Jeff Nichols’s 2023 film The Bikeriders, starring Tom Hardy and Austin Butler, tells the story of a fictional motorcycle club in the American Midwest in the 1960s.
A photobook developed by Danny Lyon inspired the story. Today, we plan on exploring the places Jeff Nichols and his cinematography team chose to put into this story’s scene.
The story, narrated over a decade, tells the rise, apogee, and climactic end of a bike-riding enthusiast group in the American Midwest.
This gang started as a couple of dudes with a knack for riding their motorcycles to a dangerous gang that eventually engages in crimes of all sorts, dividing the original members.
The Bikerider Filming Locations
The Bikerider’s main photography occurred in Ohio, with some on-location outdoor scenes in Ludlow, Kentucky. The main photography for this movie took place between early October 2022 and late November of that year.
Since the bulk of the movie’s plot takes place in Cincinnati, we will unpack a few details concerning this production’s filming locations.
Fun fact: Jeff Nichols had wanted to develop this movie for over half a decade, but he didn’t have a script, just a concept, and when he was on the set of another film, he mentioned the idea to Michael Shannon, who told him that if he kept putting off the crucial part of having a script, the movie would never come to fruition.
As such, Nichols sat down and wrote this movie and sold it to Academy Award-nominee producer Sarah Green, veteran film producer and Israeli spy Arnon Milchan, and Brian Kavanaugh Jones.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Located in Hamilton County and founded in 1788 is a river town that was strategically built to connect the Ohio and Licking rivers as a main vein to fluvial commerce with the state of Kentucky.
The city is a big-time economic and cultural hub and home to three pro sports teams: the MLB’s Cincinnati Red, the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals, and the MLS’s FC Cincinnati.
Academy Award-winning movies like Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic were shot here due to the city’s strong Midwestern appeal and architectural styles that give out the aura of development and economic progress but also of regional spirit.
The city has been home to many famous people, such as former U.S. President William Howard Taft, astronaut Neil Armstrong, and many others.
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Ludlow, Kentucky
Ludlow is a home-rule-class city in Kentucky. In case you’re not familiar with that, it is a form of local government that is an alternative to the Mayor and Aldermen. Instead, they have equivalent government bodies like city managers and commissions that take care of the city’s issues.
Built-in 1864, the land that makes up Ludlow was given to a General as payment for his war effort during the Revolution.
The man turned that land into a trading post, taking advantage of its position and adjacency to a navigable river that could serve as a route for delivering products up or downstream of the Ohio River basin. This vast fluvial route covers Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, Evansville, Owensboro, Huntington, and Wheeling, cities that had importance for commercial routing of the agriculture and industrial industries that make up the backbone of the Midwestern American economy. Ludlow has been a filming location for other movies like Lost in Yonkers.
Wrapping Things Up
Now that you are familiar with the cities used as filming locations for Nichols’s The Bikeriders, consider, if you’re ever in the area visiting because cities like Cincinnati have a tourist appeal like none other.
Furthermore, if you’re in Ohio, there are a bunch of different locations you could visit depending on your taste; if you like rollercoasters, take the drive to Sandusky’s Cedar Point, or if you’re a music fan, why not visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and maybe perhaps catch a concert from some artist that takes a stop there, or if there’s a pro sports season, catch some tickets to a match.
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