Morocco is a North African kingdom of extraordinary contrasts — where imperial cities hum with centuries of history, rose-pink kasbahs rise from sun-baked plains, and the Sahara's vast silence meets the restless energy of the Atlantic coast, all within a single, spellbinding 14-day journey.
Morocco: Ouarzazate-Atlas Studios
🏙️ The Town That Means “Without Noise” (Reader, It Is Not Without Noise)
Before we get anywhere near the studios, it’s probably worth saying a word or two about Ouarzazate itself, because the town has an interesting story that most visitors completely ignore in their rush to have their photograph taken next to a fibreglass chariot.
The name comes from Tamazight, the language of the Berber people who have lived across North Africa for thousands of years — long before the Romans arrived, long before the Arabs arrived, and considerably long before a film crew from Hollywood arrived with an expense account and a lot of plywood. Tamazight is one of the oldest languages in the region and is still spoken by millions of people across Morocco, Algeria, and beyond, though it spent many decades being officially marginalised before Morocco finally recognised it as a co-official language in 2011. The word “Ouarzazate” translates, depending on which linguist you’re talking to on a given afternoon, as either “without noise” or “without shame.” Both of these feel, to put it mildly, like a stretch. The town is neither especially quiet nor particularly shameless. It is, in fact, rather ordinary in the best possible way — a working Moroccan town that happens to have accidentally become the film capital of an entire continent.
The French turned up in 1928, as the French tended to do across North Africa during the early twentieth century, and established a military garrison here. This was part of the broader French Protectorate of Morocco, which ran from 1912 until Moroccan independence in 1956. The protectorate period was, in the polite diplomatic phrasing, “complicated” — in the less polite phrasing, it involved France exerting enormous political and military control over a country that had not especially asked for this arrangement. The garrison at Ouarzazate was built specifically to control the Drâa Valley to the south and to keep an eye on the southern approaches to the Atlas Mountains, which were still seeing significant resistance from Berber tribes at the time. It was, in short, a frontier town — a place where the colonial administration tried to convince itself it was in charge of things it wasn’t entirely in charge of.
The town sits at around 1,160 metres above sea level, which is high enough to feel it in your lungs if you’ve come straight from the coast. It occupies the junction of two rivers — the Drâa and the Dadès — and functions today as the administrative capital of Zagora Province. For most of its history it was a modest place: a caravan staging post, an administrative centre, somewhere to stop and water your camels before heading south into the Sahara or north over the mountains. The caravans that passed through here for centuries were carrying gold, salt, and slaves along routes that connected sub-Saharan Africa to the Mediterranean world, and Ouarzazate sat on one of the main arteries of that trade. None of this, it has to be said, is particularly obvious when you’re standing in the car park of a film studio, but it’s there in the bones of the place if you look for it.
The film industry arrived and changed everything, in the way that the film industry tends to change things: noisily, expensively, and without much interest in local history.
🎥 Atlas Studios: The Largest Film Studio in Africa, Which Is a Genuinely Remarkable Thing to Be
The studios were established in 1983, which was not — let’s be honest — an obvious moment in history to build a film complex in the middle of the Moroccan desert. The Cold War was still grinding along, video rental shops were just beginning their brief golden age, and the global film industry was still working out what to do with the special effects revolution that Star Wars had kicked off in 1977. And yet someone looked at the landscape around Ouarzazate — the dust, the ancient-looking rock formations, the extraordinary quality of the light — and thought: yes, this will do nicely for pretending to be ancient Egypt.
They were, it turns out, completely right. Atlas Studios now covers more than 20 hectares, making it the largest film studio on the African continent. Whether this makes Ouarzazate proud or baffled is hard to say — probably both, in roughly equal measure. The studios have hosted productions from across the entire spectrum of big-budget filmmaking: biblical epics, Hollywood blockbusters, television series, French comedies, Italian historical dramas, and a frankly bewildering number of things involving Russell Crowe.
As we pulled into the car park, a tour group was already assembling near the entrance. We bolted for it with the kind of enthusiasm normally reserved for people who have been waiting forty minutes at a bus stop in the rain. Which, psychologically speaking, amounts to much the same thing.
