Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America filming locations

Sergio Leone’s 1984 epic film, ‘Once Upon a Time in America’, was filmed over a ten-month period between June 1982 and April 1983 across four countries: Italy, the United States, France, and Canada.

While the story is set in New York, significant portions were filmed in Italy. The Cinecittà studios in Rome were used to recreate the New York settings of the 1920s and 1930s, allowing Leone to maintain strict control over the period details. Other Italian locations included the Guglielmo Marconi seafront and the Porto Marghera area near Venice.

The film, starring Robert De Niro as David ‘Noodles’ Aaronson and James Woods as Maximilian ‘Max’ Bercovicz, follows a complex narrative spanning several decades. The plot weaves together the lives of a group of Jewish friends in the Lower East Side during the Prohibition era, exploring themes of friendship, crime, and betrayal through multiple interconnected timelines.