Riverview Hospital: From BC Healthcare To Hollywood

Have you ever watched a movie and thought to yourself, “Wow. That location looks awfully familiar…” Where Coquitlam’s Riverview Hospital is concerned, it probably happens a lot.

The Riverview Hospital was established in 1904 as a provincially owned psychiatric facility. There are 80 buildings, including five massive brick wards, that sit on 244 acres of land overlooking the Fraser River. At its peak, the hospital housed 4,300 patients.

 

The Riverview Hospital closed in 2012 and the newly constructed Red Fish Healing Centre for Mental Health and Addiction opened on the site in 2021. However, as of 2023, about 290 people were still receiving treatment for mental health and addictions at the Riverview Hospital, despite closures.

In 2015, BC Housing produced “A Vision for Renewing Riverview,” an initiative that would see the Riverview Hospital site redeveloped. No changes or further plans have come from the study and the Riverview Hospital remains as is.

 

Although the Riverview Hospital no longer houses the patients it used to or offers the same services, the old buildings and beautiful landscape surrounding the facilities have caught the attention of Hollywood and the site has been used as a filming location over the years. Movies or TV shows such as Deadpool, Deadpool 2, Watchmen, The Butterfly Effect, Romeo Must Die, The X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, Dark Angel, Supernatural and many, many more have been filmed here. See locations for a list of productions that have filmed on the site.