Bollywood's Favourite Palace
25+ films shot at Woodville Palace. Starring Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Alia Bhatt, and India's biggest cinema legends.
A Palace Made for Cinema
When filmmakers search for the perfect location, they look for authenticity, beauty, and character. Woodville Palace offers all three — plus 160 years of untold stories within its walls. The Art Deco architecture of 1938, the heritage corridors adorned with royal artefacts, the private forest estate, the panoramic Himalayan views — these are elements you cannot create on a sound stage.
3 Idiots
Starring: Aamir Khan, Madhavan, Sharman Joshi
Director: Rajkumar Hirani
Year: 2009
Genre: Drama
One of Bollywood's highest-grossing and most beloved films. Iconic scenes were shot in the Royal Suite and throughout the palace grounds. The movie made Woodville Palace a household name across India and established it as Bollywood's go-to Shimla location. The film's poignant climax and memorable moments are forever etched in the palace's legacy.
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Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Rani Mukerji
Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Year: 2005
Genre: Drama
A masterpiece of Indian cinema — the poignant tale of a teacher and his devoted student transcending all barriers. Amitabh Bachchan's career-defining performance was filmed across Shimla's heritage locations, with Woodville Palace serving as a key backdrop for several powerful and emotionally charged sequences.
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Student of the Year
Starring: Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan, Sidharth Malhotra
Director: Karan Johar
Year: 2012
Genre: Romance, Drama
A glamorous romantic drama that captured the enchanting beauty of Shimla's heritage locations. Karan Johar's signature style found the perfect canvas in Woodville Palace, providing stunning backdrops for several key scenes between the lead characters.
Learn MoreRaaz 2
Starring: Emraan Hashmi, Jacqueline Fernandez
Director: Mohit Suri
Year: 2009
Genre: Thriller
A supernatural thriller that masterfully leveraged the palace's mysterious heritage atmosphere. The Gothic architecture and vintage ambience of Woodville Palace became integral to the film's spine-chilling narrative. Shimla's misty mornings created the perfect unsettling backdrop for this suspenseful tale.
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Why crews keep coming back
One estate, many looks
A 1938 Art Deco facade, a wood-panelled 1930s bar, marble corridors, a glass dining room, four acres of Deodar forest and an open lawn — scenes that would otherwise mean four separate locations can be shot inside one boundary wall, without moving the unit.
Nothing is a set
The furniture, the trophies, the chandeliers and the photographs on the bar walls have been here since the family put them there. Art departments spend less time dressing rooms that were never undressed.
Room for a unit
Parking for eighty vehicles, fifty rooms for cast and crew on the same site, a banquet hall that works as a holding area, and kitchens that can feed a unit at odd hours. Shimla locations rarely offer all four.
Light and weather
South-facing frontage, Deodar canopy for diffusion, and a hill mist that arrives on its own schedule. Directors have built entire sequences around what the weather does here in the afternoon.
Close to town, away from it
800 metres from Mall Road, but behind a gate and inside a forest — so a crowd scene and a silent forest shot are ten minutes apart.
Planning a shoot
Location recces are welcome by appointment. Call +91 88749-23456 and we will walk you through what is available and when.
You can sleep in the frame
The rooms and corridors that appear in these films are not roped off. The Royal Suite used during the shooting of 3 Idiots is a room you can book. The bar is open in the evenings. The lawn where wedding sequences were filmed hosts real weddings most weekends of the season.
Guests are welcome to wander the estate and find the angles for themselves — and the staff, who have watched most of these units come and go, are usually happy to point out where the camera stood.
And 20+ More Films
From Raju Chacha (Ajay Devgn) to countless other classics, Woodville Palace has served as a muse for Indian cinema for decades. Stars like Rajesh Khanna, Hema Malini, Sanjay Dutt, Sushmita Sen, and Bobby Deol have all walked these legendary halls.
Each film has left its mark on the palace's walls — and the palace on their frames. This is Woodville Palace's greatest legacy.