🏺 The Open-Air Lot: A Museum of Other People’s Fantasies
What followed was one of those experiences that’s difficult to explain properly to someone who wasn’t there. The open-air lot is essentially a very large yard full of props and set pieces from productions going back four decades, sitting in the Moroccan sun and very slowly disintegrating in the most photogenic way imaginable.
There were chariots from Gladiator, Ridley Scott’s 2000 epic that went on to win five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actor for Russell Crowe, who spent much of the film looking magnificently furious in a tunic. There were military vehicles from The Jewel of the Nile, the 1985 sequel to Romancing the Stone, which brought Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner to Morocco for what was essentially an adventure romp dressed up as something more serious. There were various props that looked as though they might have come from Indiana Jones films without being provably from any specific Indiana Jones film — a sort of generalised archaeology of Hollywood adventure, rusting companionably in the heat.
And then there was the jet fighter. A full-size jet fighter, or rather the convincing suggestion of one, constructed entirely from fibreglass and sitting next to a wall as though it had simply parked there and couldn’t be bothered to move. Fibreglass. For a fighter jet. This is, I’d argue, the most perfectly Moroccan thing I’ve seen in my life, in that it manages to combine remarkable ambition with a cheerful pragmatism about materials. It looks exactly like a jet fighter. It weighs, at a guess, roughly the same as a reasonably large bath. It is, in other words, a perfect metaphor for the entire film industry: something that creates the complete impression of substance while being, fundamentally, hollow.
There’s something almost philosophically interesting about this, if you’re the sort of person who finds yourself thinking philosophically in car parks. The entire business of cinema is the management of appearances. Nobody in the audience needs to know that the Roman fortress is made of polystyrene, or that the ancient temple was built last Tuesday. They just need to believe it for long enough. In that sense, the fibreglass jet fighter is not a deception — it’s a concentrated example of what film has always done, which is to say: it’s exactly as substantial as it needs to be, and not a millimetre more.
🏛️ The Egyptian Temple: Three Thousand Years of History, Built Last Year
We were ushered into what was, by any reasonable measure, a spectacular space: a vast indoor set designed to resemble an ancient Egyptian temple, complete with towering columns, hieroglyph-covered walls, and that particular quality of dim, dramatic light that makes everything feel both ancient and slightly sinister.
The columns were plaster. The walls were fibreglass. The whole structure weighed, at a very rough estimate, considerably less than it appeared to. It had featured in The Mummy franchise — most notably the 1999 film starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, which was a cheerfully silly adventure horror that went on to make well over $400 million at the global box office and somehow felt both ridiculous and enormously entertaining at the same time. The subsequent sequels, The Mummy Returns in 2001 and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor in 2008, contributed further to this total, pushing the franchise’s combined box office to something comfortably north of a billion dollars. A substantial portion of that money was spent building sets designed to look as though they’d been standing since the reign of Ramesses II, but which had in fact been erected by Moroccan construction workers who were probably quietly amused by the whole business.
The set had also appeared in Antony and Cleopatra — and in at least one of the Asterix and Obelix films, which introduces a rather different theological register to the proceedings. Going from Boris Karloff’s mummy to a cartoon Gaul with a magic potion covers, as cultural ranges go, quite a lot of ground. The Asterix films, for anyone unfamiliar, are based on René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo’s enormously popular French comic book series, which began in 1959 and has sold over 375 million copies worldwide. They chronicle the adventures of an irreducible Gaulish village resisting Roman occupation through the judicious application of a strength-enhancing potion, and they are — particularly in their original French form — considerably more sophisticated than they might appear to someone encountering them for the first time. The fact that their ancient world adventures were filmed in the same Moroccan studio that housed The Mummy’s ancient Egyptian temple is the sort of detail that either delights you or leaves you completely cold, depending on your disposition.
⚔️ The Back Lot: A Village with No Interiors and a Gate Going Nowhere
The outdoor areas of the studio are a genuinely disorienting place to spend an afternoon. We moved through a Middle Eastern village set that had featured in various biblical epics over the years, and again in Gladiator — where it presumably stood in for one of the North African frontier settlements of the Roman Empire. Ridley Scott, who directed Gladiator, has an apparently limitless appetite for filming in Morocco, to the point where you start to wonder whether he has some kind of property there.
