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| Where Was Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story Filmed? All Filming Locations Revealed. |
Netflix’s Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story was filmed mainly in Los Angeles, California, and Rome, Italy, despite the story being set in late-19th-century Fall River, Massachusetts. The fourth season of the anthology follows Lizzie Borden after her father Andrew and stepmother Abby are found dead in their family home, putting her at the centre of a case that became one of America’s most notorious historical mysteries. Ella Beatty leads the cast as Lizzie, alongside Vicky Krieps, Charlie Hunnam, Sarah Paulson, Jessica Barden and Rebecca Hall.
Los Angeles, California served as the production’s main filming base. The city and its surrounding areas were transformed into a version of Massachusetts from the 1800s, with streets, neighbourhoods and period-style settings dressed to match the Victorian-era story.
It is a familiar trick for productions working in Los Angeles: take a modern city, remove anything that screams 2026, add some suitably old-fashioned buildings, costumes and vehicles, and suddenly California is pretending to be New England. Somehow, Hollywood still gets away with it.
The production made use of different streets and neighbourhoods across Los Angeles to build the world surrounding the Borden family. This allowed the crew to create several distinct environments without keeping the story visually confined to one location. The city’s enormous range of architecture also made it practical for the production team to recreate the atmosphere of a Massachusetts town without having to film the entire series in the real Fall River.
Los Angeles film studios and production spaces were also part of the wider filming environment for the season. The city has an extensive collection of established studio facilities, making it possible for productions such as Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story to combine location filming with controlled sets and interiors.
For a story that depends heavily on its period atmosphere, having that flexibility is rather useful — especially when you need a house to look convincingly Victorian instead of accidentally reminding viewers that Los Angeles traffic exists outside.
Rome, Italy, became the second major filming destination when the production travelled overseas for several weeks in January and February 2026. The move gave the series access to historic architecture and grand locations that could be adapted for important sequences. Rome might seem like an extremely ambitious answer to the question of how to recreate Massachusetts, but its centuries-old buildings certainly offer plenty of atmosphere.
The production reportedly used castles and historic properties around Rome for several pivotal scenes. Their scale and architectural character helped the series expand its visual world beyond the streets and houses created in Los Angeles. Instead of trying to make every location look like an ordinary American home, the Rome shoot provided the kind of imposing historical surroundings that can immediately make a period production feel considerably more expensive.
Rome’s historic architecture was particularly useful for a series centred on the late 19th century. Although the story originates in Massachusetts, the production could use locations in the Italian capital as convincing historical environments once they were combined with the appropriate costumes, props and production design. In other words, Lizzie Borden’s world travelled a very long way from Fall River before it reached viewers.
Fall River, Massachusetts, is the essential real-world location behind the series, even though the supplied production information identifies Los Angeles and Rome as the filming locations.
This is where the Borden case took place and where Andrew and Abby Borden were found dead in the family home. Lizzie subsequently became the prime suspect and was eventually acquitted after her trial, bringing an extraordinary level of public attention to the case.
The Borden family home in Fall River therefore remains an important place for anyone interested in the story, because it connects the Netflix drama with the historical events that inspired it. The production did not need to recreate the entire story in Fall River itself; instead, Los Angeles and Rome provided the physical locations that could be reshaped into the world the series needed.
There is also the wider historic area of Fall River, which is worth considering as part of the location trail because it provides the geographical context missing from the production shoot itself.
The real Massachusetts setting gives the story its identity, while Los Angeles and Rome effectively provide the visual canvas. It is a slightly bizarre journey when you think about it: a Massachusetts murder case becomes a California production and then takes another trip across the Atlantic to Italy. Film-making geography clearly has its own passport.
The filming schedule itself adds another interesting detail. Principal photography began in September 2025 and continued for roughly six months, eventually wrapping in March 2026. The international portion in Rome took place during January and February, meaning the production shifted between its American base and Italian locations while building the period world of the series.
The costume department was also an important part of making those locations work. Assistant Costume Supervisor Giacomo Treviglio thanked the team involved in bringing the story to life, highlighting the contribution of the costume department.
That work matters particularly here because the locations alone could not make modern Los Angeles or historic Rome resemble 19th-century Massachusetts. The clothes, hair, props and surrounding production design all have to sell the illusion, otherwise the whole thing starts looking like someone wandered into a costume party with a Netflix camera.
My take? The Los Angeles-to-Rome combination is genuinely fascinating because neither location is an obvious answer to a story so closely tied to Fall River. Los Angeles is the practical choice for a large production, with its streets, neighbourhoods and studio infrastructure giving the crew plenty of room to construct the period setting. Rome is where things get much more interesting. Using historic Italian buildings for a story rooted in Massachusetts sounds strange on paper, but visually it gives the production another layer of scale and atmosphere.
And then there is Fall River itself, which arguably remains the location most viewers will be curious about. That is where the real events happened, where the Borden family story unfolded and where the historical identity of the case remains rooted. Seeing the actual place behind the story can add a completely different perspective after watching the fictionalised version on screen.
What makes the location choices work is that Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is not trying to function as a travel documentary of Fall River. The production is recreating a historical period, so it can borrow architecture and streets from completely different parts of the world and turn them into something that belongs to the story. Los Angeles supplies the adaptable production environment, Rome brings in grand historic surroundings, and Fall River remains the real place at the centre of it all.
So, if you were wondering where Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story was filmed, the main answer is Los Angeles and Rome, while Fall River, Massachusetts provides the crucial real-life setting behind the drama. It is quite a journey for one historical case, but considering how much work goes into making modern locations look like the 1800s, perhaps Lizzie Borden has travelled farther on screen than she ever did in real life. Which of these places would you most like to visit after watching the series — Los Angeles, Rome or the real Fall River?