40 TV Shows Filmed in Vancouver, From Sci-Fi Classics to CW Superheroes

Vancouver has stood in for Kansas, Chicago, Santa Barbara, and even feudal Japan without most viewers noticing. The city's mix of coastal mountains, dense forest, and flexible urban blocks has made it one of North America's busiest production hubs, earning the nickname "Hollywood North" along the way. According to the Wikipedia list of filming locations in the Vancouver area, the Lower Mainland has hosted hundreds of film and television productions, many of which never mention Vancouver by name.

This rundown covers 40 tv shows filmed in Vancouver, grouped loosely by era and genre, from early-2000s sci-fi staples to the CW's superhero universe to recent Netflix dramas. Each entry notes what the show actually used Vancouver for, whether that meant doubling as another American city or simply providing the forest and water that writers needed for an alien planet. Readers who recognize a street corner or ferry terminal from one of these series will likely spot several more below.

1. The X-Files (seasons 1-5)

The X-Files is arguably the show that put Vancouver filming locations on the map for American audiences. Chris Carter's series shot its first five seasons around the city, using the region's near-constant rain and fog to create the moody, overcast tone the show became known for. Production eventually relocated to Los Angeles in 1998, partly because stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson wanted to be closer to home, but the Vancouver years remain fan favorites for their atmosphere.

Locations around Burnaby, the North Shore, and the University of British Columbia doubled for countless fictional small towns across the United States. Interior scenes were largely shot at a converted warehouse that later became known as one of the city's foundational studio spaces. The Wikipedia filming locations list credits the series with helping establish Vancouver's reputation for genre television specifically.

2. Smallville

Show★ 8.2 TMDB

Smallville

2001–2011 · 10 seasons · Drama · Sci-Fi & Fantasy · Action & Adventure

First aired

16 October 2001

Network

The WB

Created by

Alfred Gough, Miles Millar

Starring

Tom Welling, Erica Durance, Cassidy Freeman

TrackWatch trailerTrailerFull detailsDetails

Smallville reimagined young Clark Kent's life using Vancouver's agricultural fringes and small-town streetscapes to stand in for fictional Kansas. The series ran for ten seasons, making it one of the longest-running productions to call the region home, and it relied heavily on Fort Langley and surrounding farmland for its Kansas wheat-field aesthetic. Downtown Vancouver buildings filled in for Metropolis whenever the story moved to the big city.

The show's longevity gave local crews steady work for the better part of a decade and helped train a generation of technicians who later staffed other genre productions on this list. Its success also demonstrated that a comic-book adaptation could thrive on Vancouver's production infrastructure well before the CW built its entire superhero slate here.

3. Supernatural

Show★ 8.3 TMDB

Supernatural

2005–2020 · 15 seasons · Mystery · Drama · Sci-Fi & Fantasy

First aired

13 September 2005

Network

The WB

Created by

Eric Kripke

Starring

Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins

TrackWatch trailerTrailerFull detailsDetails

Supernatural sent Sam and Dean Winchester across an endless series of American backroads, nearly all of which were actually British Columbia highways. The series ran for fifteen seasons, making it one of the most durable Vancouver filming locations success stories in television history. Its production team became known for dressing ordinary BC towns to look like whatever anonymous American state the brothers happened to be driving through that week.

Much of the series used standing sets built specifically for the show, alongside recurring locations in Burnaby and Langley. The sheer volume of episodes, more than 300 in total, meant that nearly every forest road and small-town diner in the Lower Mainland eventually made a cameo.

4. Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate Universe

The Stargate franchise turned Vancouver into one of the most prolific sci-fi production hubs in North America for over a decade. Stargate SG-1 ran for ten seasons, according to the show's Wikipedia entry, and its spinoffs Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe kept the franchise filming in the region continuously into the early 2010s. Together the three series represent one of the longest unbroken runs of tv productions shot in Vancouver by a single franchise.

The Stargate Atlantis production used quarries, forests, and industrial sites around Burnaby and Vancouver's North Shore to create alien planets on a television budget. A location guide from Giggster notes that the Bridge Studios complex in Burnaby became the franchise's long-term production base, a facility that continues hosting major productions today.