Gladiator deserves a moment’s attention, because it’s one of the more impressive commercial and critical achievements of recent Hollywood history. Released in May 2000, it was made on a budget of around $103 million and grossed over $460 million globally. It won five Academy Awards at the 73rd ceremony, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Russell Crowe’s performance as Maximus Decimus Meridius — a Roman general betrayed by the Emperor’s corrupt son and forced to fight as a gladiator. The film essentially revived the ancient world epic as a commercially viable genre, paving the way for a decade of Roman and Greek adventures. It also required several large chunks of Morocco to stand in convincingly for Rome, North Africa, and the general atmosphere of imperial grandeur and barbarity.
The buildings on the lot were almost entirely facades — elaborate, beautifully constructed frontages with nothing behind them, the architectural equivalent of a film set. Which is, of course, exactly what they were. There were Greek sections, Roman sections, Egyptian courtyards, a gate of considerable grandeur — high, imposing, the sort of gate that suggests something important is on the other side — which led, after a short walk, to a plaster throne in front of a staircase going nowhere in particular. It’s the kind of thing that would be deeply unsettling in a dream but is oddly charming in person. Our guide, to his considerable credit, took all of this in his stride and even had a sense of humour about it, recruiting members of the group to serve as background extras in a brief mock scene. My contribution to the cinematic arts was, I’m relieved to report, mercifully brief.
🌍 The Earthquake and the Cordoned Temple
The tour ended near a temple set that was cordoned off, fenced behind barriers and inaccessible, which turned out not to be a production decision but a safety one. In September 2023, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the Al Haouz province of Morocco — the most powerful seismic event to hit the country in more than six decades. The earthquake killed nearly 3,000 people and caused widespread destruction across a large area, with some mountain villages effectively obliterated. It was, in the broader catalogue of Moroccan disasters, a devastating event, and the international response — search and rescue teams, emergency aid, medical support — was substantial.
The damage to the studio set was, in that context, a very minor footnote. A few columns cracked, a wall or two needed structural assessment, and one of the temple areas was closed while engineers worked out whether it was safe to use. But standing next to the cordoned-off section did make one think about the particular geography of Morocco — a country that sits at the meeting point of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates, where geological forces that operate on timescales of millions of years occasionally make themselves felt in a few terrifying seconds. The Atlas Mountains themselves were formed by this collision, pushed up over millions of years by forces that show no particular interest in stopping. Morocco is, geologically speaking, not a country at rest.
Beyond the cordoned section, through a gap in the fencing, there was a clear view of a large fortress set used in Kingdom of Heaven — Ridley Scott again, whose relationship with Moroccan locations is at this point either contractual or deeply personal — and in the third series of Game of Thrones, which used various locations around Ouarzazate to represent the cities of Essos in the show’s fictional world. The fortress was recognisable even from a distance, at least to anyone who had spent enough Sunday evenings watching fictional kingdoms do unspeakable things to each other, which I confess to having done rather more than is strictly advisable.
Kingdom of Heaven, released in 2005, tells the story of the Crusades and the defence of Jerusalem, and was — in its extended director’s cut — considerably better than its theatrical release suggested. It’s a film that raises interesting questions about religious conflict, political leadership, and what on earth Orlando Bloom is doing in the middle of it all. Game of Thrones, meanwhile, needs less introduction: the HBO adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s fantasy novels ran from 2011 to 2019, attracted somewhere in the region of 44 million viewers for its final season, and remains one of the most discussed pieces of television in recent history, mostly by people arguing about whether the ending was satisfying. (It wasn’t, but that’s a separate conversation.)
🕌 The Tibetan Temple: Built for Three Seconds of Screen Time
The final stop on the tour was perhaps the most interesting, in a quietly remarkable sort of way. At the far end of the lot stood a Tibetan-style temple, constructed for Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor. The film was released in 1987 and chronicles the extraordinary life of Puyi, the final emperor of China’s Qing dynasty.
