Train Dreams (12A)

Based on the beloved novella by Denis Johnson, Train Dreams is the moving portrait of Robert Grainier, whose life unfolds during an era of unprecedented change in early 20th-century America.

Orphaned at a young age, Robert grows into adulthood among the towering forests of the Pacific Northwest, where he helps expand the nation’s railroad empire alongside men as unforgettable as the landscapes they inhabit.

An ode to a vanishing way of life, an ever-evolving world, and to the extraordinary possibilities that exist within even the most simple of existences, Train Dreams captures a time and place that are now long gone, and the people who built a bridge to a future they could only dream of.

Best of 2025 – Audience Selections. Chosen by Tom O. 

Tom O’s Best of 2025 recommendation:   
Train Dreams is a dreamy, meditative film about railway building in the USA in the 1900s that is reminiscent of Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven. Joel Edgerton plays Robert a manual labourer who builds the railway quite literally with his bare hands. Much of the story is narrated by Will Patton which adds to the ambience of the film as does the score by Bryce Dessner of The National. Robert meets Gladys who turns out to be the love of his life. They build a house together and plan a life together, but their dreams are shattered by a natural disaster.  

What one remembers above all are the weird moments of the film: Huge trees being cut down, boots nailed to trees and men dying. This is a film that lingers in the mind long after it has been seen in the cinema.