Pro Tip: Bridge Studios in Burnaby, the home base for the Stargate franchise, has also hosted scenes for several other shows on this list, including Smallville and Supernatural.

5. Battlestar Galactica and Caprica

The reimagined Battlestar Galactica used Vancouver's industrial areas and port facilities to create its grim, lived-in spaceship aesthetic. Rather than leaning on the city's natural beauty, the production sought out warehouses, shipyards, and concrete structures that could pass for a fleet of aging battlestars fleeing annihilation. A guide to productions filmed in Vancouver points out that the show's gritty visual style stood in sharp contrast to the brighter look of other local sci-fi series shooting around the same time.

Prequel series Caprica continued filming in the region, using Vancouver's varied architecture to represent a technologically advanced human colony. Though it ran for a single season, the show kept the same crews and facilities employed, reinforcing how interconnected the local genre production community had become by the late 2000s.

6. Fringe (seasons 1-3)

Fringe split its early run between New York and Vancouver filming locations, using the latter for most of its stranger, more unsettling fictional settings. The Fox series followed an FBI team investigating fringe science phenomena, and its first three seasons leaned on Vancouver's industrial zones and foggy waterfronts to sell the show's paranormal tone. Production later shifted its primary base, but the Vancouver years shaped the show's early visual identity.

Local landmarks appeared disguised throughout, including university buildings doubling as government research facilities and warehouses standing in for secret laboratories. Fans of the Stargate franchise may recognize overlapping crew members and locations, since many of the same technicians moved between these sci-fi productions as one show wrapped and another began.

7. Continuum

Continuum is one of the rare entries on this list that is actually a Canadian production rather than an American show filming abroad. Set partly in a near-future Vancouver, the series used the city's modern downtown architecture and SkyTrain system to depict a plausible, technologically advanced version of itself rather than disguising it as somewhere else. That made it an unusual project among Canadian tv shows filmed in Vancouver, since it embraced the city's real identity.

The show ran for four seasons on Showcase, blending time-travel plotting with a distinctly local sense of place. Its willingness to show Vancouver as Vancouver, rather than Chicago or Metropolis, gave it a different visual signature than most of its genre neighbors.

8. Eureka

Eureka used the Lower Mainland's forested small towns to build its fictional Pacific Northwest community of brilliant scientists and their experiments gone wrong. The Syfy series ran for five seasons and relied on quieter, more rural Vancouver filming locations than the urban-heavy productions on this list. Langley and surrounding farmland provided the small-town charm the writers wanted for their secretive government research hub.

A roundup of shows filmed in Vancouver notes that productions like Eureka helped diversify the region's reputation beyond big-city stand-ins, proving the area could convincingly sell small-town America just as well as metropolitan skylines.

9. Sanctuary

Sanctuary began as a web series before becoming a full Syfy production, and it stayed rooted in Vancouver throughout its run. The show followed a team investigating supernatural creatures, giving its visual effects team plenty of reason to layer digital creatures over the city's real architecture and waterfront. Heavy use of green-screen work let the production build fantastical settings on a more modest budget than its network counterparts.

Though less widely remembered today than some of its genre peers, Sanctuary is frequently cited alongside the Stargate franchise as part of the wave of early-2000s sci-fi television that built Vancouver's production infrastructure and crew base.

10. Dark Angel

Dark Angel imagined a dystopian future Seattle, and Vancouver's industrial waterfront and rain-soaked streets made for a convincing stand-in. Created by James Cameron, the series starred Jessica Alba as a genetically engineered soldier navigating a post-collapse American city. Its two-season run leaned heavily on practical sets built around Vancouver's port areas to depict a crumbling Pacific Northwest.

The production is often grouped with other early-2000s genre shows that established Vancouver as the default filming location for near-future American settings, a pattern that continued for years afterward across multiple networks.

11. The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle used the Lower Mainland to build an alternate 1960s America divided between Axis powers after a different outcome to World War II. The Amazon series needed convincing period detail across multiple fictional regions, and Vancouver's varied architecture let production designers recreate both a Japanese-controlled Pacific coast and a German-controlled East. The show ran for four seasons, giving it one of the longer commitments among streaming dramas on this list.

