Where Was ‘The Instigators’ Filmed? Discover the Boston Filming Locations for Matt Damon and Casey Affleck’s Movie

Matt Damon’s new movie with Casey Affleck, The Instigators, takes place in Boston, if you can believe it. I know, I’m shocked, too.

After a week-long theatrical run, The Instigators began streaming on Apple TV+ today. Directed by Doug Lian (who also directed another streaming action flick this year, Road House), with a script by Casey Affleck and Chuck Maclean, The Instigators starts Damon and Affleck as the only survivors of a heist gone wrong. The two Bostonians are forced to go on the run together, and overcome their personality differences. Although the elder Ben Affleck does not appear on screen in the film, he did produce the movie with Damon via their production company, Artists Equity.

Obviously, these three longtime friends and Boston natives had to set their movie in their hometown. Other Bostonians will no doubt recognize some famous landmarks from their cities. Read on to learn all about The Instigators filming locations in Boston.

Where was The Instigators filmed?

The Instigators was filmed on location in Boston, Massachusetts, because of course it was. Did you really think a Damon and Affleck joint would film anywhere but Boston?

Notable Boston landmarks featured in the movie include the exterior and interior of Boston City Hall. According to the official Instigators production notes, the sequence outside city hall—in which officers debate how to extract Damon and Affleck’s characters from the mayor’s office—involved “dozens of fire trucks and police vehicles, and hundreds of background actors and stunt performers as protestors, cops and firefighters.” The Instigators also shot inside the real Boston City Hall for the scenes where Damon and Affleck are in the lobby and going up the stairs.

However, for the big climax in the mayor’s office, the production team built at Broadway Stages in Brooklyn. The set mirrored the real mayor’s office, according to the production notes, “duplicating Boston City Hall’s exposed concrete structure and high ceilings. Even the view of Faneuil Hall from the mayor’s window was expertly recreated.”

For the big car chase in the movie—just after our heroes pick up Hong Chau from Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood—The Instigators filmed on Marlborough Street in Back Bay, on the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge, and on Memorial Drive along the Charles River in Cambridge. This includes a sequence in the famed I-93 expressway tunnel.

Other Boston locations include Fenway Park, where Jack Harlow’s character works, and the North End neighorbood. The bakery where Alfred Molina’s character works was filmed at Bova’s Bakery in North End, a beloved bakery in the neighborhood that’s nearly a century old. The bar where Casey Affleck’s character hangs out was filmed at Malachy’s Saloon on Granite Street, in the neighborhood of Quincy. Finally, the scenes at the headquarters for Michael Stuhlbarg’s character were filmed at Squantum Yacht Club, also in Quincy.

In an interview for The Instigators press notes, co-writer Chuck MacLean, who himself is from Quincy, described the neighborhood as “this weird little postindustrial town that’s based around a shipyard and quarries, but was an amazing place to be a kid.”

And so, he decided to make his two main characters Quincy natives, too. MacLean said, “It was the natural place to set the story.”