5 big movies and shows filming in Hamilton this year

Hamilton has given birth to Robocop, been a battleground for both the X-Men and the Hulk, and housed hordes of the undead in Silent Hill.

Thanks to the city's visual diversity (and some favourable tax breaks) our little slice of southern Ontario has long been a destinationfor filmmakers.

• READ MORE: 10 big movies shot in Hamilton

This summer, morebig name productions will be setting up shop right here.

Here are five films and TV shows that are shooting in Hamilton this year.

Suicide Squad

One of the most anticipated films in DC Comic's new cinematic universe is filming in Hamilton this summer.

Suicide Squad is an ode to DC's villains, and stars big names like Will Smith, Margot Robbie andJoel Kinnaman.

Jared Leto plays The Joker in the film, which marks the first time the character has appeared onscreen since Heath Ledger's iconic portrayal in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. Leto has some huge shoes to fill.

Suicide Squad uses the well-worn trope of a group of villains in prison who take part in black ops missions for the government in exchange for shorter prison sentences.

The film is scheduled for release in August of 2016.

Hannibal

Hannibal is the critically acclaimed television tie in to both Thomas Harris' novels and the Red Dragon/Silence of the Lambs films.

The NBC show focuses on the relationship between FBI agent Will Graham and everyone's favourite cannibal, Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

Critics have heralded the show as NBC's best drama in years as it straddles the lines between psychological thriller and crime procedural.

Season 3 of the show airs this June.

Hemlock Grove

Though it hasn't garnered the critical acclaim of other Netflix originals like House of Cards or Orange is the New Black, Hemlock Grove has still been renewed for a third season.

The supernatural horror is executive produced by Eli Roth, and follows a bloodbath set in a fictional town in Pennsylvania.

The Daily Beast's Jace Lacob called it an "almost unwatchable muddle of horror tropes and painfully creaky dialogue." Ouch.

Well, at least if you look real hard, you might catch a glimpse of Hamilton.

Heroes Reborn

Remember Heroes? The first season of the NBC drama aired back in 2006 and was massively successful pulling in an average of 14.3 million viewers in the U.S. alone.

But that fantastic first season was followed up with some decidedly "meh" superhero fare, and viewership dwindled until the show was canned in 2010.

But all isn't lost a 13-episode miniseries called Heroes Reborn will air on NBC in 2015.

The show is being shot in Hamilton in the coming months.

The Strain

The Strain is a horror/drama TV series from FX based on Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan's novel trilogy of the same name.

The show is essentially a procedural in the vein of CSI and Fringe, but with vampires.

Anyone who loves the undead and is looking for a more "grounded" take on them (as grounded as pure fiction about vampires gets, anyway) would find something to like here.