Important Note: Some scenes depicting 1600s feudal Japan were also shot around the Lower Mainland for flashback sequences, according to Wikipedia's filming locations list, showing just how far the region's versatility extended for this particular production.

12. Altered Carbon (season 1)

Altered Carbon brought a glossy, neon-heavy cyberpunk future to life using Vancouver's downtown core and surrounding studio facilities. The Netflix adaptation of Richard K. Morgan's novel needed a city that could look both futuristic and lived-in, and extensive set construction combined with Vancouver's modern glass towers delivered that mix. Season one represented one of the more ambitious production builds among tv productions shot in Vancouver at the time, with elaborate practical sets supplementing digital effects.

The streaming series later moved its production base for subsequent seasons, but the first season's Vancouver-built world remains a frequently cited example of how the region can support big-budget science fiction visuals.

13. Snowpiercer

Snowpiercer adapted the post-apocalyptic train concept from the 2013 film into an ongoing TNT series, and much of its production took advantage of British Columbia's studio space for the show's claustrophobic train-car sets. Because the entire story takes place aboard a perpetually moving train, the production relied almost entirely on built interiors rather than exterior location shoots, making it a different kind of Vancouver filming location story than most entries on this list.

The show ran for multiple seasons, maintaining steady production in the region even as other streaming dramas shifted their bases elsewhere.

14. The 100

The 100 used British Columbia's dense forests and mountainous terrain to depict a post-nuclear Earth a century after civilization collapsed. The CW series followed a group of teenagers sent back to the planet's surface to test its habitability, and the show's wilderness-heavy setting made the Lower Mainland's natural landscape as important a character as any of the actors. It ran for seven seasons, becoming one of the network's longer-running genre shows.

Much of the series filmed in forests and quarries outside the city proper, giving it a distinctly rugged visual identity compared to the glossier urban superhero shows the CW was producing simultaneously in the same metro area.

15. Once Upon a Time

Once Upon a Time built its fairy-tale town of Storybrooke using Vancouver's waterfront neighborhoods and nearby coastal communities, most notably Steveston in Richmond. The ABC series blended classic fairy-tale characters with a contemporary small-town setting, and Steveston's fishing-village charm gave the production a built-in storybook quality without extensive set dressing. The show ran for seven seasons, becoming a significant and steady employer of local crews throughout the 2010s.

Interior palace and fantasy-realm scenes were typically filmed on soundstages, while the real-world Storybrooke exteriors relied on the same coastal town that has hosted numerous other productions on this list.

16. The Magicians

The Magicians adapted Lev Grossman's novel trilogy into a dark, adult-oriented fantasy series that filmed throughout the Vancouver area for all five of its seasons. The Syfy show needed both contemporary university settings and a sprawling magical kingdom, and the region's mix of institutional architecture and forested estates let production designers build both without leaving the Lower Mainland. Its sustained multi-year run placed it among the more consistent Hollywood North productions of the late 2010s.

The series is often cited by fans alongside Fringe and Sanctuary as part of a lineage of genre shows that leaned on practical local landscapes rather than exclusively digital environments.

17. Charmed (2018 reboot)

The 2018 reboot of Charmed relocated the story of three magical sisters to a fictional college town, and Vancouver's campus-style architecture provided a convincing backdrop. Unlike the original series, which filmed in California, this version became one of several Canadian tv shows filmed in Vancouver that reimagined an established American property for a new generation of viewers. The CW series ran for four seasons.

Production used a mix of university buildings and residential neighborhoods around the Lower Mainland to construct its small-town setting, following a familiar pattern among CW genre shows that filmed in the same metro area during the same period.

18. Roswell, New Mexico

Roswell, New Mexico reimagined the alien-conspiracy teen drama for The CW, and despite its title, the production filmed nowhere near the actual American Southwest. Vancouver's drier interior regions and carefully chosen desert-adjacent locations stood in for New Mexico's landscape, a common trick among productions that need a specific American setting without the budget to film there directly. The series ran for four seasons.

Like several other CW shows on this list, Roswell, New Mexico benefited from the network's established production relationships in the region, allowing crews and facilities to transfer between projects efficiently.

