50 Fun Facts About Shutter Island

Who directed Shutter Island?

It gave him his biggest opening weekend ever, $41 million, and became his second highest-grossing film worldwide at the time.

The film is based on a 2003 novel by which author of Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone?

He described the book as a hybrid of the Brontë sisters and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, deliberately stripping his heroes of modern tools like radios.

In what year is the story set?

The book's storm is a real one that hit New England in August of that year.

What is the name of the hospital for the criminally insane on the island?

HBO and Paramount Television were reported in 2014 to be developing a prequel series named after it.

The island sits in the harbor of which city?

Lehane modelled the setting on Long Island in that harbor, which he visited as a boy during the blizzard of 1978.

The missing patient the marshals are sent to find is named what?

Her name is an anagram of Teddy's dead wife's name, one of two hidden in the film.

The missing patient was committed for killing her three children by what method?

The detail is the key to the twist: it is exactly what Teddy's own wife did at their lakehouse.

Who plays Teddy's partner Chuck Aule?

Chuck turns out to be Dr. Lester Sheehan, the man treating Teddy, playing along with the roleplay.

Which Oscar winner plays Dr. John Cawley, the man running the hospital?

His office scenes were shot on the second floor of a chapel at night, with lights through the windows faking daylight.

Which Swedish screen legend plays Dr. Naehring, the German-accented colleague who tries to sedate Teddy?

The Exorcist star was 80 when the film came out; his character embodies Teddy's wartime suspicions.

Who plays Teddy's late wife Dolores, who appears in his dreams?

Her character is manic-depressive; the film's version has her burn down the couple's apartment before the killings at the lake.

Two actresses play versions of the missing patient: Emily Mortimer and which other?

Mortimer's version is a nurse in disguise; Clarkson's, met in a sea cave, is revealed to be a hallucination.

Which actor plays George Noyce, the Ward C patient who warns Teddy not to trust his partner?

Elias Koteas plays the scarred figure of Laeddis in Teddy's visions; Ted Levine is the warden.

Teddy's wartime flashbacks are to the liberation of which concentration camp?

The scenes were shot at the Whittenton Mills complex in Taunton, Massachusetts, whose old industrial buildings doubled for the camp.

Teddy blames an arsonist for his wife's death. What is the man's name, an anagram of Edward Daniels?

The reveal is that Teddy himself is that man, a former marshal who has been a patient for two years.

The missing patient's name is an anagram of Teddy's wife's full name, which is what?

Both anagrams are in Lehane's novel as well as the film, and both are spelled out by Cawley in the finale.

Which restricted block does Teddy break into looking for the arsonist?

The patient he meets there tells him the doctors experiment on people and lobotomise them at the far end of the island.

Where on the island does Teddy believe the lobotomies and experiments take place?

The lighthouse scenes were shot at East Point in Nahant, Massachusetts.

The woman Teddy meets in a sea cave claims to be a former what?

She says she was committed to silence her after discovering mind-control experiments; the film reveals her as a hallucination.

In the finale, Cawley says Teddy's symptoms are withdrawal from which drug he has taken for two years?

In the novel it is the wife who is medicated, with laudanum that Teddy forgets to lock away before leaving for two weeks.

Per Cawley, how many months earlier had doctors briefly brought Andrew back to reality?

This time, he warns, is the last chance before a lobotomy, because of Andrew's violence toward guards and patients.

The film's final line asks whether it is worse to live as a monster or to do what?

The line is not in the book; Scorsese's psychiatric adviser read it as a chosen, vicarious suicide, while Lehane called it 'one moment of sanity'.

In the novel, what does Teddy grab in the final confrontation to shoot Cawley, only to find it is a toy?

The book's ending is bleaker still: the orderlies approach with 'a metal object wrapped in cloth'.

In Shutter Island, Teddy cracks a code pointing to which unlisted patient number?

The hospital's records show only 66 patients, and Teddy is convinced the 67th is the arsonist he is hunting.

Which real 1954 storm batters the island in Lehane's novel?

The film's storm scenes were shot at Wilson Mountain Reservation in Dedham, Massachusetts.

Who wrote the screenplay, after spending a year developing it with Phoenix?

