Dead of Winter, the 2025 thriller starring Emma Thompson, was recently added to HBO Max and quickly shot up the streamer’s trending titles list. For those of us still dealing with the snow from this week’s Nor’easter, perhaps it’s comforting to watch an two-time Oscar-winning legend deal with even harsher condition on our TV screens.
Directed by Brian Kirk, with a screenplay written by Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb, Dead of Winter stars Thompson as a widow named Barb, who travels to northern Minnesota to scatter the ashes of her dead husband, per his wishes. But Barb’s mission is sidetracked when she encounters a shady man in a camo jacket (Marc Menchaca) at a remote cabin in the woods, and discovers a young woman named Leah (Laurel Marsden) tied up in his basement. When Camo Jacket and his wife (played by Judy Greer) find out that Barb is onto them, the hunt is on. Will Barb be able to outrun these maniacs and save the girl? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out.
Dead of Winter takes place in snowy Minnesota, but in fact, the movie had to find a different location to get the snow that they wanted. Read on to learn more about the Dead of Winter filming locations.
The Dead of Winter movie was filmed on location in Finland and Germany, which doubled as Minnesota.
According to Deadline, Dead of Winter began filming in Koli, Finland and in North-Rhine Westfalia, Germany, at the end of February 2024. In Finland, Dead of Winter shot exterior scenes at Koli National Park, in the North Karelia region of Finland.
View this post on Instagram Thompson loved filming in Finland so much, that she wrote a letter thanking the country, which was published in the local newspaper Helsingin Sanoma.
“They had no snow [in Minnesota] owing to the changing climate, [so] the decision was taken to shoot all the exteriors in Finland,” Thompson wrote in the letter, according a report from Variety. “I had no idea how lucky I was but upon arrival in Koli, greeted by the piney, snow-laden sentinels that guard that magical hillside, I started to sense what a huge privilege and adventure this was to become.”
Thompson went on to describe the harsh conditions of the shoot and the diligence of the Finnish production crew, writing, “The weather changed, as it always does and when the lake became wet, the snow team dragged sled after sled of fresh snow to cover over the thaw and maintain the continuity. If the weather was wet, they swept the watery sludge off the surfaces and replaced it with dry snow. If the weather was too snowy, they shoveled ton after ton of snow away from the shooting area. They were a great source of comfort and strength to us all, I think.”
For interior and controlled exterior scenes, Dead of Winter filmed on sets at MMC Film & TV Studios Cologne in Germany. Additional scenes were shot in Bonn, Germany.
