Train Dreams Review: One Of 2025's Best Films Needs To Break Free Of The Netflix Algorithm

Life can often be harsh and the world can be cruel. And yet, there's beauty out there, waiting to be discovered. A blazing orange sunset, a copse of trees swaying in the breeze, impressive structures built by both human hands and nature. You can be at your absolute lowest moment and still have your breath taken away by a sky scattered with stars. What does it all mean? Does it have to mean anything? We are born, we live for a certain amount of time, and then we're gone. We're remembered until we're forgotten. And then it's like we may have never existed at all; never left a footprint on this earth.

"Train Dreams," Clint Bentley's absolutely breathtaking adaptation of the novella by Denis Johnson, is the life story of an unremarkable man. This man, Robert Grainier, was born, lived, and died in the past. He had no great achievements to call his own. History books would not record his existence. And yet, for a moment in time, he was here, connected to all things. 

While the film unfolds in a linear fashion – with occasional jumps through time – this does not feel like a traditional narrative. Rather, it feels exactly like its title suggests: a dream. A dream you dip in and out of on a long train ride, your head pressed up against the cool glass of the window as the world passes you by.

Grainier, played with poetic quietude by Joel Edgerton, is an orphan who grew up in the northwest and never saw the ocean. We follow his path through the years, beginning in the early 1900s and moving forward, watching the world change through his eyes. One of Grainier's first jobs is to build a massive railroad bridge — an event that will seemingly color the rest of his life. Chinese immigrant laborers also work on the bridge, and many of them are tormented by their racist white coworkers. Early in the film, Grainier looks on, confused, as one of the Chinese workers is murdered — tossed over the bridge for seemingly no reason. "What did he do?" Grainier asks. There's concern in his voice — and yet he makes no effort to stop the killing. His action, or rather inaction, haunts him for the rest of his days.

To underscore all of this, "Train Dreams" cuts briefly to the future, where the film's narrator — Will Patton, who has the perfect sort of voice for this sort of thing — informs us, "Many years later, a bridge made of concrete and steel would be built ten miles upstream, rendering this one obsolete." People worked and died to bring this bridge to life — only for it to no longer serve much of a purpose further down the line. It was a massive achievement at one point. Now it's virtually pointless.

Grainier is a man of few words, but he catches the eye of the spirited Gladys (Felicity Jones, who seems destined to play tragic wives of the past), and the two build a cabin and have a daughter. It's an idyllic life, and to make ends meet, Grainier takes a job as a lumberman, leaving home for long stretches of time to saw away at towering trees that have existed untouched for hundreds of years. While he's away, an event back home will change everything and send him down a path of self-imposed isolation as time ticks on and the world around him alters. Trees that were one felled by handsaws become cut by machines. People who seemed wise and immortal are consigned to the dust.

This is frequently heartbreaking stuff, but there's beauty here. And humor, too — one of the more amusing sections of the film involves Grainier's friendship with fellow timberman (and explosives expert) Arn Peeples, played wonderfully by William H. Macy. Arn is somehow both annoyingly talkative and warmly inviting at the same time, and Macy hits all the right notes playing this man who has seemingly seen it all. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" he dreamily asks at one point, propped up against a tree at sunset. "What is?" Grainier asks. "All of it," Arn replies.

Adolpho Veloso's cinematography captures that expansive beauty — the tactile landscape, the roughness of nature, the tangible power of the earth shifting and changing with time. Writer-director Bentley (working with writer Greg Kwedar) dips in and out of Grainier's life, and Edgerton's quiet performance radiates a type of grace, aided by Patton's all-knowing narration. At one point, a man is killed by a falling branch and his boots are nailed into a nearby treetrunk. Decades later, Grainier returns to the same spot and finds the boots still there, overgrown with moss — a relic for a man long-gone. No one else seems to pay them much mind, and it's not even clear if Grainier remembers the name of the dead man. But he, like Grainier, once existed. Perhaps that is enough.

"Train Dreams" is the type of lovely, meditative, staggeringly beautiful drama aching to be seen on the big screen. So of course, after playing the festival circuit, it was snatched up by Netflix, which means that the majority of people who watch it will watch it at home. Worse than that, there's a real chance the film will get completely lost in Netflix's god-like algorithm; it might also get turned on in the background while someone scrolls through their phone.

I don't want to spend too much time bashing Netflix here, because the streaming giant does deserve some credit for throwing money at filmmakers and letting them release work that might otherwise languish on a shelf. And yet, I can't help but worry that this type of low-key, heartfelt film — devoid of big stars and big special effects — will drown in the digital noise. "Train Dreams" is one of the year's best films and deserves to be seen. Perhaps there's a certain irony in the notion that this film about a man's unremarkable but beautiful existence could be doomed to be overlooked.

I have no real say in the matter. I can only tell you what I think of the film, and I think it's wonderful. There are certain movies that grab you from the jump, and "Train Dreams" is one of them — as the film began its journey, I felt instantly connected to it; engrossed, near hypnotized. I didn't want it to end. But all things must end, and then we're left with their memory. One day the memory might fade, just like a dream. For now, though, we have to hold onto it for as long as we can.

/Film Rating: 10 out of 10

"Train Dreams" is streaming on Netflix starting November 21, 2025.