Puyi’s story is one of the genuinely great biographical narratives of the twentieth century, precisely because it encompasses so much historical upheaval in a single human life. He was born in 1906 and ascended to the Dragon Throne at the age of two, following the death of his great-uncle, the Guangxu Emperor, and his great-aunt, the Empress Dowager Cixi, who died within a day of each other in 1908. He reigned, in theory, as the Son of Heaven — the divine ruler of the world’s most populous nation — until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 toppled the imperial system and established the Republic of China. Puyi was forced to abdicate in early 1912, at the age of five, becoming a private citizen in theory while remaining a ceremonial resident of the Forbidden City in practice.
His subsequent life was, if anything, even stranger. He was briefly restored to the throne for twelve days in 1917 during a failed monarchist coup. He was expelled from the Forbidden City entirely in 1924. He spent years in Tianjin, surrounded by Japanese officials who recognised his symbolic value. In 1934 he became the nominal head of state of Manchukuo — the Japanese puppet state established in Manchuria — with the title Emperor Kangde. He was captured by Soviet forces at the end of the Second World War, spent years in Soviet and then Chinese communist re-education camps, and was eventually released as an ordinary citizen of the People’s Republic of China. He spent his final years working as a gardener and then as a researcher at a botanical library. He died in Beijing in 1967, during the Cultural Revolution, as an entirely ordinary man. From Son of Heaven to library researcher, in a single lifetime.
Bertolucci’s film — shot with an enormous international cast and unprecedented permission to film inside the Forbidden City itself — captures this arc with considerable power. It won nine Academy Awards at the 60th ceremony, including Best Picture and Best Director. It remains one of the great historical epics of cinema.
The Tibetan temple at Ouarzazate was built over several weeks for what amounted to a handful of seconds of screen time. A few weeks of construction, a handful of seconds on screen, nine Oscars. If that ratio strikes you as spectacularly inefficient, you haven’t been paying attention to how films are made. The whole industry operates on this principle: enormous resources deployed for vanishingly small results, which somehow, when assembled and projected at twenty-four frames per second, become something that people remember for the rest of their lives.
💭 Reflections
Atlas Studios is a strange place to spend a morning. You walk around a yard full of crumbling props and fibreglass walls, none of it real, all of it built for someone else’s story, and yet it holds your attention in a way that’s hard to explain.
The fibreglass jet fighter was the thing that stayed with me. Not because it was clever or impressive, but because it summed up the whole business rather neatly. Built to look like something it wasn’t, used briefly, then left to sit in the sun. Which is more or less what they do with everything here.
The cordoned-off temple — damaged in the 2023 earthquake — was a useful reminder that there’s a real country behind all this. Nearly 3,000 people died in that earthquake. The studios lost a wall or two. It puts things in perspective fairly quickly.
Ouarzazate itself is easy to overlook if you’ve come just for the film sets, which would be a shame. It’s a proper working town with a long history that has nothing to do with Hollywood — caravan routes, Berber culture, French colonial garrisons, the whole lot. The studios are just the thing that ended up on the tourist map.
I’m glad we bolted for that tour group when we did. It was worth an hour of anyone’s time. Though I’d leave the fibreglass jet to rust in peace if I were them. It’s earned it.
Planning your visit to Atlas Studios
🎬 Overview
Nestled on the edge of the Saharan desert, Atlas Corporation Studios in Ouarzazate is one of the most remarkable film destinations in the world. Founded in 1983 by Moroccan entrepreneur Mohamed Belghmi, the studios cover more than 322,000 square feet of dramatic desert landscape, earning a reputation as the largest film studio in the world by surface area. Ouarzazate itself has long been nicknamed “Ouarzawood” — Morocco’s very own Hollywood — and Atlas Studios lies at the heart of that legend.
A visit to the studios is both authentic and theatrical. At every turn, colossal film sets transport you across continents and centuries, from Egyptian temples and Roman arenas to mediaeval fortresses and biblical towns. Many of these sets remain standing long after their productions have wrapped, preserved as permanent attractions for visitors and available for future productions.
🎥 What to Expect on Your Visit
Entry to Atlas Studios is via a guided tour, typically lasting around 50 minutes, with tours departing roughly every half hour depending on demand. Your guide will lead you through the working backlot, share behind-the-scenes anecdotes, and explain how construction methods have evolved across decades of filmmaking. It is not unusual to encounter an active film shoot during your visit, and you may find yourself face-to-face with costumed actors mid-scene.
