There are a handful of great movies set entirely on trains, and dozens of classic and not-so-classic films in which moments featuring trains are the most memorable element, often even iconic.
During 30 days in October 2023 I revisited nearly 60 films I recalled featuring trains, and found about 15 that I had not seen, in order to compile short video highlights and screen shots of my favorites. (I added about 50 more to this compilation over the following three months, for a total of well more than 100, in addition to about 50 others I’ve noted with very brief train moments.)
Trains have been around about 100 years longer than cars or planes, and they have been featured prominently from the earliest movies, including The Great Train Robbery of 1903 (click highlighted title for 30-sec video highlights from movie), through trains of all styles in hundreds, perhaps thousands of films of all genres for more than a century.
The cinematography of trains has led to some of the most dynamic and artistic images in film. Perhaps you can identify the movie each of these came from:
Of course most of us can instantly think of some of the most iconic train moments in great films (short video or photo highlights below):
- The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
- The Defiant Ones (1958)
- Stand by Me (1986)
- North by Northwest (1959)
- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
- The Fugitive (1993)
- Some Like it Hot (1959)
- Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
- How the West was Won (1963)
Favorite train movies overall – the film itself and train scenes
(majority or entire film takes place on a train)
- Silver Streak (1976) – comedy-thriller starring Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, Jill Clayburgh, Ned Beatty, and Patrick McGoohan
- The Train (1964) – Burt Lancaster stars in World War II drama directed by John Frankenheimer
- Unstoppable (2010) – click this title for 2-min vid hilites of film directed by Tony Scott starring Denzel Washington, Chris Pine, and Rosario Dawson
- Von Ryan’s Express (1965) – World War II prisoner escape drama starring Frank Sinatra
- The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) – didn’t capture any particularly dynamic visual images but the movie starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw about a hijacked subway and the battle of wills, expertise and verbal exchanges is excellent and all about the train from beginning to end.
Great use and shots of trains in other excellent movies
- Days of Heaven (1978) – Terrence Malick’s period drama narrated by a young girl’s (Linda Manz) hard-knock experiences traveling from Chicago to the Texas panhandle in 1916 with her older brother (Richard Gere) and his girlfriend (Brooke Adams); also starring Sam Shepard.
- From Russia with Love (1963) – the second James Bond film starring Sean Connery features provocative romance, a battle of wits, and one of cinema’s best fights aboard a train.
- Skyfall (2012) – Daniel Craig’s third film as 007 opens with an epic six-minute chase on a train involving a huge excavator, VW Beetles, and a rooftop foot chase, and later shifts to the London Underground for a seven-minute subway/Tube chase.
- The Journey of Natty Gann (1985) – Meredith Salenger stars in this hard-edged Disney movie as a Depression-era 12 year-old tomboy who hops a freight train in Chicago to find her father in the Pacific Northwest, getting help from John Cusack and a wolf along the way.
- Dr. Zhivago (1965) – Omar Sharif, Geraldine Chaplin, Julie Christie, Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness, Ralph Richardson in David Lean’s 3-hr 15-min epic period/costume drama set during early 20th century Russian Revolution and featuring several different trains traversing the snow-laden country.
- Schindler’s List (1993) – When a businessman (Liam Neeson) employing Jewish factory workers during the German Nazi regime sees freight train cattle cars jammed full with thousands of Jews being taken to death camps, he spots his key manager and uses his clout to get him off the train, later also saving an entire train of women who believe they are being taken to safety from extermination at Auschwitz.
Best showcasing of trains in movie franchises
- James Bond (romance, action, chases, fights – trains have played a notable role in nine Bond films, and Bond has been on the rails of some sort in more than a dozen episodes; nobody does trains better than 007)
- Mission: Impossible (big action train scenes in the first and most recent episodes – video highlights from the first one in 1996)
- Harry Potter (compilation of trains from multiple episodes)
More fully-loaded train movies
- Breakheart Pass (1975) – Charles Bronson, Richard Crenna, Jill Ireland, Ben Johnson in 1870s drama about train with medical supplies and troops dispatched on a bogus epidemic relief mission (click highlighted title to see 6 3/4-min video of train scenes in movie).
- The Cassandra Crossing (1977) – click this title for 4 1/2-min vid highlights of this star-filled thriller (Richard Harris, Sophia Loren, Ava Gardner, Martin Sheen) of a train on which terrorists have planted a deadly virus.
- The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) – Denzel Washington in very good remake of the hijacking of a subway that leads to battle of wits and resourcefulness but other than the image below, I didn’t capture any particularly dynamic visual images.
- Runaway Train (1985) – Jon Voight and Eric Roberts in film based on a screenplay by Akira Kurosawa about escaped prisoners who hide on a freight train that quickly runs out of control through Alaska when the engineer has a heart attack and falls off.
