The Bradford Movie Trail
Want to know where you can see the places of historic importance in Bradford’s film history, as well as where famous films were made? The City of Film Bradford Movie Trail has it all.
The newly updated City of Film Bradford Movie Trail is now available as a printed poster leaflet from the Tourist Information Centres, hotels and other tourist venues. You can also download a pdf here.
Bradford’s film history
Bradford has been a film location since the beginning of cinema, with its indigenous film industry being traced back to the years around the First World War (WW1). By then the residents of Bradford had already witnessed important contributions to cinema development, such as the invention of the Cieroscope in Manningham in 1896.
Since those early days many classic films have been shot in and around Bradford – from Billy Liar and Room at the Top in the city centre and The Dresser at the old Alhambra, to Yanks and Fairytale: A True Storey at Keighley Railway Station and The Railway Children on and around the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, to Rita, Sue and Bob Too and Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, and the list goes on.
From the early Classic The Sporting Life to the later Brassed Off and more recently My Summer of Love, Mischief Night and Mrs Radcliffe’s Revolution, many other films have benefited from locations only slightly further afield.
Some of Bradford’s film people over recent years, both behind and in front of the camera, include Tony Richardson, the late Natasha Richardson and Joely Richardson, Timothy West, Billie Whitelaw, Steve Huison, John Duttine, Lord David Puttnam and Steve Abbott – chair of Bradford City of Film.