Notable productions filmed entirely or in part at Atlas Studios include Gladiator, Lawrence of Arabia, The Mummy, Kingdom of Heaven, Prince of Persia, Babel, Black Hawk Down, and several episodes of Game of Thrones. The studios have served as stand-ins for ancient Egypt, Rome, Persia, the Holy Land, and many other settings, testament to the extraordinary versatility of the surrounding desert and mountain landscape.
An optional extension to your visit is the Kingdom of Heaven set, located approximately a 30-minute walk further into the desert. This sprawling structure resembles a complete fortress town and offers an impressive additional experience for film enthusiasts. A souvenir boutique on site allows you to take a memento of your visit home with you.
No advance booking is required for individual visits, though your tour itinerary may occasionally be adjusted to accommodate active film productions on the day.
📍 Location
Atlas Corporation Studios are situated approximately 5 kilometres west of Ouarzazate city centre, along the road towards Marrakech (the N9). The studios are accessible via the green city buses (routes 1 and 2) that run along Avenue Mohammed V, or by taxi from the town centre.
Address: Route de Marrakech, Ouarzazate, Morocco
🌐 Website
ouarzazatestudios.com
📞 Contact
Telephone: +212 524 88 22 23 / 12
Email: contact@ouarzazatestudios.com
🎟️ Entry Fees
Tickets are purchased on arrival — there is no need to book in advance. Children under 5 years of age enter free of charge.
| Visit Type | Price |
|---|---|
| Atlas Studios only | 80 dirhams per person |
| Atlas Studios + Kingdom of Heaven set | 110 dirhams per person |
| Children under 5 | Free |
Visitors should be aware that it is customary to tip your guide at the end of the tour; around 20% of the ticket price is a reasonable amount.
🕗 Opening Times
Atlas Studios is open to the public every day of the year, including public holidays.
Opening hours: 8:30 am until sunset, Monday to Sunday
Groups wishing to visit are encouraged to contact the studios in advance to make arrangements.
The best time to visit Morocco
🌸 Spring (March to May)
Spring is widely regarded as one of the finest times to travel to Morocco. Temperatures across the country sit at a comfortable 15–25°C, the landscape is green and flowering, and the famous Dadès Valley bursts with roses during the annual Rose Festival in May. The Atlas Mountains are still capped with snow in early spring, providing a dramatic backdrop to the warmer valleys below. Coastal cities such as Essaouira and Agadir enjoy pleasant breezes, while Marrakech and Fès reward explorers with long, warm days without the crushing summer heat. Crowds begin to build from April onwards, but the overall atmosphere remains relaxed and the light is exceptional for photography.
What to pack: Light layers and a cardigan for cooler mornings and evenings, comfortable walking shoes for the medinas, a sun hat, sunscreen, and a lightweight scarf — useful for visiting mosques and souks alike.
☀️ Summer (June to August)
Summer in Morocco is intense. Inland cities such as Marrakech and Fès can reach 40°C or above, making midday exploration genuinely challenging. That said, summer has its own rewards for the heat-tolerant traveller. The Sahara Desert offers extraordinary overnight camp experiences and star-filled skies, and accommodation prices drop noticeably compared to the peak spring and autumn seasons. The Atlantic coast — particularly Essaouira and Agadir — remains refreshingly breezy and rarely exceeds 25°C, making it a popular escape for Moroccans and visitors alike. The Rif and Atlas mountain villages stay cool and are worth seeking out. Those planning a summer visit should schedule outdoor activities in the early morning or evening and embrace the slower, shaded midday rhythm of local life.
What to pack: Loose, breathable linen or cotton clothing (long sleeves are practical and culturally appropriate), a wide-brimmed hat, high-SPF sunscreen, sandals and one pair of closed-toe shoes, a large lightweight scarf, and a reusable water bottle.
🍂 Autumn (September to November)
Autumn rivals spring as the most enjoyable season to visit Morocco. Temperatures ease from the summer extremes to a more manageable 18–28°C, and the Sahara Desert becomes genuinely inviting once again as the fierce heat fades. The date harvest in the southern oases — particularly around Erfoud and the Tafilalt region — is a spectacular sight, with palms laden with fruit and local festivals celebrating the season. October brings golden light and quieter roads, making it ideal for a road trip through the valleys and gorges of the south. The Atlas Mountains are accessible before the first winter snows arrive in November, and the cities of Marrakech and Fès are lively but not overwhelmed.
