Part of Best Picture Marathon
Nominated for 4 Academy Awards® including Best Picture, Cinematography, Writing (Original Screenplay), and Music (Original Song)
A standout critical and audience favorite at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, this lyrical adaptation of Denis Johnson’s acclaimed novella stars Joel Edgerton as a laborer whose life bears witness to several decades of profound change and social upheaval. Edgerton plays Robert Grainier, an orphan who spends most of his life amid the wild, ravishing scenery of the Pacific Northwest as a logger and railroad worker. Though he experiences his fair share of toil and hardship, Robert’s life is suffused with beauty and marked periods of ecstatic joy, including his courtship with spirited, beautiful Gladys (Felicity Jones). Deftly adapting Johnson’s episodic prose for the big screen, filmmaker Clint Bentley and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Greg Kwedar (JOCKEY, SING SING) have crafted a subtly profound epic from elements both intimate and momentous. TRAIN DREAMS is a lovely meditation on man’s connection to the natural world and a testament to the way that seemingly mundane incidents make up a life.
“At the risk of gushing, I adored this perfectly formed movie. It elevates Bentley into the league of essential American filmmakers.” —David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter “The type of lovely, meditative, staggeringly beautiful drama aching to be seen on the big screen…. 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.” —Chris Evangelista, Slash Film “It’s hard to imagine anyone but Edgerton in this role…. Here he moves from passivity to passion to grief to wonder — it’s a beautiful role for him, and he broke my heart.” —Alissa Wilkinson, NYT Critic’s Pick, New York Times
