Netflix’s survival thriller Apex takes us through the rugged gorges, roaring waterfalls, sheer rock faces, and trackless rainforest that swallow Charlize Theron’s character whole throughout the movie. The good news? Every one of those landscapes is completely, real and most of them are places you can actually visit. This guide covers every confirmed filming location in Apex, from the snowy cliffs of Norway to the sun-scorched wilderness of New South Wales, so you can stop rewinding and start planning.
The film was directed by Baltasar Kormákur (Everest, Adrift, Beast) and written by Jeremy Robbins (his feature film debut). It is streaming exclusively on Netflix, runs 96 minutes, and is rated R. Principal photography began in February 2025 and wrapped in April 2025, with reshoots taking place in July 2025.
Is Wandarra National Park a Real Place?
No. Wandarra National Park, the fictional wilderness area in which Apex is set, does not exist as a designated or listed national park anywhere in Australia. It is an invention of the screenplay.
The real-world location used to bring it to life is the Blue Mountains of New South Wales – a UNESCO World Heritage-listed region covering more than one million hectares, known for its eucalyptus forests, dramatic sandstone cliffs, river gorges, and rapid-filled waterways. The Sydney Morning Herald confirmed that Australian audiences would recognise the Blue Mountains immediately as the fictional Wandarra, complete with iconic climbing spots and swift-running waterways.
Interestingly, Australia was not even the original plan. The script was initially set in America, but the production needed a warm climate at a specific time of year, which brought the Southern Hemisphere into consideration. Once director Baltasar Kormákur started seriously looking at New South Wales, the decision made itself.
Apex Filming Locations
1. Blue Mountains National Park, New South Wales -The Spine of the Film
If you have already watched Apex, you have essentially been on an extended tour of the Blue Mountains without realising it. Located approximately 80 kilometres west of Sydney and reachable in around 90 minutes by car or train, the Blue Mountains served as the primary filming location for the bulk of the movie – the gorges, the rainforest, the caves, and the climactic final showdown.
Director Baltasar Kormákur was unambiguous about why Australia was chosen above everywhere else:
“For a film like Apex – where the elements and the terrain are characters that loom just as large as the movie stars battling in it – no other country in the world could have taken the place of Australia as our primary location. The unrivaled landscape, studio facilities, and talented crews in New South Wales have been a boon to this production.”
The Blue Mountains region used to represent the fictional Wandarra National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Area, famous for its dramatic sandstone cliffs, ancient river gorges, dense eucalyptus forests, and caves accessible only by swimming. According to reports published during the production period, filming Apex in New South Wales contributed approximately $56 million in expenditure to the local economy and created over 460 local jobs.
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The Grand Canyon Walking Track (Blackheath)
This is where several of the most pivotal chase sequences in Apex were filmed, including the film’s gripping final showdown. Despite its name, Australia’s Grand Canyon is a 6.5-kilometre loop trail carved into ancient sandstone near Blackheath in the upper Blue Mountains, taking hikers down through lush temperate rainforest, past waterfalls, and back up via a strenuous climb. It is fully open to the public.
📍 How to visit: Trailhead is located near Blackheath. Allow 3–4 hours for the full loop. Wear solid footwear and carry water. Blackheath is roughly 100 km from Sydney by road.
Centennial Glen Canyon & Wolgan View Canyon
Additional canyon terrain in the Blackheath area and near the Newnes Plateau was used for various chase and pursuit sequences. These sections of the park offer similarly dramatic sandstone walls and enclosed rainforest corridors, and are accessible via walking tracks from the upper Blue Mountains.
Remote Caves – Blue Mountains National Park
Some of the most memorable and eerie sequences in Apex were filmed inside caves that the production team could only reach by swimming in and then hiking barefoot over rough terrain. Some equipment had to be helicoptered in for these scenes. Director Kormákur spoke openly about the logistical challenge:
“There were caves in the Grand Canyon [in Australia’s Blue Mountains National Park] that were really hard to get to. Even just to scout them, we had to swim; there’s no other way in. The obstacle is what you’re looking for; the rub between your idea and the obstacle is often where art is created.”
Charlize Theron, who also served as a producer on the film, described the experience of hiking to these sets:
“Something about it felt spiritual. We were going to places where people don’t really go. We never had to worry about closing sets off, because there was just no one there. The gorge that we shot the end of the movie in was more than a two-hour hike to get to. Then we would climb that mountain all day, or come out of the river fighting each other, load up, and hike all the way back out.”
⚠️ Visitor note: The specific caves used in filming are not accessible as tourist destinations. Attempting to reach them without proper gear and guidance is dangerous.
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2. Glenbrook Gorge & Jellybean Pool, New South Wales
Glenbrook Gorge sits at the eastern edge of the Blue Mountains National Park, near the town of Glenbrook – the first stop on the rail line from Sydney into the mountains. The filming unit was spotted here during production, with the crew setting up base at Lapstone Oval nearby.
The Jellybean Pool is a natural swimming hole within the gorge, renowned for its striking turquoise-green water and red sandstone surroundings. It’s an entirely different visual texture from the upper Blue Mountains – warmer, drier, and more open – and appears to have been used for sequences requiring a distinct look within the same general wilderness setting.
📍 How to visit: Glenbrook Gorge is accessible via the Jellybean Pool walking track – a relatively easy 3.5 km return walk from Glenbrook township. The pool is open for swimming in warmer months. Free entry.
3. Ginninderra Falls, Wallaroo, New South Wales – The Cliff Jump
Tucked into a quiet and easily overlooked corner of rural New South Wales near the border of the Australian Capital Territory, Ginninderra Falls is one of the most visually dramatic locations used in Apex, and one of the least talked about.
