Denis Villeneuve's Arrakis is assembled from two real deserts and a Hungarian soundstage. The sandstone canyons, the cliff walls and most of the rock landscape are Wadi Rum in southern Jordan. The vast open dune fields — the seas of sand with no rock in them — are largely the Liwa Desert on the edge of the Rub' al Khali in Abu Dhabi. Everything indoors was built at Origo Studios in Budapest.
Wadi Rum is a protected area and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, inhabited by Bedouin communities who run most of the tourism in it. It is also, by a wide margin, the most reliably employed landscape in cinema: if you have watched a film set on Mars, in ancient Arabia or on a desert planet in the last twenty years, you have probably looked at it.
Why this particular desert
Wadi Rum is not a dune desert in the Sahara sense. It is a valley system cut into sandstone and granite, where isolated mountains — jebels — rise several hundred metres straight out of red sand in a way that reads instantly as inhuman scale. That vertical drama is what makes it useful: an ordinary dune field gives you emptiness, but Wadi Rum gives you emptiness with architecture in it.
For Dune, Villeneuve and cinematographer Greig Fraser used the rock as the Atreides' foothold — the cliffs, the shaded canyons, the sheer walls behind the landing sequences — while going to Abu Dhabi for the shots that needed unbroken sand to the horizon.
The production shot in Jordan in 2019, returned for Part Two, and both films used Bedouin crews and local logistics extensively. Jordan's film commission has been deliberate about this, and the country now has a substantial working film infrastructure built around the site.
The valley's filmography
David Lean shot Lawrence of Arabia there in 1962, which is the location's founding credit and not incidental — T. E. Lawrence really did operate in Wadi Rum during the Arab Revolt, and the film was shot where the events happened.
Since then: The Martian used it for Mars, as did Red Planet, Mission to Mars and The Last Days on Mars. Rogue One shot Jedha there. Prometheus, Aladdin, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker all used it. Villeneuve is one of many directors who arrived at the same conclusion about the same valley.
This has a practical consequence for visitors: almost every Bedouin camp and 4x4 operator in Wadi Rum will offer a tour of "the film locations", and the specific sites shown vary in accuracy. The landscape is genuine everywhere; the claim that a particular rock is the exact one from a particular film is sometimes generous.
Liwa, and the sand that has no rocks
The Liwa Desert lies at the northern edge of the Rub' al Khali, the Empty Quarter, in Abu Dhabi's Al Dhafra region. Its dunes are enormous — Moreeb Dune is among the tallest in the world at over 300 metres — and crucially they are unbroken. No mountains, no canyon walls, nothing to give scale except the dunes themselves.
That is what Villeneuve needed for the sandworm sequences and the long walking shots. Dune: Part Two returned to Liwa and pushed further into it. The area is accessible from Abu Dhabi by road, and unlike Wadi Rum it remains primarily a domestic Emirati destination rather than a film-tourism one.
Budapest did the rest
The interiors — Caladan, the Atreides palace, the Harkonnen chambers, the ornithopter cockpits — were built at Origo Studios in Budapest, where the production had a large stage footprint across both films. Some Caladan exteriors were shot in Norway, at Stadlandet.
So the split, roughly: Jordan for rock, Abu Dhabi for sand, Norway for cold, Hungary for everything with a ceiling.
Visiting the location
- Where
- Wadi Rum Protected Area, Aqaba Governorate, southern Jordan. Liwa is in the Al Dhafra region of Abu Dhabi, UAE.
- Getting there
- Wadi Rum village is about an hour from Aqaba and four hours from Amman by road. Entry is through the visitor centre; beyond that, travel is by 4x4 with a local operator. Liwa is roughly a two-hour drive south-west of Abu Dhabi city.
- Access
- Wadi Rum charges an entry fee to the protected area. Independent driving into the desert is not permitted — you travel with a Bedouin guide or camp operator, and overnight camps are the standard way to visit.
- Stay overnight. The valley at dawn and after dark is the reason to come, and day trips from Aqaba miss both.
- Book directly with a Bedouin-run camp where you can; the tourism economy in Wadi Rum is locally owned and that is worth supporting.
- October to April. Summer daytime temperatures in southern Jordan are dangerous for anyone walking.
- Treat "film location" tour claims as approximate. The landscape is the attraction; the specific rock rarely matters.
Frequently asked questions
Where was Arrakis filmed in Dune?
Primarily Wadi Rum in southern Jordan for the rock and canyon landscapes, plus the Liwa Desert in Abu Dhabi for the open dune fields. Interiors were built at Origo Studios in Budapest.
Can you visit Wadi Rum?
Yes. It is a protected area with a visitor centre near Wadi Rum village, about an hour from Aqaba. Access into the desert itself is by 4x4 with local Bedouin operators, and overnight camps are the usual way to stay.
What other films were shot in Wadi Rum?
Lawrence of Arabia, The Martian, Rogue One, Prometheus, Aladdin, Red Planet and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker among many others. It is one of the most filmed landscapes on earth.
Was Dune: Part Two filmed in the same place?
Largely yes — Part Two returned to both Wadi Rum and the Liwa Desert, and added Altivole in Italy for the Harkonnen arena sequence.