From Rock Hudson (in Taza, Son of Cochise, 1953) to Rene Zelewegger (Nurse Betty, 2000), many of your movie favorites have performed against the picturesque landscape around Moab. It all started in 1949 with Wagon Master, followed by Rio Grande in 1950 with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, both directed by John Ford.

Arches National Park was a location for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade starring Harrison Ford, Sean Connery and River Phoenix. Con-Air with Nicolas Cage used aerial shots over Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point, also a location for Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible II and Roma Downey in Touched by an Angel. And who can forget Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis in Thelma and Louise taking their final leap into the Colorado River from along the Shafer Trail under Dead Horse Point!

You can see highlights from recent film projects that have taken advantage of the spectacular scenery surrounding Moab by visiting the Film Museum at Red Cliffs Ranch, which has an agreement with the county to be the custodian and build a museum to display the movie materials.

In the free museum where the first major motion pictures filmed in the Moab area were set, you can look back over years of black and white filmmaking featuring our most popular actors and actresses. A tradition was begun by George White, the previous owner of Red Cliffs Ranch, who saw movies as a way of making money. He went to Hollywood to "drum up some business,” and the rest, as they say in the movies, is a wrap. Wagon Master, Rio Grande, Son of Cochise, Warlock, Commancheros, Cheyenne Autumn and many more used his ranch and its scenery for filming. The museum is free and self-guided. Hours: Mon-Sun, 8am-10pm.

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