19. Motherland: Fort Salem

Motherland: Fort Salem imagined an alternate America where witches serve openly in the military, and its production used British Columbia's varied terrain to build both a modern army base and a fantastical magical training ground. The Freeform series ran for three seasons, using the region's forests and open fields to create a world that felt both militaristic and otherworldly at once.

The show is frequently grouped with other genre productions on this list that used Vancouver's natural landscape rather than its urban core, following the template set by earlier series like Eureka and The 100.

20. Arrow

Arrow launched what became known as the Arrowverse, and its success made Vancouver the de facto home of DC superhero television for most of the 2010s. The CW series reimagined Oliver Queen's vigilante story in a fictional Star City, using downtown Vancouver's streets, bridges, and waterfront to build a convincing comic-book metropolis. It ran for eight seasons and directly led to four spinoff series that also filmed in the region.

A roundup of Hollywood North productions describes the Arrowverse as turning Vancouver into a stand-in for an entire shared comic-book universe rather than just one city, a scale of production the region had not previously supported.

21. The Flash

The Flash spun off from Arrow and became the Arrowverse's longest-running series, filming in Vancouver for nine seasons as it followed Barry Allen's adventures as Central City's resident speedster. The production used Vancouver's downtown core extensively, with certain intersections and buildings appearing so frequently across episodes that longtime fans can identify them on sight. A travel feature on Vancouver's film locations notes that the series used nearly a hundred different spots across the city over its run.

The show's visual effects team also relied on Vancouver's flexible studio space to build Central City's more fantastical elements, from STAR Labs interiors to the speed-force sequences that became a signature of the series.

22. Supergirl

Supergirl brought Kara Danvers to a fictional National City, using Vancouver's mix of modern skyscrapers and coastal views to create a sun-drenched West Coast metropolis despite the city's famously rainy reputation. The series began on CBS before moving to The CW, where it joined the broader Arrowverse and crossed over regularly with Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow. It ran for six seasons in total.

Production frequently digitally brightened Vancouver's skyline in post-production to sell the warmer California-style setting the writers envisioned for National City, a workaround other Vancouver-based productions have used for similarly sunny fictional locations.

23. DC's Legends of Tomorrow

DC's Legends of Tomorrow took its characters across different time periods and locations each season, which meant the production used an especially wide range of Vancouver filming locations compared to its more geographically fixed Arrowverse siblings. From period costume dramas to futuristic settings, the time-travel premise gave location scouts unusual freedom to repurpose the same city for wildly different eras. The series ran for seven seasons before concluding in 2022.

Its flexible format made it something of a local production sandbox, often using sets and locations built for other Arrowverse shows filming simultaneously in the same metro area.

24. Batwoman

Batwoman brought Gotham City to Vancouver for all three of its seasons, giving the production designers a chance to build a darker, more gothic aesthetic than the brighter National City of Supergirl or the sleek Central City of The Flash. The CW series used Vancouver's industrial areas and older architecture to create Gotham's distinctive shadowy atmosphere. It concluded in 2022 as the Arrowverse began winding down its connected slate of series.

As one of the final Arrowverse entries, Batwoman benefited from years of accumulated local infrastructure, including sets, crews, and relationships built up by its predecessor shows.

25. Jupiter's Legacy

Jupiter's Legacy adapted Mark Millar's superhero comic for Netflix, drawing on British Columbia's studio capacity and skilled production crews as part of a broader wave of streaming superhero content that followed the Arrowverse's success in the region. The series explored a multigenerational family of superheroes grappling with legacy and expectation, giving it a tonally different take on the genre than its CW neighbors. Netflix canceled the series after a single season.

Though shorter-lived than many entries on this list, the production reflected how streaming platforms continued turning to the same regional infrastructure that broadcast and cable superhero shows had relied on for years.

26. Riverdale

Riverdale reimagined the Archie Comics universe as a moody small-town noir, and Vancouver's residential neighborhoods provided the eerie, slightly too-perfect suburban aesthetic the show needed. The CW series ran for seven seasons, becoming one of the network's most internationally recognized exports and a frequent entry on lists of Vancouver filming locations according to coverage of local filming activity. The town's diner, high school, and surrounding streets are all real Vancouver-area locations dressed to look like small-town America.

