A locked carriage, a fixed destination and a cast of strangers thrown together for the length of a journey, trains have been the perfect setting for films about murder mysteries, love stories and disaster movies for almost a century. As the British Film Institute reveals a season of movies on trains, compiled by Booker Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro, film expert Amy Scott-Ringrow explains why directors love to ‘do the locomotive.’
Amy, a media production lecturer at Bournemouth University, explains: “There’s a few reasons. I think one of the main ones is confinement. That can have numerous effects on a narrative. The idea is, characters can’t escape. If you take something like Murder on the Orient Express, probably one of the most iconic train films, you have characters where there’s been a murder and they’re in a confined environment, so there is no escape.”
The setting also plays tricks with time. She says: “Time almost stands still within that carriage, but the outside world is going to keep moving around them. When you’re watching characters change in one setting, it’s a really interesting thing in terms of scripting and actually telling and pushing that story, because you don’t have things like location changes to push that story along.”
And everyone’s familiar with trains. She continues: “A train is almost a blank space, where people can project themselves onto it and their experiences of it. Everyone has a different reason for being on that train. They’re all going to potentially the same destination, but all have different reasons for being there. That’s something that can then be unpacked and explored.”
Picking Murder on the Orient Express, one of the ten films on Ishiguro’s list, as her most emblematic train movie of all time, she says: “It’s iconic. The train is, literally, in the title and it is a completely iconic story. Murder mysteries again, they lend themselves to the fact that all different walks of life are crammed into this place. You could almost take the train as the destination.”
Of the characters on the train, she says: “They find things out about themselves, about each other, while the world around them stays the same.”
The 1974 Agatha Christie adaptation of the movie, directed by Sidney Lumet, starred Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot, alongside an ensemble cast including Sean Connery, Lauren Bacall and Ingrid Bergman. Made on a budget of £1.4 million, it went on to earn £19 million at the box office. Bergman won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, with Finney also nominated for Best Actor.
Amy adds: “All the character interaction comes from them moving between carriages. Another example of this is Snowpiercer – which is also a grate film. It takes that setting and uses it as a microcosm of society and all that’s wrong with the world.”
Snowpiercer, Bong Joon-ho’s 2013 thriller starring Chris Evans and Tilda Swinton, is another of Ishiguro’s top ten. Amy says that, as in this film the people in a train carriage can represent a “political subspace in society.” She says: “People can be on the same moving vehicle and have a completely
Snowpiercer sold more than 9.3 million admissions on release, breaking the record for the fastest film to pass 4 million tickets. It was Bong Joon-Ho’s first English-language project and the most expensive production in the country’s film history.
Meanwhile, two more films from The Remains of the Day author Ishiguro’s list span opposite ends of the genre’s history. Shanghai Express, the 1932 Josef von Sternberg film starring Marlene Dietrich, is what Ishiguro calls the ‘mother of all train movies’. It won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography and was nominated for Best Picture and Best Director.
And The Lady Vanishes, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1938 thriller, earned him the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director – the only time in his career he won an award for directing.
Lifelong film buff Ishiguro’s top 10 train films, as well as celebrating some well-known classics, may also introduce fans of train movies to some new hidden gems. He says: “To be clear, a ‘train movie’ isn’t one with just a memorable train sequence in the middle, still less one that happens to have ‘train’ or ‘express’ in its title.
“Unrequited love stories set on railway platforms aren’t train movies; neither are those in which protagonists fight on train roofs or dangle precariously off the side. What follows are real train movies. Curiously, ‘train movie’ isn’t an acknowledged genre like, say, the western or the musical. No director, actor, period or country is associated with it.”
Despite admiring his choices, Amy reckons there is one notable absentee. She says: “One of the more recent ones I can think of is Bullet Train, which is just cramming chaos into a train car and seeing where it goes.”
She says the 2022 action comedy, starring Brad Pitt, had its own unusual production story. She explains: “It was filmed during Covid. They actually had to change how they filmed so much of that. They ended up filming it on a multi-camera set-up, because they couldn’t have many people around.
“I thought that was really interesting and must have been a challenging film to make. I enjoyed it, but it’s a film that’s supposed to be chaotic, and not make a lot of sense. So I’m not massively surprised it didn’t make the list.”
Kazuo Ishiguro’s Top Ten Train Films
Shanghai Express (1932) Director: Josef von Sternberg Stars: Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong The mother of all train movies was a big box office hit and earned three Oscar nominations, winning Best Cinematography for its stunning visuals amid revolution.
Rome Express (1932) Director: Walter Forde Stars: Conrad Veidt, Esther Ralston This underrated British thriller won Best Foreign Film at the National Board of Review.
The Lady Vanishes (1938) Director: Alfred Hitchcock Stars: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave Hitchcock’s finest British film was a massive box office hit and won him the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Director, the only time he won an award for directing.
Night Train (1959) Director: Jerzy Kawalerowicz Stars: Lucyna Winnicka, Leon Niemczyk This acclaimed Polish thriller won the Georges Méliès award and Best Foreign Actress for Winnicka at Venice, and remains a hidden gem for its tense, cramped atmosphere.
Murder on the Orient Express (1974) Director: Sidney Lumet Stars: Albert Finney, Ingrid Bergman, ensemble cast The star-studded Agatha Christie adaptation was made on a £1.4 million budget and earned £19 million at the box office. Ingrid Bergman won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
Runaway Train (1985) Director: Andrei Konchalovsky Stars: Jon Voight, Eric Roberts Based on a Kurosawa script, this intense thriller earned Oscar nominations for both lead actors, Voight for Best Actor and Roberts for Best Supporting Actor.
Tickets (2005) Directors: Ermanno Olmi, Abbas Kiarostami, Ken Loach Stars: Ensemble cast across three stories Three acclaimed directors each tell a different story about passengers on the same European train.
Transsiberian (2008) Director: Brad Anderson Stars: Emily Mortimer, Ben Kingsley A tense thriller set on the famous route, with strong performances and a plot full of twists.
Snowpiercer (2013) Director: Bong Joon-ho Stars: Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton The dystopian class-war epic sold more than 9.3 million admissions in South Korea, becoming the fastest film to pass 4 million tickets there, and remains the most expensive production in the country’s film history.
Compartment No. 6 (2021) Director: Juho Kuosmanen Stars: Seidi Haarla, Yuriy Borisov This warm Finnish-Russian road movie won the Cannes Grand Prix for its story of an unlikely friendship.
*Kazuo Ishiguro’s Top Ten Train Films, featuring each of the movies listed here, is at BFI Southbank until July 31.
