20 Films Set or Shot in Thailand

20 Thailand Films and Documentaries
Thailand film shoots and documentaries

Thailand Film Set Locations

Many films shot in Thailand have become box office hits. We include a number of these in our list of 20 Thailand film set locations below. Others, particularly documentaries, are much less well known, and a number of these are detailed in the additional Thailand Documentaries section below.

Thailand is a frequent host to film crews from overseas. Locations around the country represent either the actual settings or are used as location doubles. Film locations in Thailand have to date doubled for New York, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, China, New Orleans and even fictitious outer space destinations...

20 Hollywood Movies Made in Thailand

Our list of 20 filming locations in Thailand includes places used to film scenes in movies as varied as Danny Boyle's "The Beach", "Star Wars III", the BBC's "Blood, Sweat and Takeaways" documentary, "The Killing Fields", "The Hangover 2", "Alexander", two 007 James Bond movies and more. Why not relive the plots of some of these movies and work in a trip to these settings on your next holiday in Thailand, retracing the steps of Leonardo di Caprio, Sylvester Stallone, Roger Moore, Mike Tyson and more?

Films Set in Thailand... But Shot Elsewhere

Several films have been set in Thailand, but were made elsewhere. These include:
"Anna and the King of Siam" (1946), the original adaptation of Anna Leonowens' book, filmed in California. "The King and I" (1956) was also set in Thailand but filmed overseas, as was "Anna and the King" (1999).
"The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957). David Lean's story of work on the Death Railway was in fact filmed in Ceylon.
"Missing in Action" was filmed not in Thailand, but in the Philippines.

Documentaries About Thailand

Here are a few titles of documentaries on Thailand with links to fuller descriptions.

Petchakat - The Last Executioner, tells the life story of the country's last prison executioner.
Mon Rot Fai or "Railway Sleepers" is an oneiric account of Thailand's trains, on several levels.
Torn Cloth tells the story of young, orphaned children who seek shelter and a future in Thailand's border-country Muay Thai boxing camps.
When Elephants Were Young tells the story of a Thai mahout and his elephant, Nong Mai, seeking survival in Bangkok.
Kiss My Snake is an account of the small village near Gecko Villa, towards Khon Kaen, where raising deadly King Cobra snakes has become the livelihood of the villagers.
True Brits on Youtube: a now dated, but nevertheless interesting, documentary on the workings of the British Embassy in Bangkok.
Poverty, Inc investigates global, multi-billion dollar aid agencies, NGOs and more and questions who actually profits. Thailand is one country covered in the documentary.
Buddha's Lost Children A Dutch documentary, filmed over a year, about a Buddhist monk in Thailand's Golden Triangle, where he helps orphans and drug addicts. This documentary won the Best Spiritual Film and Best Spiritual Documentary at the European Film Festival in Paris in 2009.