Since the Lumiere Brothers first put the train to celluloid in 1895, the train has been of cinematic fascination. Correct in their approach that there is something inherently thrilling about the locomotive, its size, power, speed, and ability to transport a mass amount of people and items have led to many frenetic set pieces. Conversely, it’s also led to many great films that are either tightly packed to the confines of the travail and the dangers of the high speeds or the never-ending journey with the possibilities that travel brings. Either way, there are many great films to consider; from the early days of Hollywood to the new Korean wave sweeping the world of cinema, the train is one of the great locations for telling a story.
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10 The Commuter
Lionsgate
Liam Neeson’s resurgence as an action star in the 21st Century is partly thanks to his ability to find scripts with bare-bones or simple set-ups that allow him to be a force of nature. From Taken — a film that quests Neeson to track down his missing daughter — to the four films he made with action stalwart Jaume Collett-Serra. The Commuter is the B-side to the duo’s previous film Non-Stop in which Neeson is placed in the middle of a criminal conspiracy on a massive civilian transport. This time, being on a train, Collett-Serra keeps the action moving and the tension rising as Neeson faces off against his foes, hoping to stop innocent people from being killed.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
9 Train to Busan
Well Go USA
An apocalyptic zombie thrill ride that’s action-packed from the get-go, Train To Busan was built for crossover success. While not necessarily breaking ground thematically or stylistically with its approach to violence, the movie’s concept was fun enough to find an audience outside Korea. Packed to the brim on a tight train full of zombies, Korean industry stalwart Ma Dong-seok took on the zombies with his fists, while the film finds its obvious bloody endpoints. Train to Busan struck a nerve with audiences and spawned a sequel.
8 The Darjeeling Limited
Fox Searchlight Pictures
The Darjeeling Limited is underrated in the Wes Anderson canon, but is still not quite up to the heights of his best work. One of the more depressing films in his filmography also makes it one of his more emotionally resonant. Coming only a few years after Owen Wilson tried taking his own life, the duo decide to work that into the script, in a tale of three brothers and three of Anderon’s favorite collaborators. Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, and Wilson hit the road in this off-beat tale of brotherly love and mending wounds after their father passes. The confrontations with death and morality supersede the slapstick nature of violence usually seen in Anderson’s films, but it is taken to a new place as they travel through the heart of India looking for spiritual catharsis.
7 Runaway Train
The Canon Group, Inc.
Working from a script originally written by film legend Akira Kurosawa that would later be retooled into an American production by ex-con Edward Bunker, Runaway Train is a philosophically-mannered action film about two escaped convicts traversing the snowy rail yards of Alaska as they quest for freedom. The prison scenes are heavy. Starring Jon Voight and Eric Roberts — both were Oscar-nominated for their performances — the two form an unlikely team as they wring Shakespeare out of their characters. Speaking their own form of prison language as they hijack a high-speed train, the film’s thrills not only come out of the beautifully aged practical effects, but the acting and emotions that the two leads find in each other.
6 The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
MGM
Not one setting suits the train sub-genre more than the subways of New York City in the 1970s. Rife with crime and racialized violence, the subways were a setting susceptible to the worst New York had to offer during this turbulent decade. However, what makes The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 so effective is the heist of a subway cart and how great the script is at revealing the slow bureaucratic process of the city’s governance. Walter Matthau is great as the lazy transit Lieutenant tasked with dealing with the crisis, but no one in the film quite holds a candle to the late Robert Shaw, whose intellect prevails at making him sinister and intriguing as well.
5 Snowpiercer
The Weinstein Compnay
Bong Joon-ho has a penchant for weaving in critiques of social classes and hierarchies in many of his action-thriller movies. With Snowpiercer, he found the perfect source material to make his first American film. With a stacked cast of Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Song Kang-ho, John Hurt, and Ed Harris, director Bong plunges us into a snow-capped hellscape in a post-apocalyptic world where the population is forced to live on a never-ending train ride. With the social hierarchy baked into the train and story set-up, the poorest are forced to live in the back. Led by Evans, the back of the train take arms and start a revolution to get to the front.
4 Strangers on a Train
Warner Bros.
It’s not always the mystery that makes a thriller memorable. Often, it’s the ingenuity and brilliant mind of a twisted individual at the center of the film’s conflict that gives the audience a great villain to hate. Such is the case for Strangers on a Train. Robert Walker plays the psycho in question who lures a professional tennis star, played by Farley Granger, into a sophisticated set-up about how they can get away with murder. However, it starts to dawn on Granger’s tennis star that Walker is scheming to implement the plan to murder. The plot leads up to one of the great climaxes in Alfred Hitchcock’s oeuvre. Strangers is a showcase of Hitchcock’s talents because he takes a bare-bones set-up and elevates it.
3 Unstoppable
20th Century Fox
Tony Scott’s insatiable appetite for destruction is only seconded by Michael Bay. In a film whose plot structure is loose and bare, Scott manages to wring tragic affectations out of a runaway train. Mixing in a new love for color filters, experimenting with various shutter speeds, and his patented, always reviling camera, Unstoppable is an incredibly entertaining piece of action cinema. Showing his love for the working class with Denzel Washington and Chris Pine playing two unlikely heroes, Scott’s films shows how to stick it to the corporate man. The breakneck speed, practical effects, and sheer tenacity of a screaming runaway train never stopped Scott from his love of actors, giving them equal measure to give emotional stakes to the insane premise.
2 The Train
United Artists
There’s an argument to be had that John Frankenheimer is the originator of the modern action film as we know it, and it started in the early 1960s with his run of successive masterpieces that allotted him to take on massive productions. With 1964’s The Train, Frankenheimer teamed back up with star Burt Lancaster to tell the tale of Allied forces in France stopping a German general from stealing a massive collection of paintings. Frankenheimer’s use of practical effects — which include taking two trains and crashing them together — makes The Train as modern and tangible as action films come.
1 Spirited Away
Studio Ghibli
Hayao Miyazaki’s films are beautifully rendered by Studio Ghibli, animated films that have heart, spirit, and adolescence that get to the soul of humanity. In Spirited Away, another in the long line of Miyazaki’s masterpieces, a young girl Chihiro gets thrust into another realm of spirits as her parents undergo a metamorphosis. Chihiro rides a train that doubles as an indication of kindness as she becomes aware of her fate and the fate of others around her. Miyazaki builds a beautifully lived-in world as the passage of time becomes abstract.
