Movie paradise? How Malta became a magnet for big film shoots

EU’s smallest country has played ancient Rome, the Land of Spells and Bay of Pentos and draws more than 30 productions annually What links the Caribbean, ancient Rome, Enid Blyton’s Land of Spells, the south of France and the Bay of Pentos from Game of Thrones? They are all places that have been portrayed in recent and forthcoming films by a sunny archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea, no bigger in size than Sheffield. Malta has over the last decade risen to become one of the most popular places in Europe for American and British film-makers to set their works in, taking a lead in what has been described as an “arms race” to lure big movie productions with tax incentives. The EU’s smallest country has hosted more than 30 film and TV productions each year in each of the last three years, including a record 36 in 2023 and 2025. They include Jurassic World Rebirthand Gladiator II, this spring’s Blyton adaptation The Magic Faraway Tree and the new Jason Statham action thriller Mutiny, out at the end of this month. On the screen, Malta has stood in for Greece (in the BBC’s recent Two Weeks in August), 1980s Sicily (Heidi Ewing’s forthcoming British feature The Travel Writer), rural south