A rival studio had let its option on the novel lapse in 2003, and Lehane sold the rights to Phoenix instead.

Which studio let its option on the novel lapse in 2003 before Phoenix picked it up?

Paramount then partnered on the release, which was pushed from October 2009 to February 2010 partly over marketing money.

The old state hospital in which Massachusetts town served as a key location for the asylum?

The crew had wanted Worcester State Hospital, but demolition nearby made it impossible; they painted Medfield's brick walls to look like plywood.

Which real harbor islet, off Hull, stood in for the fictional one on screen?

Lehane's own inspiration was Long Island, which he visited as a child during the blizzard of 1978.

The lakeside cabin scene was shot at a stone lodge in which Massachusetts park in Easton?

The lodge sits beside Leach Pond in Easton; the concentration-camp flashbacks were shot in Taunton's Whittenton Mills.

Filming ran from March to which month of 2008?

The wrap on July 2 was followed by an eventual release delay of more than four months.

Which longtime Scorsese collaborator assembled the classical-music soundtrack?

The former Band guitarist called it 'the most outrageous and beautiful soundtrack I've ever heard'; Vulture later ranked it among the 40 greatest.

Which Max Richter piece, later famous from Arrival, plays over the film's most emotional scenes?

The album closes with it blended into Dinah Washington's 'This Bitter Earth', an arrangement by Robertson.

The unnerving 'Symphony No. 3: Passacaglia' heard as the marshals arrive is by which Polish composer?

The soundtrack also uses Ligeti's 'Lontano', John Cage, Morton Feldman and a Mahler piano quartet.

Scorsese said his main reference for Teddy was Dana Andrews's detective in which 1944 film noir?

He also cited Val Lewton's low-budget 1940s zombie pictures, and critics spotted echoes of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

The film premiered in competition at which festival in February 2010?

Its wide release came six days later, on February 19, alongside Polanski's The Ghost Writer.

How much did the film take in its opening weekend, then a career best for Scorsese?

It stayed at number one the following weekend too, with another $22.2 million.

Roughly how much did Shutter Island gross worldwide?

It was Scorsese's biggest worldwide earner until The Wolf of Wall Street in 2013.

Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the twist-heavy film what grade?

Critics were kinder: Roger Ebert gave it three and a half stars, though A. O. Scott called the movie itself the 'something TERRIBLE' afoot.

Which organisation named Shutter Island one of the top ten films of 2010?

Time Out New York's Keith Uhlich ranked it the fifth-best film of the year.

The film's October 2009 release was pushed to February 2010 for reasons that included what?

Reports also cited DiCaprio's unavailability for international promotion and hopes that the economy would improve.

The novel's audiobook for HarperCollins is read by which actor?

The book was also reworked into a graphic novel with art by Christian De Metter.

A Shutter Island video game was released in 2010 for which platform?

A Nintendo DS version was announced and then cancelled.

Where did Shutter Island finish in the 2025 'Readers' Choice' NYT list of the century's 100 best movies?

It missed the critics' top 100 but readers voted it in among the extended rankings.

Chuck Aule is revealed at the end to really be which member of the hospital staff?

He is Andrew's primary psychiatrist, playing along as a marshal partner in the elaborate role-play treatment.

Which actor plays the menacing Warden of the island hospital?

Lynch plays Deputy Warden McPherson, while Koteas appears as the scarred 'Laeddis' of Teddy's imagination.

Old industrial buildings in which Massachusetts town's Whittenton Mills Complex stood in for Dachau?

The crew had wanted the old Worcester State Hospital for the asylum, but demolition nearby made it impossible.

East Point in which Massachusetts town was the location for the lighthouse scenes?

Peddocks Island played the island itself, and a stone lodge at Borderland State Park served as the lakeside cabin.

Besides Laura, Scorsese cited low-budget 1940s zombie films by which producer as an influence?

The film is a period piece stuffed with nods to film noir and horror, above all the work of Alfred Hitchcock.

In 2014 Paramount TV and HBO were reported to be developing a prequel series under what title?

A Shutter Island PC game had come out in 2010; a planned Nintendo DS version was cancelled.