July // 2026

Where was The Uprising filmed? How Germany became 14th-century England

The Uprising

The story is set in 14th-century England. The cameras were in Bavaria (Germany). Principal photography for Paul Greengrass's The Uprising took place in Bavaria's Franconia region and at Penzing Studios near Munich, beginning in September 2025.

The reasoning is simple. England's medieval landscape has been comprehensively compromised — by the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Great Fire, the Blitz and five centuries of urban expansion. Franconia, by contrast, is one of the most densely medieval landscapes in Europe. Its walled towns, fortified churches and agricultural plains look, with the right costumes and camera angle, almost exactly as they did in 1381. 

Still The Uprising Franconia Germany Credit Focus Features

Franconia

Rothenburg ob der Tauber, the most completely preserved walled medieval town in Germany, looks essentially identical to how it appeared in the 14th century: intact city walls, timber-framed houses, cobblestone streets unchanged since the Middle Ages. Dinkelsbühl, Feuchtwangen and Weissenburg follow the same pattern.

For sequences depicting Black Death-ravaged English countryside — abandoned fields, hollowed-out villages — the Franconian landscape requires almost no art direction. Greengrass reportedly recruited up to 5,000 extras for the battle sequences, using the region's open plains and production infrastructure to stage them at genuine scale.

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Nuremberg

Filming also took place in and around Nuremberg. The city's Kaiserburg castle complex, 14th-century city walls, surviving gate towers and compact medieval Altstadt together provide a convincing approximation of a fortified English town. For the sequences in which the marching peasants reach London, Nuremberg's urban medieval fabric is the most credible available substitute. 

The production used various locations to shoot scenes – including St Sebald’s Church, Nuremberg’s Rathausplatz, the Franconian Open-Air Museum in Bad Windsheim and Lichtenau Fortress near Ansbach. 

Munich

Interior scenes and technically complex sequences were filmed at the newly established Penzing Studios in Munich — a modern facility in the city's western Penzing district, developed as a hub for international co-productions in Bavaria.

The Uprising opens September 11, 2026.

Screenshot The Uprising St Sebalds Church Nuremberg Credit Focus Features

SOURCE

Wikipedia // Gold Derby // Cineuropa

CREDITS

© Focus Features

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