Fans frequently organize walking tours of the production's filming sites, a testament to how thoroughly the show embedded itself in the city's residential geography during its run.

27. Bates Motel

Bates Motel reimagined the Psycho mythology as a prequel series, with the titular motel located further south in Aldergrove while much of the surrounding city and wilderness footage came from locations around the Lower Mainland. According to a guide to Vancouver productions, the series used Steveston, Coquitlam, and Horseshoe Bay for various city and small-town scenes across its five-season run on A&E.

The show's blend of psychological horror and small-town atmosphere benefited from the same kind of quiet, slightly unsettling residential streets that productions like Riverdale later used for similar effect.

28. Wayward Pines

Wayward Pines built its mysterious small town using British Columbia's forested mountain terrain, creating the isolated, closed-off setting central to the show's mystery premise. The Fox series, based on Blake Crouch's novels, ran for two seasons and leaned heavily on practical wilderness locations to sell the idea of a town cut off from the outside world. Its production fit a familiar pattern of using the region's natural landscape rather than its urban centers.

The show's limited run meant it never achieved the same name recognition as longer-running series on this list, but it remains a notable example of how effectively the area's mountains and forests can be reused across different genre productions.

29. The Good Doctor

The Good Doctor uses downtown Vancouver to portray a fictional San Jose hospital, with the city's medical and institutional architecture providing a convincing backdrop for the ABC drama's surgical storylines. The series has run for multiple seasons and remains one of the more consistently produced network dramas filming in the region, following a similar formula to medical procedurals that have long relied on Vancouver's hospital-adjacent buildings and modern interiors.

Its steady, long-term production schedule has made it a reliable source of local crew employment, much like other long-running network shows on this list.

30. Nancy Drew (CW)

Nancy Drew relocated the classic teen detective to a fictional coastal Maine town called Horseshoe Bay, and Vancouver's actual Horseshoe Bay community provided much of the inspiration and filming backdrop for the series. The CW drama blended mystery plotting with supernatural elements, leaning on the region's foggy waterfront towns to build its moody coastal atmosphere. It ran for four seasons before concluding.

The production continued The CW's long tradition of using Vancouver's coastal geography to represent small New England towns, a visual shorthand the network had refined across many of its previous Vancouver-based series.

31. Tracker

Tracker stars Justin Hartley as a survivalist solving mysteries across the American wilderness, and much of the CBS series' outdoor footage comes from British Columbia's mountains and forests standing in for various U.S. states. A guide to current Vancouver productions notes that the series became one of the most-watched new network dramas of its debut season, continuing to film in the region for subsequent seasons.

The show's format, which sends its lead character to a new location each episode, gives production the flexibility to use a wide range of British Columbia landscapes without being tied to a single fictional setting.

32. Virgin River

Virgin River is set in Northern California, but every season has filmed in and around Metro Vancouver, according to coverage from Explore Vancouver's filming location guide. The Netflix drama uses Whonnock Lake in Maple Ridge, North Vancouver's Camp Howdy, and New Westminster's Bernie Legge Theatre to construct its small-town Californian setting, proving once again that British Columbia's forests can convincingly pass for Northern California's redwood country.

Pro Tip: Several of the real towns used for Virgin River's exteriors, including spots around Maple Ridge and New Westminster, are open to visitors who want to see the production's actual filming locations in person.

33. Chesapeake Shores

Chesapeake Shores transported viewers to Maryland's Eastern Shore, though the Hallmark Channel series actually filmed around Vancouver's coastal communities for its multi-season run. Locations like Boundary Bay and Steveston provided the waterfront charm needed to sell a small East Coast harbor town, continuing a long tradition of Vancouver filming locations standing in for American coastal communities thousands of miles away.

The show's family-drama format and gentle pacing made it a reliable, long-running production that relied on many of the same coastal towns used by series like Once Upon a Time and Bates Motel.

34. Psych

Psych used Vancouver to stand in for sunny Santa Barbara, California, a somewhat ironic choice given the city's reputation for rain, though clever scheduling and location work mostly papered over the climate mismatch. The USA Network comedy-drama ran for eight seasons, becoming one of the more beloved cult series among tv shows filmed in Vancouver during the late 2000s and early 2010s.

