Canada is home to a booming film and television industry. Network television shows, more often than not, film on location in various Canadian towns and cities. If you’re watching a show set in New York City, chances are you’re actually seeing Toronto.
We’ve gathered a few of the biggest television shows, and you’ll likely recognize Toronto (even if it wasn’t set in Toronto)!
Here are the top neighbourhoods to visit that you have seen on-screen.
The Boys/Gen V
Not your typical superhero fare, a la the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Boys and its spin-off, Gen V, were adapted from the adult comic book series of the same name by Garth Ennis.
The show is filmed all over Toronto and the GTA, with many different Toronto neighbourhoods on display. Cabbagetown, Kensington Market, even Roy Thompson Hall (which is changed to become the show’s iconic Vought Tower). Toronto was truly the homebase for the crew of The Boys.
Goosebumps
A throwback for the 90’s kids out there! Goosebumps was a kids’ horror anthology TV show, based on the best-selling series of books of the same name by R.L. Stine, with most episodes directly adapting the original stories.
Notable Canadian A-lister, Ryan Gosling, starred in two episodes of the show, including the episode, “Say Cheese and Die”.
The Handmaid’s Tale
The Handmaid’s Tale, the dystopian TV series based on the 1985 book by Margaret Atwood, used Toronto and the GTA as the backdrop for the totalitarian Republic of Gilead. The show ran for 6 seasons, from 2017 to 2025.
The show takes place in the fictional Republic of Gilead, where fertility rates have collapsed as a result of diseases and environmental pollution, and much of society is now grouped into classes that dictate their freedoms and duties. The narrative takes place in the present, with the totalitarian regime in Gilead, and features flashbacks to “the time before”, prior to the regime.
Local spots in the city transform in series’ like The Handmaid’s Tale, but they’re Toronto staples, like Artscape Wychwood Barns, and The Conservatory in Casa Loma. Artscape Wychwood Barns is an incredible community hub and event space in century-old streetcar facility, giving studio space to artists of many practices. The Delicious Discoveries St. Clair West and Casa Loma Food and Walking Tour Experience brings you right inside this artist space.
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Lestat
The third season of AMC’s adaptation of Anne Rice’s iconic The Vampire Chronicles, made the shift from focusing on the story of Louis de Pointe du Lac in Interview with the Vampire, to the bombastic Lestat de Lioncourt’s The Vampire Lestat. The first two seasons filmed in locations such as New Orleans, Prague and Paris. For Lestat’s season, the crew embarked on tour, dressing Toronto as the different tour stops in the United States.
Toronto played a major role in this third season, doubling as cities like Detroit, Toledo, and New York. From the Toronto Star’s feature on the season’s filming in Toronto, fans will spot “the Phoenix Concert Theatre, Lee’s Palace, the Opera House and the Danforth Music Hall all feature prominently throughout the season”. Beyond the venues and concert halls, Dundas Street West’s Lakeview Diner makes a prominent appearance through the latter half of the season.
In episode 3, Toronto gets to be itself, with the band making their Canadian city stop.
Set in Toronto:
Orphan Black
Orphan Black is a Canadian science-fiction TV show starring Tatiana Maslany portraying 17 clones, often acting opposite herself. The series centers around issues about the moral and ethical implications of human cloning and its effect on identity.
Toronto is central to the story, as the show takes place in Toronto and the surrounding areas. While much of the show takes place in various locations in the downtown core, the show treats Toronto locations as unique backdrops to mirror the unique personalities of each clone, showing how the city itself can change shape based on its neighbourhoods.
Degrassi
Another pivotal throwback for Canadians everywhere, Degrassi transcended generations. The Kids of Degrassi Street was an annual after-school special airing on CBC from 1979 to 1986 that turned into a full-blown series, Degrassi Junior High. Starting in 1987, the teen drama follows the lives of youths attending the eponymous secondary school in Toronto. The show took a new form as the kids grew up out of junior high, becoming Degrassi High until it ended in 1991. Ten years later, in 2001, the show started again with Degrassi: The Next Generation, and then became Degrassi: Next Class, featuring a new cast of students, before ending in 2017.
The school set for The Next Generation and Next Class is further north at Epitome Pictures Studio at 220 Bartley Drive, near Toronto’s Aga Khan museum. The set for Degrassi High is a real school – Centennial College’s Story Arts Centre.
However the real street in Toronto, De Grassi Street, is in Toronto’s Riverside/Leslieville neighbourhood, where the events of the show take place.
If you grew up watching the Degrassi shows, you’ll get to pass by De Grassi Street while on Delicious Discoveries’ Riverside and Leslieville Food and Walking Tour Experience!
The list goes on! There are hundreds of TV shows filmed in Toronto, including recent shows like Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy, and Prime’s Sterling Point and Reacher. You’re sure to spot Toronto landmarks while watching some of your favourite shows.