# The 16 Best Desert Settings in Movie History

> Sand as a character, not a backdrop. Wadi Rum, the Namib, Monument Valley and Death Valley all show up more than once in film history.

*By YPB Team · Published August 17, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-16-best-desert-settings-in-movie-history*

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## Current results (4 votes)

1. **Lawrence of Arabia** — 50% (2 votes · score 1000/1000)
   David Lean's 1962 epic, whose Jordanian and Moroccan horizons set the standard for every desert shot since.
2. **Dune** — 25% (1 votes · score 992/1000)
   Denis Villeneuve's Arrakis, shot in Wadi Rum and Abu Dhabi, where the sand itself is the antagonist and the treasure.
3. **Three Kings** — 0% (0 votes · score 773/1000)
   David O. Russell's 1999 Gulf War film, whose bleached Iraqi desert was shot in Arizona and California.
4. **Mad Max: Fury Road** — 25% (1 votes · score 735/1000)
   George Miller's 2015 chase across the Namib Desert, filmed almost entirely in-camera.
5. **The Good, the Bad and the Ugly** — 0% (0 votes · score 714/1000)
   Sergio Leone's 1966 Spaghetti Western, whose Almería badlands became the visual language of the Western.
6. **No Country for Old Men** — 0% (0 votes · score 483/1000)
   The Coen brothers' 2007 West Texas scrubland, where a hunter finds money in a dry riverbed.
7. **Gerry** — 0% (0 votes · score 483/1000)
   Gus Van Sant's 2002 film of two men lost in Death Valley, told almost without dialogue.
8. **Paris, Texas** — 0% (0 votes · score 483/1000)
   Wim Wenders's 1984 opening, a man walking out of the Big Bend desert with no memory of who he is.
9. **Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark** — 0% (0 votes · score 483/1000)
   The 1981 Tanis dig sequence, shot in Tunisia, where an entire city is buried under sand.
10. **Zabriskie Point** — 0% (0 votes · score 483/1000)
   Michelangelo Antonioni's 1970 Death Valley film, ending with an explosion in slow motion.
11. **The Wages of Fear** — 0% (0 votes · score 483/1000)
   Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1953 thriller of nitroglycerine hauled across Central American badlands.
12. **Blade Runner 2049** — 0% (0 votes · score 381/1000)
   Villeneuve's orange-drowned Las Vegas, a city buried in dust and lit like a memory.
13. **Sahara** — 0% (0 votes · score 381/1000)
   Zoltan Korda's 1943 war film, a lone tank crew and a well in the Libyan desert.
14. **Star Wars** — 0% (0 votes · score 260/1000)
   Tatooine, built in the Tunisian desert in 1977 and still the most recognisable sand in cinema.
15. **The Searchers** — 0% (0 votes · score 260/1000)
   John Ford's 1956 Western, shot in Monument Valley, the landscape he made synonymous with the American West.
16. **The English Patient** — 0% (0 votes · score 114/1000)
   Anthony Minghella's 1996 film, where the Sahara is both a love affair and a grave.

Tags: movies, classics, cinematography