What to pack: Light layers with a jacket or mid-layer for cooler evenings, comfortable shoes suitable for uneven medina streets, sunscreen, a small daypack for day trips, and a light pashmina or scarf for versatility.
❄️ Winter (December to February)
Winter is Morocco’s most underrated season. While Marrakech and Fès can be surprisingly chilly — with temperatures dipping to 8°C at night — the days are often bright and crisp, and the souks and medinas have a relaxed, unhurried quality that is difficult to find during busier months. Prices are at their lowest, and popular sites such as the Bahia Palace and the Majorelle Garden can be enjoyed without queuing. In the High Atlas, skiing at Oukaimeden is a unique experience, and the snow-dusted mountain villages are extraordinarily photogenic. The south of the country — Ouarzazate, Zagora, and the Drâa Valley — remains warm and sunny during winter, making it an excellent destination for those escaping the grey of northern Europe.
What to pack: Warm layers including a wool jumper and a proper jacket, a scarf and hat for mountain areas and cold nights, waterproof shoes, and thermals if you are heading into the Atlas Mountains or sleeping in a desert camp.
The Overall Best Time to Visit
For most travellers, spring (March to May) and autumn (September to November) offer the ideal balance of pleasant weather, manageable crowds, and access to the full range of Morocco’s landscapes — from the Sahara to the Atlas peaks to the Atlantic coast. Of the two, October stands out as perhaps the single best month: the summer heat has passed, the desert is at its most inviting, the date harvest is in full swing, and the quality of light is exceptional. Those willing to visit outside these windows will find real rewards: winter brings remarkable value and solitude in the imperial cities, while summer opens up the coast and the desert night sky to those who can bear the heat.
Where to stay in Fes
1. Upscale: Riad Marjana suites & Spa
Riad Marjana Suites & Spa is a traditional riad located in the medina of Fes, one of Morocco’s oldest and most historically significant cities. The property offers a small number of individually decorated suites that draw on classic Moroccan craftsmanship — think zellige tilework, carved plasterwork and cedarwood ceilings. Guests can use the on-site hammam and spa, which offers a range of treatments using locally sourced ingredients. The riad’s central courtyard, with its fountain and surrounding greenery, provides a quiet retreat from the noise and activity of the medina streets outside. Breakfast is typically served on the rooftop terrace, where views extend across the rooftops of the old city. The location places guests within easy walking distance of key sights including the Bou Inania Medersa and the famous tanneries. It suits travellers looking for an authentic stay rather than a large hotel experience.
2. Mid-Range: Riad Fez Unique
Tucked into the medina of Fes, Riad Fez Unique is a restored traditional riad offering a calm base from which to explore one of the world’s best-preserved medieval cities. The property features the classic central courtyard layout, with rooms arranged around a tiled atrium and a rooftop terrace that looks out over the rooftops of the old city. Interiors lean on traditional Moroccan craftsmanship — zellige tilework, carved plasterwork and cedarwood ceilings — without tipping into pastiche. Rooms are comfortable and reasonably well appointed, and staff are noted for being helpful and straightforward to deal with. Breakfast is served on the terrace when weather allows. The location puts you within walking distance of the main sights, including the tanneries and the Bou Inania Madrasa, though navigating the surrounding alleyways takes some getting used to. Good value for the medina.
3. Budget: Moroccan Dream Hostel
Located in the heart of Fes el-Bali, Moroccan Dream Hostel is a solid choice for budget travellers wanting to be close to the action. The hostel sits within easy walking distance of the medina’s main sights, including the famous tanneries and the Bou Inania Madrasa. Rooms are clean and simply furnished, with both dormitory and private options available, catering to solo travellers and small groups alike. Staff are generally praised for being helpful with local recommendations and arranging day trips to nearby destinations such as Meknes and Volubilis. The communal areas give guests a decent chance to meet fellow travellers, which is part of the appeal for those exploring Morocco on a tighter budget. Breakfast is available on site, and the rooftop terrace offers reasonable views over the old city. A straightforward, no-fuss base for exploring one of Morocco’s most compelling cities.
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