The life of a 20th century logger and railroad worker in the Pacific Northwest is brought to vivid and unforgettable life in Train Dreams, now streaming worldwide on Netflix after premiering earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. This beautiful, soul-affirming ode from director and co-writer Clint Bentley (2021’s Jockey), adapting the acclaimed novel by Denis Johnson, echoes the most impassioned work of Terrence Malick and is one of the very best films of 2025.
Narrated with rugged warmth by Will Patton, Train Dreams traces the life of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton) over the span of eight decades—largely through the first half of the 20th century—rendering his entire life with a clarity and emotional force that feels timeless. This is a survival story—but not the kind defined by grueling physical endurance or frontier hardship (though the film does not shy away from these aspects). Rather, it is a film about existential survival: the journey to understanding one’s place in the universe and learning how to continue despite profound loss.
Patton’s narration speaks openly of these themes, often quoting directly from the novel, yet the film never feels obvious or overly literary. Bentley and co-writer Greg Kwedar approach Johnson’s text with emotional precision, allowing the film’s contemplation of grief, memory, and time to emerge naturally from its images and performances. The result is a work of deep feeling that remains truthful rather than sentimental, poignant without ever dipping into cliché.
Train Dreams follows Grainier’s life in rural Idaho as a soft-spoken man who works the railroads and logging camps, and builds a life with his wife Gladys (Felicity Jones) and their young daughter. His work takes him far from home, exposing him to the era’s roughness, and the film renders these episodes not as sensational anecdotes but as the lived-in contours of a world that shapes Grainier in ways he scarcely understands.
A wildfire, a loss, a friendship, a passing kindness—each becomes a small but essential strand in a life defined as much by the people who drift through it as by the vast landscapes surrounding him. Bentley’s direction is measured and contemplative, but unlike some of the year’s other Malick-influenced meditations (Die My Love, Sound of Falling), Train Dreams never obscures its narrative focus. The slow pace may challenge some, but the vision is strikingly coherent—an unbroken thread of time and place and quiet contemplation.
Every moment feels in service of understanding this frontiersman, capturing not the sweep of history but one man’s internal navigation through it. The final shots, in which Grainier finds not happiness but a kind of gentle acceptance of his place in this world—a simple contentment—are so quietly overwhelming that many viewers will find themselves in tears.
The supporting cast is uniformly superb, even in fleeting roles. William H. Macy gives a standout performance as a fellow logger whose soulful presence lingers long after his scenes end; despite his relatively short screen time here, he deserves awards attention for supporting actor.
Paul Schneider, John Diehl, and Kerry Condon also all make meaningful impressions as people Grainier meets during his long journey—as does Clifton Collins Jr. with a single line of dialogue—each one amplifying the film’s themes of connection, loss, and the fleeting nature of human connection. Jones brings great warmth to her portrayal of Gladys, grounding Grainier’s emotional world, if not his physical one.
But Train Dreams belongs to Edgerton, who delivers a impressively resonant, lived-in performance. Grainier is a sponge who listens more than he speaks, observes more than he acts, and feels more than he can articulate. Edgerton captures the character with remarkable restraint, allowing the weight of decades to subtly accumulate on his face and posture: we feel the effects of life in his every movement.
Shot in an elegant 1.66:1 aspect ratio by cinematographer Adolpho Veloso, Train Dreams resists nostalgic filters or old-timey artifice; instead it presents the forests, rivers, and logging camps with a crystal-clear vision that deepens the film’s historical mood. The Pacific Northwest becomes both mythic and tactile, a place where the past feels vibrant and alive under every patch of moss.
Bryce Dessner’s shimmering score enhances this effect, breathing life into the film’s silences and landscapes. Be sure to stick around for the two songs that play over the end credits—a haunting title theme performed by Nick Cave and a fuller rendition of the tune Macy sings earlier in the film—which both extend the film’s emotional spell even as the screen fades to black.
In its final moments—an airborne sequence that evokes a lifetime of memories—Train Dreams reaches a level of emotional transcendence so rarely seen in cinema. It is a profound, deeply moving portrait of a life lived quietly but fully, a film that leaves audiences not with melancholy but with a sense of spiritual nourishment. This stoic meditation on time, place, and human soul lingers long after the credits roll.
