A train is a fascinating setting for a story. Most of the engers are perfect strangers confined to a rapidly moving box, so it’s a good setup for a mystery thriller. The separation of classes on a train can be used as a poignant metaphor for class divisions in society. Being on a train is also an everyday situation that everyone can relate to, so it can be a great setting for a comedy, too.
Wes Anderson used it for the latter when he made The Darjeeling Limited, the tale of three brothers who take a spiritual journey across India by rail to mend their relationship a year after their dad ed away.
The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
Arguably Wes Anderson’s most underrated work, The Darjeeling Limited tells a quintessentially human story about three brothers traveling across India, trying to reconnect after not speaking for a year following their late father’s funeral. As usual, Anderson deftly balances quirky, deadpan humor with heartbreaking, melancholic drama.
Owen Wilson stars as Francis, the oldest and most manipulative brother, who’s recovering from an injury he claims he sustained in a motorcycle accident. Adrien Brody plays Peter, who’s unsure if he’s really in love with his pregnant wife, and Jason Schwartzman plays Jack, a writer getting over a bad breakup.
Unstoppable (2010)
Tony Scott’s Unstoppable has a special place in a lot of action movie fans’ hearts because it was the last movie the iconic director made before he ed away in 2012.
Denzel Washington and Chris Pine star as a railroad engineer and a train conductor, respectively, as they try to stop a runaway freight train. The film was loosely inspired by the real-life CSX 8888 incident.
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
One of Alfred Hitchcock’s many classic thrillers, The Lady Vanishes sees a young British tourist going on a train journey across Europe with an elderly travel buddy. When she goes missing and none of the other engers have seen her, the mystery deepens.
The woman teams up with a young musicologist, who helps her look around the train for clues relating to her companion’s sudden disappearance.
The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
Quentin Tarantino took the idea of color-coding his gangster characters in Reservoir Dogs from the color-coded subway bandits in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. It’s since been remade, but the 1974 original is a much superior thriller.
Oddly enough, the 2009 remake is one of two train-based thrillers that Tony Scott and Denzel Washington made — along with the aforementioned Unstoppable — in the space of a year.
Runaway Train (1985)
Jon Voight stars in Runaway Train, which sees a railway employee and two escaped convicts being stuck on a runaway train tearing through Alaska, desperately trying to bring it to a halt.
It’s hardly surprising that this is an action movie with a strong story because it was drawn from an original screenplay by Seven Samurai director Akira Kurosawa.
Train To Busan (2016)
One of the greatest zombie movies ever made, Train to Busan revolves around an emotionally distant father contending with a zombie apocalypse his company may have started while taking his estranged daughter across South Korea to visit her mother.
After years of by-the-numbers zombie movies rehashing the same tired tropes over and over again, what made Train to Busan feel like such a breath of fresh air is that its ravenous, sprinting hordes of zombies made the undead scary again.
Silver Streak (1976)
This delightful blend of buddy comedy and suspense thriller marked the first of four onscreen pairings of hilariously matched scene partners Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder.
While the movie’s MVP is undoubtedly Pryor and Wilder’s electric chemistry, Silver Streak also has an engrossing mystery plot involving a murder on a train.
Strangers On A Train (1951)
In the opening scene of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller Strangers on a Train, a tennis player with a conniving wife meets a sociopath with overbearing parents on a train. The latter suggests they do each other’s murders so the cops won’t suspect either of them of committing a crime for which they had a clear motive.
While the tennis player makes it clear he’s not interested, the sociopath goes out and murders the wife anyway, then spends the rest of the movie pressuring the tennis player to keep up his end of the bargain.
Murder On The Orient Express (1974)
There have been a handful of adaptations of Agatha Christie’s classic mystery novel Murder on the Orient Express. The most recent one was directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also starred as Poirot, but the most memorable iteration was directed by Sidney Lumet in 1974.
Albert Finney starred as Poirot and was surrounded by a ing cast full of revered A-listers: Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Perkins.
Snowpiercer (2013)
Bong Joon-ho’s post-apocalyptic thriller Snowpiercer takes place after the next ice age when most of humanity has frozen to death and the rest are rattling around the icy wasteland on a futuristic train.
When the lower-class engers realize the upper-class engers are living in luxury while they sleep in cramped bunks and eat insect protein, Chris Evans leads a revolution to the front of the train.
