August // 2026

From Liverpool to Salou: The filming locations of Sam Mendes' Beatles films

Untitled Sam Mendes Beatles Project

In January 2026, Sony Pictures distributed a series of postcards around the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts — the school co-founded by Paul McCartney himself. Each postcard showed one of the four lead actors in character as a Beatle, alongside iconic Liverpool locations. It was the production's first public statement. And maybe it was also a map of what was coming as filming locations.

Sam Mendes' untitled Beatles Projectp is the first narrative feature project to be granted full music rights to the Beatles' catalogue and full cooperation from Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and the families of Lennon and Harrison.

Principal photography began in early 2026. All four films open simultaneously in April 2028. Each film tells the story from the perspective of a single Beatle: Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison.

Photo Beatles Sam Mendes Movie First Look

Liverpool

In late February, Paul Mescal — as Paul McCartney — was photographed on a bicycle riding through south Liverpool, in costume, at various locations including McCartney's famous childhood home at 20 Forthlin Road and Lennon's at Mendips on Menlove Avenue in Woolton. Both homes are now managed by the National Trust and are among the most visited Beatles sites in the city. 

In early March, a road closure on Ripon Street confirmed that the production was working in the area. Barry Keoghan — as Ringo Starr — was spotted on City Road in the Dingle, the south Liverpool neighbourhood where Ringo Starr was born and raised on Madryn Street.

Paul Mescal was seen outside a reconstruction of the original Cavern Club on Mathew Street — the basement venue where the Beatles played 292 times between 1961 and 1963 and where Beatlemania effectively began. Streets in Waterfront North, Walton, the Dingle and areas surrounding City Road were all transformed into 1960s film sets with period cars, retro buses and vintage props.

Rodney Street also received a full period makeover, with filming taking place over two days.

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London

In early February 2026, Sam Mendes was filming at The Athenaeum Club on Pall Mall in London. The Athenaeum — one of the most prestigious private members' clubs in Britain — is believed to have been used to recreate the arrival of the Beatles in New York City for The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. 

In early August, residents and business owners around Abbey Road received a letter from Sony Pictures about plans to shoot a scene set in "1960s London." The letter was explicit: "The scene we are planning to film on Abbey Road involves approximately 80 extras and some vintage vehicles. We will also be filming in the front courtyard of Abbey Road Studios." The Beatles recorded 190 of their 210 songs at Abbey Road between 1962 and 1970. They named their final recorded album after the street. The production notice has fuelled widespread speculation that the scene will recreate the instantly recognisable Abbey Road crosswalk photograph.

Spain

In June 2026, the production moved to Spain to film across Catalonia and Andalusia. The cities of Barcelona and the Costa Daurada resort town of Salou were used to recreate 1960s Florida and Plaza Hotel scenes, with additional filming in Badalona and L'Hospitalet de Llobregat.

The Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium in Barcelona served as the location for a large-scale concert of the band.

On June 11, all four actors were filmed in Salou in a scene in which they wave from a balcony — a recreation of the Beatles' historic visit to Miami Beach in February 1964, when they broadcast their second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Passeig de Jaume I boulevard along the beach was chosen for its palm-lined seafront, which convincingly evokes Florida's coastal character. The boulevard was closed to traffic and filled with period police cars appearing to escort the Liverpool band, vintage vehicles and extras in swimwear on the beach playing the role of screaming fans.

In Palamós on the Costa Brava, filming took place on June 8. Paul Mescal, playing McCartney, and Barry Keoghan, playing Ringo Starr, boarded a boat in one of the town's bays representing the yacht Happy Days — the vessel on which McCartney and Starr took a private holiday in the Virgin Islands in May 1964 with their then-girlfriends. 

Before Catalonia, the production had been in Cabo de Gata in Almería, Andalusia — the place where John Lennon spent six weeks in the autumn of 1966 filming the anti-war movie How I Won the War

Still First Look Image The Beatles movies Sam Mendes

SOURCE

lavanguardia.com // Deadline // Variety // Liverpool City Halls // Visit Liverpool

CREDITS

© Sony Pictures

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