Twilight 2008: Cast, Plot, Where to Watch and Ending Explained

Twilight (2008), directed by Catherine Hardwicke, is about a teenage girl who moves to a rainy town and falls for a boy from a vampire family. Bella Swan is seventeen years old when she leaves sunny Phoenix, Arizona, to live with her father Charlie, the police chief of Forks, Washington. At her new school she notices the Cullens, a group of unusually pale adopted siblings, and one of them, Edward, behaves strangely around her before he saves her from a van sliding across the school parking lot. Bella becomes determined to find out what he is hiding.

The film adapts Stephenie Meyer's novel of the same name, and Melissa Rosenberg wrote the screenplay. At 122 minutes it is the third longest of the five films, behind The Twilight Saga: New Moon at 131 minutes and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse at 124. If you want to watch it tonight, JustWatch data via TMDB, checked on November 3, 2026, lists it as included with Netflix in the US, UK and Australia, and the where to watch twilight page keeps the full list of rental and purchase options.

Twilight (2008) premiered on Monday, November 17, 2008, at the Mann Village and Bruin Theatres in Westwood Village, Los Angeles, four days before its US release, and it went on to earn $405.5 million worldwide on a $37 million budget. At that premiere, Associated Press reported two remarks that shaped the series: Catherine Hardwicke said a sequel would need roughly $150 million in box office earnings to be affordable, and Robert Pattinson said he signed on expecting a trilogy.

The numbers cleared that bar easily. The film opened to $69.6 million domestically, and Box Office Mojo records $195.6 million in the US and Canada and $209.9 million internationally. So, to answer the question people search: it was a hit, and a large one for its cost. In the US it opened on November 21, 2008, followed by Australia on December 11 and the UK on December 19 (those two dates are reported rather than confirmed). The full series figures sit on the twilight box office page.

Twilight (2008) is set in Forks, Washington, with Phoenix, Arizona, as the place Bella leaves at the start and returns to for the ballet studio showdown. The trade and box office sources for this film do not name the sites where it was shot, so the settings above are story locations only.

The sequels are better documented, which makes for a useful comparison. Screen Daily reported that filming on The Twilight Saga: Eclipse began in Vancouver in August 2009, and the Tuscan hill town of Montepulciano, with its Piazza Grande fountain, stood in for the Volturi scenes of twilight new moon, according to Visit Tuscany. Both Breaking Dawn films were shot back to back, with Baton Rouge filming wrapping around February 2011, according to the Baton Rouge Business Report.

In my opinion, the contrast is telling: the first film is the one that feels most tied to its rainy, small town mood, while the later chapters travel further for their set pieces.

Twilight (2008) trivia covers its $37 million budget, a moved release date and two premiere remarks about sequels.

• The production budget was $37 million, according to Box Office Mojo.
• Summit Entertainment moved the release from December 12 to November 21, 2008, and took over the project after MTV Films shelved it, according to a syndicated wire story.
• The soundtrack reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 a week before the film opened, with about 165,000 copies sold in its first week.
• The film opened to $69.6 million domestically.
• Catherine Hardwicke said at the premiere that a sequel would need roughly $150 million in box office earnings to be affordable.
• Robert Pattinson said at the premiere that he signed on expecting a trilogy. The series went on to five films.
• Netflix announced an animated series, Midnight Sun, in September 2024, with Lionsgate Television producing and Stephenie Meyer as an executive producer. It is television, not a film, and has no release date or cast announced. For anything film related, see the new twilight movie page.