of Peñíscola has played medieval Spain and the cities of Westeros. Here are the films and series made in and around Valencia, the city’s own film heroes, and the official trailers wherever the studios offer them.
Updated October 2026
Tomorrowland (2015): the city of the future
In Disney’s Tomorrowland, directed by Brad Bird, George Clooney and Britt Robertson search for a gleaming city where the brightest minds build the future. For its sunlit, impossibly white architecture, the production came to Valencia and the City of Arts and Sciences, Santiago Calatrava’s complex of museum, opera house, planetarium and aquarium on the old bed of the River Turia.
The Valencia Film Office counts Tomorrowland among the international productions that have turned the complex into a film set, along with the BBC’s Doctor Who, HBO’s Westworld and Bollywood films. The best time to see it the way the cameras do is at dusk, when the Hemisfèric lights up and doubles in its pool.
Doctor Who: the Doctor in Valencia
The BBC’s Doctor Who came to the City of Arts and Sciences for its tenth series, broadcast in 2017, with Peter Capaldi as the Doctor and Pearl Mackie as his companion, Bill. Calatrava’s white ribs and arches made a ready-built future world.
Walk under the Umbracle, the long garden walkway of white arches and palms, and you are in the scene.
Westworld (2020): HBO’s future city
For the third season of Westworld, which left the park for the cities of the near future, HBO’s crews filmed for two days at the City of Arts and Sciences in 2019. It was a natural choice: few places on earth look more like tomorrow.
There is no official trailer for this season on HBO’s own channel that we could verify, so we do not embed one.
Peñíscola: El Cid and the walls of Meereen
About an hour and a half north of Valencia, the old town of Peñíscola sits on a rocky headland in the sea, crowned by the castle of Pope Benedict XIII, the Papa Luna. In 1961 Anthony Mann filmed the last scenes of El Cid here, with Charlton Heston as Spain’s legendary knight and Sophia Loren as Jimena, and the town has been a film location ever since.
In the sixth season of Game of Thrones, the castle, the walls and the old town became Meereen, the slave city ruled by Daenerys Targaryen. Peñíscola now has a signposted film route through the streets, and the walk round the walls at sunset is one of the loveliest on the coast.
There is no official trailer for El Cid on a distributor’s own channel, so the trailer here is for the sixth season of Game of Thrones.
Luis García Berlanga: Valencia’s great director
Valencia’s own giant of the cinema is Luis García Berlanga, born in the city on 12 June 1921. His comedies, warm, sharp and full of life, are among the best-loved films ever made in Spain. ¡Bienvenido, Mister Marshall! (1953), in which a Castilian village dresses itself up as Andalusia to welcome the Americans, was honoured at Cannes; El verdugo (The Executioner, 1963) won the critics’ prize at Venice. Plácido (1961), Calabuch (1956) and La vaquilla (1985) are all worth seeking out.
Valencia also gave Hollywood one of its great storytellers. The novelist Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, born in the city in 1867, wrote The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and Blood and Sand, which Hollywood filmed in 1921 and 1922 with Rudolph Valentino; the first made Valentino a star.
Our advice
Watch Tomorrowland, then walk the City of Arts and Sciences at dusk, from the Umbracle to the Hemisfèric. Keep a day for Peñíscola and its castle, and an evening for a Berlanga comedy: ¡Bienvenido, Mister Marshall! is the perfect start.
Over to you. Which Valencia film do you love, and which scene would you add? Tell us below or in our forum: we read every message, and the best suggestions will join this page.
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Questions and answers
Which films were shot at the City of Arts and Sciences?
Disney’s Tomorrowland (2015), the BBC’s Doctor Who, HBO’s Westworld (season 3) and Bollywood films, according to the Valencia Film Office.
Where was Meereen in Game of Thrones filmed?
Partly in Peñíscola, north of Valencia, where the castle of Papa Luna, the walls and the old town became Meereen in season 6.
Was El Cid filmed in Peñíscola?
Yes. The final scenes of Anthony Mann’s El Cid (1961), with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren, were filmed at Peñíscola.
Who is Valencia’s most famous film director?
Luis García Berlanga, born in Valencia in 1921, director of ¡Bienvenido, Mister Marshall! and El verdugo.
Join the conversation
Which Valencia film do you love? Share your favourite scenes and the films we should add.
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Sources: the Valencia Film Office and Visit València, Valencia Plaza, the Universitat Politècnica de València and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, checked on 25 October 2026. Trailers are embedded from the official YouTube channels of each film’s studio, distributor or broadcaster; where none exists online, we leave it out. Opening times of monuments and film sites change: check before you go.