The production relied on sunnier-looking neighborhoods and careful color grading to sell the Southern California setting, a technique that local film industry coverage notes has been used by several other Vancouver productions depicting warmer American locales.

35. 21 Jump Street

21 Jump Street helped launch Vancouver's modern production industry in the late 1980s, years before most of the other shows on this list existed. The series, which made Johnny Depp a household name, followed young-looking police officers going undercover in high schools, and its Vancouver production base established early infrastructure that later productions would build upon. It ran from 1987 to 1991.

Many industry histories credit the show with demonstrating to American studios that Vancouver could reliably double for U.S. cities on a network television budget, setting a precedent that shaped decades of Hollywood North productions to follow.

36. Reaper

Reaper followed a young man whose parents sold his soul to the devil before he was born, and the supernatural comedy filmed throughout the Vancouver area for its two-season CW run. The show mixed workplace comedy with demon-hunting plots, using the region's everyday retail and suburban settings to ground its more fantastical elements in a relatable, ordinary world.

Though its run was relatively short, Reaper is often remembered fondly by fans of Vancouver-filmed supernatural comedies from the same era as Dead Like Me and early CW genre programming.

37. Dead Like Me

Dead Like Me imagined a group of grim reapers living ordinary lives in the Pacific Northwest, and the Showtime series used Vancouver's suburban neighborhoods to create its deliberately mundane, slightly melancholic tone. The show ran for two seasons and has retained a devoted cult following since its cancellation, with fans frequently citing its distinctively gray, overcast visual style as a product of its Vancouver filming locations.

Its blend of dark comedy and quiet suburban setting reflected a different approach to the supernatural genre than the action-oriented superhero shows that would later dominate the city's production slate.

38. MacGyver (original series)

The original MacGyver, which ran from 1985 to 1992, moved its production from Los Angeles to Vancouver partway through its run, making it one of the earliest examples of a major American network series relocating to the city for cost and logistical reasons. The later seasons used British Columbia's varied terrain to support the title character's globe-trotting adventures, standing in for countries and settings far beyond North America.

The show's relocation is frequently cited in industry histories as an early signal of Vancouver's growing viability as a production hub, predating the sci-fi boom that would follow roughly a decade later.

39. Highlander: The Series

Highlander: The Series originally filmed primarily in Paris before shifting a significant portion of its production to Vancouver in its later seasons, using the city's varied architecture to represent flashback sequences spanning centuries of its immortal characters' lives. The series ran for six seasons total, and its production move mirrored a broader pattern of American and European shows discovering Vancouver's cost advantages and production flexibility during the 1990s.

The show's blend of historical flashbacks and contemporary action sequences benefited from the region's ability to dress locations for vastly different time periods, a skill local crews would continue refining for decades afterward.

40. The Outer Limits (revival)

The 1995 revival of The Outer Limits brought the classic anthology format back to television, with each standalone episode exploring a different science-fiction premise. The series filmed extensively around Vancouver for its entire run on Showtime and later Syfy, using the region's flexible studio space and varied landscapes to build a new fictional world almost every week. It ran for seven seasons, concluding in 2002.

As an anthology series, The Outer Limits required constant set reinvention, giving local designers and crews consistent practice building the kind of varied, imaginative environments that would later become routine for Vancouver's science-fiction production community.

Why Vancouver Keeps Winning These Productions

Taken together, these 40 tv shows filmed in Vancouver trace a rough timeline of how the city built its production reputation, from early relocations like MacGyver and 21 Jump Street through the 2000s sci-fi boom and into the CW's superhero era and today's streaming dramas. The common thread across nearly all of them is Vancouver's unusual flexibility: forests that can pass for anywhere, a downtown core that photographs as half a dozen different American cities, and decades of accumulated crew experience that keeps productions coming back.

That production momentum has not slowed down. As of late August 2026, productions registered as filming in Metro Vancouver included titles ranging from new streaming originals to returning network dramas, according to a production tracker covering the region. For anyone interested in the Vancouver TV industry, the city's role as a stand-in for the rest of the world shows little sign of ending anytime soon.