This is the location where Charlize Theron’s character Sasha takes one of the film’s most heart-stopping leaps. The waterfall drops more than 60 metres into a deep gorge, carving through ancient rock in a setting that looks like it belongs in a completely different world. On a clear day, the mist rising off the base of the falls and the sound of rushing water make it one of the most atmospheric natural spots in the entire region.
Filming at Ginninderra Falls was no small logistical feat. The location’s remote nature, combined with the fact that it is privately owned, meant the production had to secure special access just to get the crew and equipment in place. A decision during production to release water from Lake Ginninderra to improve the waterfall’s flow for filming even created minor public controversy.
Of the experience, Theron said: “That last bit, where I’m pushing over the hill? That’s actually the real cliff. It’s so crazy that they allowed me to do it. I don’t even know why or how we got around it, but we had a crazy, Icelandic director, and he makes the movie feel so authentic.”
⚠️ Visitor note: Ginninderra Falls is currently privately owned and CLOSED to the public. Do not attempt to visit or recreate the cliff jump sequence. Admire it from the screen only.
4. Royal National Park, Sutherland, Sydney
The cast and crew also ventured south of Sydney to the Royal National Park in the suburb of Sutherland for additional forest and coastal terrain. Established in 1879, the Royal is Australia’s oldest national park and the second oldest in the world, offering a dramatically different environment from the inland mountains, coastal cliffs, sea caves, heath-covered plateaus, and dense subtropical rainforest gullies.
Various forest sequences and chase scenes were reportedly filmed within the park, lending Apex another layer of topographic variety without the production having to travel far from its Sydney home base.
📍 How to visit: Royal National Park is approximately 30 km south of Sydney CBD, accessible by train (Waterfall or Otford stations) or car. Entry fees apply. The Coast Track is the park’s signature multi-day hike.
5. Bowning, New South Wales – The General Store Scene
One of the film’s key early scenes, where Sasha and Ben first encounter each other at a general store and post office — was filmed in the small historic village of Bowning in NSW’s Southern Tablelands, approximately 75 kilometres northeast of Canberra.
Bowning is a tiny town with a population under 1,000, known for its artistic community, historic roots, and country-town quietness. The specific location used is understood to be the post office next to the Central Garage service station — a perfectly preserved slice of rural Australia that grounds the film’s thriller elements in something warmly ordinary before things turn dangerous.
📍 How to visit: Bowning is a roughly one-hour drive from Canberra via the Hume Highway, and about 3.5 hours from Sydney. It is not a major tourist destination, so treat any visit respectfully given it is a working community.
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6. Disney Studios Australia, Moore Park, Sydney – The Controlled Sets
Not every sequence in Apex could be shot on location in the Australian wilderness. Ausfilm International confirmed in a social media post sharing Apex’s trailer that the film was also partly shot at Disney Studios Australia in Moore Park, Sydney.
Disney Studios Australia is an expansive 32-acre film site in Moore Park offering a diverse landscape of purpose-built studios and backlot areas. It is one of the premier production facilities in the Southern Hemisphere, having previously hosted major productions including The Fall Guy, Furiosa, and I Know What You Did Last Summer. The controlled studio environment was used to complement the extreme location work, allowing the production to safely shoot and refine specific sequences.
Regarding the Norway sequences, Kormákur revealed that while the real Troll Wall was used for exterior landscape photography, the actual climbing scenes were constructed: “In the beginning, the Norway chapter, it’s the real mountain that we’re shooting. But we can’t have actors 1,000 to 2,000 meters high. You can’t even get them there. So we built those rocks, but they’re built exactly to that mountain.”
📍 Visitor note: Disney Studios Australia is a working film studio and is not open to the public.
7. Trollveggen (Troll Wall), Møre og Romsdal, Norway – The Opening Prologue
The film’s opening prologue, and one of its closing sequences is set not in Australia, but on the snow-blasted upper reaches of Norway’s Trollveggen, also known as the Troll Wall. This is one of Europe’s tallest vertical rock faces, rising dramatically above the Romsdalen Valley near the small town of Åndalsnes in western Norway.
Apex opens on Trollveggen with Sasha and Tommy pinned down during a blizzard and rockfall, and the wall reappears in the film’s climax. While landscape photography was captured on the real Troll Wall, the actual climbing scenes involving Theron and Egerton were performed on purpose-built sets constructed to precisely match the real mountain’s rock features.
Director Kormákur explained the choice:
“I felt like the beginning of the film should be the opposite of Australia: hot versus cold. So that’s when we found in the end the Troll Wall in Norway, which I think is amazing. I guess I like the extremes, let’s put it that way.”
Trollveggen previously appeared in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and the Norwegian monster film Troll.
📍 How to visit: Trollveggen is located near Åndalsnes in Møre og Romsdal county, western Norway. The wall can be viewed from the valley floor and is accessible by road from Åndalsnes. The famous Rauma Railway also passes through the valley with stunning views of the wall. Åndalsnes is Norway’s outdoor adventure capital, with excellent hiking, climbing, and accommodation options.
How the Actors Prepared for These Locations
The terrain of Apex was not merely a backdrop – it was a physical challenge that demanded genuine preparation from both leads.
Charlize Theron learned rock climbing from scratch with expert instruction, starting with zero prior experience. She performed the vast majority of her own climbing and stunt work throughout the shoot, including barefoot sequences on real cliffs. She suffered two elbow surgeries during the production, a fractured toe from water work, and torn intercostal muscles — injuries accumulated across the brutal locations. Theron also served as a producer on the film.
Taron Egerton trained for kayaking at an Olympic training facility and committed to months of upper body and climbing conditioning for the wall sequences. He has described his preparation as one of his most rigorous physical undertakings and called the kayaking training “awesome” and something he “took very seriously.”
