Where Was Stand By Me Filmed? The Major Locations Explained

"You guys want to go see a dead body?" That famous line comes from the classic coming-of-age film "Stand by Me," which turns 40 in 2026 — but the lasting legacy of the iconic drama lives on. The Rob Reiner-directed adaptation of Stephen King's novella "The Body" — starring Will Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O'Connell — follows four 12-year-old boys as they go on a journey to find the body of a missing boy.

The heartfelt film is considered to be one of the best adaptations of King's work, set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Oregon in 1959 and revolving around innocent adolescent dialogue and childhood friendships. But while Castle Rock may have been fabricated, many of the locations in the movie were really filmed in and around Oregon and parts of neighboring California.

A majority was filmed in Brownsville, Oregon, including the memorable treehouse scene in which Gordie (Wheaton), Chris (Phoenix), Teddy (Feldman), and Vern (O'Connell) smoke and play cards while talking about the potential of finding the dead body. While the treehouse is long gone and you can't actually visit the area where Ray Brower's body was spotted, here are some of the real locations you can visit of the most memorable scenes in 1986's "Stand By Me."

The historic downtown area of Brownsville, Oregon, particularly around Main Street, serves as the "Stand By Me" kids' hometown of Castle Rock. Even after all this time the area still houses some of the 1950s-era storefronts featured in the film. Several scenes were shot here, including Gordie's accidental gunshot behind the town diner, Vern finding a lucky penny, and the emotional ending of the journey when the characters say goodbye.

To this day, the town of Brownsville has markers pointing out memorable locations from the classic movie and there is even a real penny embedded in the ground where O'Connell's baby-faced character excitedly picked it up in the film. Beyond that, every year Brownsville hosts a "Stand By Me" Day that celebrates the film by welcoming eager fans on guided tours, holding 1950s-themed events, and orchestrating a real-life pie-eating contest based on the infamous "Lard-a**' Revenge" scene.

One of the most heart-pounding moments in "Stand By Me" is the boys' harrowing attempt at walking across a sky-high railroad bridge to bypass a river — a scene that was filmed on a real bridge in Northern California. When the kids realized they may have to walk 10 miles out of their way to get around the water, they choose this dangerous shortcut, despite the open-slatted wood construction, 100-foot drop, and there being nowhere to go until you get to the other side.

At first their journey is slow, cautiously placing one foot after the other while Vern crawls on his hands and knees. But when Gordie realizes a train is heading straight for them, their journey intensifies, with Chris and Teddy sprinting to the end as Gordie and Vern struggle, tripping and stumbling as the train barrels down behind their backs.

The scene was filmed at Lake Britton Bridge in Burney, California about 300 miles from Brownsville. The bridge still stands as part of the Great Shasta Rail Trail but the rails have been removed and are no longer in use.

Who can forget the legendary blueberry pie-puking scene from "Stand By Me"? Referred to as "The Revenge of Lard-a** Hogan," Gordie's campfire story about a bullied, overweight kid who drinks castor oil and a raw egg before entering the town pie-eating contest is surely one that everyone who's ever seen the film still remembers in vivid detail, for better or worse.

Filmed in Brownsville's expansive Pioneer Park, the chain-reaction chaos that ensues when Lard-a** spews back up all the blueberry pie he wolfed down stands out as being the most over-the-top scene in an otherwise grounded film. The real-life town has placed a commemorative plaque in the park which notes that local residents appeared as extras in the 40-year-old film. They're clearly not perturbed, given that the town hosts the annual pie-eating contest we mentioned in the park where it was filmed. If you'd like to see it for yourself, go pay the town a visit on "Stand By Me" Day which falls on the fourth Saturday in July.

Another memorable scene in "Stand By Me" comes when the four meandering boys pass the local town junkyard where the legend of the groin-eating guard dog named Chopper takes center stage. Gordy cuts through the property marked off with "No Trespassing" signs as his horrified friends look on behind a chain-link fence.

In the film, the lore of the Castle Rock junkyard — which used a real salvage yard in Veneta, Oregon just outside of Brownsville as its filming location — had kept Castle Rock-area kids off the property by the mere thought of a vicious, blood-thirsty dog being trained to attack delicate male private parts. But when Gordy comes face-to-face with the legendary canine, Chopper is basically just an obedient barking golden retriever. The incident leaves Gordy, who becomes a successful writer in the future in the film, with his "first lesson in the vast difference between myth and reality."