Vancouver’s Film Industry: The City Through the Lens

Updated: 2026-06-17｜Tax rates, festival dates, ticket prices and the like are subject to change; please refer to official announcements for actual details.

Live in Vancouver long enough and you start to feel a very subtle everyday sensation: the street where you buy your morning coffee might have been closed off the night before for shooting a Hollywood movie; the SkyTrain station you walk through all the time, or some glass-curtain office tower downtown, may already have “played” New York, Seattle or some fictional city in more than a dozen TV series. This city being called “Hollywood North” is not a romantic metaphor — there is genuinely an entire industry running here. In this piece I want to share, from a local perspective, what this industry is actually about, how it shapes daily life, and, if you’re here to travel or have just moved in, how you can engage with it.

First, its standing. Vancouver is regarded as Canada’s largest hub for film and television production, and in all of North America it ranks just behind Los Angeles and New York. What holds up that position isn’t some single runaway hit, but several very practical factors stacked together: a time zone close to Los Angeles, diverse natural and urban scenery (from beaches, snowy mountains and forests to a downtown that can stand in for a big American city), a mature pool of technical talent, and tax incentives that are quite attractive to international productions. Just how big is it? According to data released by Creative BC in July 2024, British Columbia’s film and television production spending in 2023 was about C$3.3 billion across 511 projects, of which foreign production (that is, the part where Hollywood comes here to shoot) reached about C$2.8 billion in Vancouver alone, accounting for over 80% of the province’s total film and television production spending; the same statistics also show that Vancouver’s visual effects (VFX) workforce grew to about 7,200 people in 2023. In other words, this isn’t just “people coming to shoot films” — it’s a complete industry chain that sustains a large number of local workers.

That said, to be honest, this industry does have its ups and downs. Overall production spending in 2023 actually fell noticeably from the previous year (multiple reports citing Creative BC figures put the year-on-year drop at nearly 30%), mainly tied to macro factors such as the writers’ and actors’ union strikes in North America. So you’ll notice an interesting contrast: the industry’s foundation is very stable, yet annual figures swing dramatically because of the international situation. If you want to cite a precise figure for a given year, it’s best to check Creative BC’s latest official report directly, rather than reusing numbers from old articles.

On the policy side, things are ramping up too. The British Columbia government announced an increase to its film and television tax credits, effective January 1, 2025: the basic credit for international productions (the Production Services Tax Credit) is raised from 28% to 36%, and Canadian-content domestic productions are raised to 36% as well; in addition, a new “major production” credit was created for ultra-large projects with B.C. production costs exceeding C$200 million. Adjustments like these are usually meant to compete with rival regions such as Ontario and Georgia for productions, and they have a direct impact on local employment; for the actual eligibility conditions and rate details, please refer to the announcements from the British Columbia government and Creative BC. The hardware side is expanding too — the Bridge Studios complex in Burnaby has in recent years added the Lake City Studios campus, reported by multiple media outlets as one of the largest dedicated film and television stage facilities in North America; Bridge Studios has operated in the Greater Vancouver area since 1987 and has racked up over a thousand productions. For the average person, what this means is: over the next few years, the chances of seeing productions close off streets across Greater Vancouver, with equipment trucks lining the roads, will only grow, not shrink.

For ordinary residents and tourists, the most direct contact isn’t visiting some attraction, but chance encounters in daily life. There are three situations you’re quite likely to run into. The first is roadside filming notice boards — Vancouver streets often feature small yellow or colored signs listing the production’s code name, the shooting dates and the parking-control area; seeing these means there’s a crew nearby, and it usually also means certain stretches of road will be temporarily closed or no-parking. The second is a long row of equipment trucks — when a crew moves in, the roadside fills up with lighting, props, catering trucks and generators, and this is the most obvious signal that “filming is happening here.” The third is the city being “made up” as somewhere else — certain downtown blocks are often dressed up as an American city, with even the street signs, mailboxes and shop signage swapped out; it’s a bit disorienting the first time you see it, but it actually becomes rather fun the more you watch.

If you do come across a shooting location, the most important thing is just one: don’t disturb it. Keep your distance, don’t force your way past the cordon, don’t shout at the actors or chase them with your camera, and follow the instructions of the on-site crew (usually in vests and holding walkie-talkies). Most of the time you can quietly watch for a while from the perimeter, but a shoot is someone else’s workplace, and courtesy matters more than curiosity.

Wanting to engage actively: festivals and filming locations

If you don’t just want a chance encounter but want to actively engage with this city’s film and television culture, the thing most worth putting on your itinerary is the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF). It is one of the fairly large film festivals in North America; 2025 marks its 44th edition, held from October 2 to 12, screening about 170 feature films and over a hundred shorts across roughly ten venues in the city, with the core venue being the VIFF Centre at 1181 Seymour Street. The single-screening ticket price in 2025 is about C$21, with packages and passes also available. However, the festival’s dates, lineup, venues and ticket prices are adjusted every year, so before you actually go, please rely on the VIFF official website’s announcements for that year rather than planning based on information from a previous year. The VIFF Centre also screens art films year-round, not only during the festival, so it’s a good spot when you suddenly feel like catching a movie.

As for the “celebrity filming-location tour” style of outing, Vancouver really does have many street corners, parks and waterfronts that have served as film and TV locations, and there are quite a few netizen-compiled location maps online. But a reminder: such lists are mostly made by fans and aren’t necessarily officially confirmed, and locations change over time, so treat them as a check-in reference, not a guarantee. Places like Granville Island, which are worth exploring in their own right, are well suited to slotting into a half-day itinerary even if your wanted film was never shot there. Can you actually run into a celebrity on the street? There’s a chance, but don’t get your hopes up too high — Vancouver has productions filming all year round, with the upscale residential areas of the West Side and North Vancouver and the downtown blocks being common locations, and word occasionally spreads on social media about some actor being spotted; but security at shooting locations is usually not lax, so rather than chasing stars, it’s better to take it as an amusing footnote that “this city is very cinematic.”

Who it suits, and what the limits are

Frankly, “Vancouver’s film industry” is not a single attraction you can buy a ticket and walk into; it’s more like this city’s background music. For those interested in behind-the-scenes production and film and television culture, new immigrants who’ve just moved here and want to understand the city’s economic structure, and travelers who prefer a local feel over popular check-in spots, it has plenty to offer; but for short-term tourists who just want to take pretty photos and have a packed schedule, running into a shoot is pure luck and can’t be slotted into a fixed itinerary. The biggest limitation is: the large studios (such as Bridge Studios and the soundstages in North Vancouver) are basically not open to drop-in visitors, so don’t expect to buy a ticket and tour around; if you want reliable access, festivals and the VIFF Centre are the workable entry points. As for transport, you can reach downtown and most of the urban locations by SkyTrain; the studio zones in Burnaby, North Vancouver, Surrey and the like are more convenient by car, but since most of them aren’t open to visitors anyway, there’s no real need to make a special trip.

To experience Vancouver more fully, you can pair this with the Vancouver Travel Guide to arrange your city itinerary, or browse the Vancouver article section for more local observations.