Where was Godless filmed? One state, a dozen locations — and one of them is Tom Ford's ranch
Netflix built an entire frontier town from scratch for its 2017 Western, then scattered the rest of the shoot across canyons, pueblos and one very expensive private ranch. Here's the full location list and who owned the ground.
The answer is New Mexico, with one deliberate exception at the very end. Getting to that exception means passing through a purpose-built town, a canyon, two pueblos and a 20,000-acre property belonging to a fashion designer.
Scott Frank shot Godless between September 2016 and February 2017, basing the production at Santa Fe Studios and working outward from there. Seven episodes, running 41 to 80 minutes each, released November 22, 2017. Steven Soderbergh and Casey Silver executive produced alongside Frank, with Steven Meizler shooting and Carlos Rafael Rivera scoring.
La Belle was built, not found
The mining town of La Belle — the widowed community at the center of the story — does not exist. It was constructed on San Cristobal Ranch near Lamy, southeast of Santa Fe: 28 separate buildings including a hotel, a saloon and a jail, put up over roughly twelve weeks and billed as the largest Western set ever built in the state.
That's the thing most location lists bury. The town everyone remembers from the series was lumber and labor, not a preserved frontier main street.
The rest of the map
Frank spread the remaining shoot across the northern half of the state:
- Cerro Pelon Ranch, Galisteo — the opening dust-storm sequence, with Marshal John Cook riding into the aftermath of Frank Griffin's attack on Creede.
- Diablo Canyon, near Los Alamos — Griffin's gang running Roy Goode down across the river and through the canyon walls.
- Bonanza Creek Ranch, Santa Fe — Sheriff Bill McNue over Cook's body, and the planning that follows.
- Chama River, Abiquiú — Narrienta treating McNue's failing eyes with river mud.
- Jemez Pueblo — the mining town where Griffin's gang takes shelter.
- Santa Clara Pueblo, El Rancho de las Golondrinas and Cherry Meadow, near Pecos — supporting exteriors across the shoot.
- Big Sur, California — the Pacific coastline in the final episode.
So: eleven New Mexico locations and one in California, which is what happens when a story that has spent seven hours inland needs an ocean.
The Tom Ford ranch
Cerro Pelon is the standout entry. It runs 20,662 acres in Santa Fe County, about 24 miles southeast of Santa Fe, with the Galisteo River cutting through it. Originally the Cook Ranch, it became a film property in 1984 when Lawrence Kasdan built a Western town on it for Silverado — 38 storefronts, a church, and two buildings with working interiors.
Roughly thirty productions have used it since, among them Lonesome Dove, 3:10 to Yuma, Cowboys & Aliens and Thor. A 1999 wildfire during the Wild Wild West shoot destroyed the original set, and the property was renamed Cerro Pelon — "bald hill."
Tom Ford bought the ranch in 2001 and brought in Tadao Ando and Marmol Radziner to build a minimalist main house, guest houses and horse facilities on a working movie set.
Ford listed it at $75 million in 2016, cut the ask to $48 million in 2019, and sold to an unnamed buyer in 2021. Godless was shot there during the listing period.
New Mexico's return on all of this: two Emmys in 2018, with Jeff Daniels winning Supporting Actor for Frank Griffin and Merritt Wever winning Supporting Actress for Mary Agnes McNue.
For the record: Creede, the town destroyed in the opening minutes, is a real place in Colorado. It was not filmed there.
Earlier we wrote: Where is Hell on Wheels filmed? The railroad town took four months to build — and a real river wiped it out in 2013