Kevin Costner’s frontier epic was mocked in advance as “Kevin’s Gate” – a vanity directing debut destined to flop. Instead it swept the Oscars, shot across the wide-open prairies and Black Hills of South Dakota, and staged a buffalo hunt with a real herd of thousands.
Where was Dances with Wolves filmed?
Dances with Wolves was filmed across South Dakota – the Black Hills, the prairies of Oglala Lakota County, and near Fort Pierre – with additional landscapes in Wyoming and Nebraska.
Every Dances with Wolves location, explained
The prairies – Oglala Lakota County
The vast grassland wagon journeys and Fort Sedgewick scenes used the open plains of Oglala Lakota County and central South Dakota.
The Black Hills – the winter camp
The Sioux winter camp was shot around Black Elk Peak and the forested Black Hills of Pennington County.
Fort Pierre and the Triple U Ranch
The film based itself near Fort Pierre, using the sprawling ranch country – including the bison herd – along the Bad River.
Wyoming and Nebraska – the wider West
Second-unit landscape photography ranged into Teton County, Wyoming and Custer County, Nebraska for extra grandeur.
Planning a visit
South Dakota’s Black Hills – Black Elk Peak, Custer State Park (home to a real bison herd) and the prairies around Fort Pierre – let you stand in the film’s landscapes. Custer State Park’s autumn Buffalo Roundup is a living echo of the film’s most famous scene.
