The Narrow Road To The Deep North filming locations: Where was the Prime Video series filmed?

The Narrow Road To The Deep North, Prime Video’s stirring new miniseries, draws viewers into the shadows of World War II through the fractured memories of Dorrigo Evans, an Australian army surgeon marked by love, loss, and endurance. From its opening frames, the series introduces a world adrift in time, dense with overgrowth, heavy with silence, and steeped in the quiet presence of history. But behind that haunting beauty lies a deeper question: where was this emotional and physical landscape brought to life?

Callan park: where memory and landscape intersect

Filming for the series took place mostly in New South Wales, but it’s Callan Park, tucked into Sydney’s Lilyfield suburb, that became its quiet heartbeat. Though the story crosses borders and eras, from the pale light of pre-war days to the shadowed cruelty of POW camps and the muted stillness of post-war life, it always seems to find its way back to this one location. Callan Park doesn’t just appear on screen; it settles into the story. Its worn paths and weathered sandstone walls feel like memory made real, an anchor for a narrative built on what we carry but rarely voice. The very air seems to hum with echoes, as if the past never fully left.

From page to screen: translating Flanagan’s novel

Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road To The Deep North doesn’t follow the usual shape of a war novel, and the series leans into that spirit. It’s quiet, intimate, and deeply reflective, less about battlefields and more about the emotional wreckage left behind. The story unravels like memory does: not linearly, but in pieces. Flanagan doesn’t force clarity; he lets emotion take the lead. What emerges is something delicate and unfiltered, where even the silences are filled with meaning. Jacob Elordi captures that fragility in his portrayal of Dorrigo Evans, a man seen as a hero but haunted by a love he couldn’t hold onto and lives he couldn’t save. Rather than offering a scene-by-scene translation, the show chooses to honor the novel’s feeling over its form. It mirrors how memory truly works: in waves, not straight lines.

A cast that carries the silence

Alongside Elordi, Odessa Young brings depth and quiet fire to Amy Mulvaney, the woman who shapes Dorrigo’s heart. Olivia DeJonge plays Ella with a softness edged by conflict, while Simon Baker gives weight and worn reflection to the older Dorrigo. Their performances are restrained but full, rich with unspoken emotion, lingering looks, and the kind of stillness that says more than dialogue could. The story moves gently, letting emotions rise and settle in their own time.

The Death Railway: a war within a war

At the center of this story is something history doesn’t always hold gently: the building of the Thai-Burma Railway during World War II. Under Japanese rule, it came to be known as the Death Railway, and for devastating reasons. Over 100,000 people died there, not on the battlefield, but through forced labor, starvation, disease, and exhaustion. Among them were tens of thousands of Allied prisoners and countless Southeast Asian workers, many unnamed in the historical record. The series doesn’t dramatize this horror; it focuses on the human scale. On hands that tremble from hunger, small moments of care, friendships that form in the face of despair. The railway becomes more than a setting; it’s where dignity is tested and where resilience quietly fights to stay alive.

This isn’t just a war story. It’s about what remains after suffering and what it costs to survive. It raises questions that linger: How do we honor those we couldn’t save? And what do we do with the version of ourselves that came through the other side?

Why the location matters

Callan Park wasn’t chosen for convenience; it felt necessary. Once home to a psychiatric hospital, the place holds its own quiet sorrow. The sandstone buildings, shaped by time, and the tangled walkways feel less like a film set and more like a memory you’ve stepped into. It’s a place that understands solitude, silence, and all the emotions that can’t be easily explained. For a story rooted in grief and reflection, Callan Park didn’t need to pretend; it already knew the feeling.

It became more than a backdrop. It became part of Dorrigo’s inner world, full of closed doors, paths not taken, and beauty that sits beside sadness. As the camera moves through its spaces, it feels like we’re not just watching memory unfold; we’re walking through it.

Sydney’s broader role in shaping the series

Although Callan Park is the confirmed centerpiece, other locations across Sydney quietly shape the series. Rural homes reflect the simplicity of life before the war; industrial ruins reflect its cost. Forests, coastlines, and forgotten buildings add texture, creating a world where emotion and place are deeply connected. Even without being named, these locations feel carefully chosen, each one adding something honest to the story’s emotional rhythm.

Grounded in reality, elevated by emotion

Instead of building massive sets or relying on digital tricks, director Justin Kurzel and writer Shaun Grant grounded the series in real places. And you feel it in the coolness of stone walls, the crunch of earth underfoot, and the quiet decay of spaces that hold history. That choice gives the actors more to work with and the story more room to breathe. It doesn’t feel staged. It feels inhabited.

What critics and audiences are saying

The Narrow Road To The Deep North has been widely praised for its restraint, tone, and emotional depth. Elordi’s performance, in particular, has struck a chord, bringing to life a man shaped as much by what he endured as by what he lost. The series has been called haunting, quietly devastating, and deeply human. It doesn’t demand attention. It invites reflection.

Premiering on April 18, 2025, on Prime Video, the series quickly found an audience around the world. With its upcoming release on the BBC, it’s set to reach even more viewers, offering a deeply personal look at shared history through Australian eyes.

More than a story, a reckoning

Flanagan wrote a novel about memory, guilt, survival, and the messiness of love. This adaptation doesn’t simplify it. It holds it carefully, letting it breathe. By filming in places that carry their own weight and letting silence speak when words fall short, The Narrow Road to the Deep North becomes something more than a story; it becomes a space to feel.

Filming locations matter not just for how they look, but for what they carry. Callan Park and the surrounding Sydney landscapes don’t just support the narrative; they deepen it. In this series, place becomes memory. And memory becomes everything. As we follow Dorrigo’s path, we’re invited not just to look back, but to feel what it means to keep going, quietly and with grace.