- The General (1927) – Buster Keaton’s landmark 75-minute silent eye-popping stunt-filled epic of its day.
- Murder on the Orient Express (1974) – all-star adaptation of Agatha Christie murder-mystery committed and solved during the train ride (Albert Finney, Sean Connery, Jacqueline Bisset, Ingrid Bergman, Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Widmark, John Gielgud).
- The Silver Streak (1934) – The then-brand-new aerodynamic, sleek, high-speed Burlington Zephyr stars as a train that races at record speed from Chicago to Boulder City, Nevada to deliver life-saving iron lung respirators to Hoover Dam construction workers, loosely based on an actual record run by the Pioneer Zephyr from Chicago to Denver in May of that same year.
- The Lady Vanishes (1938) – Alfred Hitchcock’s suspense drama about an English tourist who is determined to prove that an elderly woman she met on a train has disappeared, despite the denials by other passengers that the woman was ever on the train.
- Emperor of the North (1973) – two Depression-era freight train-hopping hobos (Lee Marvin, Keith Carradine) try to elude a sadistic tyrant train conductor (Ernest Borgnine).
- The Train to Busan (2016) – South Korean action-horror film of a a zombie apocalypse aboard a high-speed passenger train with a uniquely emotionally powerful moment near the end using the shadow of a train as the visually evoking imagery.
- Snowpiercer (2013) – Bong Joon-ho’s post-apocalyptic science fiction action film based on a French climate fiction graphic novel about the remnants of humanity riding a self-sustaining and socially segregated circumnavigational train, starring Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, John Hurt, Ed Harris, Song Kang-ho, Jamie Bell.
- Bullet Train (2022) – Brad Pitt as an unlucky assassin.
- The Incident (1967) – Martin Sheen makes his cinematic debut as a rabble rouser threatening the passengers on a New York City commuter subway on a Friday night, which include Ed McMahon..
- Money Train (1995) – A down-on-his-luck New York City transit cop (Woody Harrelson) convinces his foster brother (Wesley Snipes) to rob the daily train carrying the commuter subways proceeds with the help of a fellow officer (Jennifer Lopez). Robert Blake and Chris Cooper also star.
- Kansas Pacific (1953) – Sterling Hayden stars in this story of attempts by Southern sympathizers prior to the Civil War to sabotage efforts to build a railroad across Kansas toward the West Coast.
- The Great Locomotive Chase (1956) – A year after Davy Crockett, Disney again cast Fess Parker and Jeff York (Mike Fink) to star in the true Civil War story of Union volunteers who went undercover for the Secret Service to make their way from Kentucky through Confederate territiory deep into Georgia to delay Confederate supplies and plans to marshall forces at the Union line near Memphis by hijacking a train and driving it to Tennessee, knocking out telegraph lines, train tracks and potentially bridges all along the way.
- Source Code (2011) – a future government covert agency thriller version of Groundhog Day on a Chicago commuter train starring Jake Gyllenhal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, and Jeffrey Wright.
- Murder on the Orient Express (2017) – Kenneth Branaugh’s remake of the Agatha Christie murder-mystery that occurs and is solved on a train ride, starring Branagh, Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Josh Gad, Leslie Odom Jr., Michelle Pfeiffer, and Daisy Ridley.
- The Tall Target (1951) – A New York detective (Dick Powell) is on his own aboard a train secretly carrying Abraham Lincoln to his inauguration to find out who is planning to assassinate the soon-to-be-President in Baltimore and thwart the supposedly real-life scheme.
- Twentieth Century (1934) – Almost entire second half of director Howard Hawks’ screwball comedy starring John Barrymore and Carole Lombard as combative showbiz lovers takes place on the iconic 20th Century Limited express from Chicago to New York City, though there are only a couple brief shots of the train itself with the rest mostly shot on studio sets of the inside of the train.
- Rails Into Laramie (1954) – A railroad agent trying to thwart efforts to stop the railroad from building its line into the area ultimately winds up with a train to Cheyenne barreling head first towards a passenger train, causing the agent to ride his horse to leap on board, shoot his way to the front, and try to reverse the train to avoid a collision..
Those 1980s films set in India
- Gandhi (1982) – Richard Attenborough’s 3-hr 10-min epic period/costume biography of the leader of the India Independence Movement starring Ben Kingsley, Candice Bergen, Edward Fox, John Gielgud, Trevor Howard, John Mills, and Martin Sheen.
- A Passage to India (1984) – David Lean’s nearly three-hour period/costume drama set during the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s, starring Judy Davis, Alec Guinness, Peggy Ashcroft, James Fox.
- Salaam Bombay! (1988) – a drama of the daily lives of children living near trains in the slums of India’s biggest city later renamed Mumbai.
- and the 21st century’s Slumdog Millionaire (2008) – Danny Boyle’s look at the life of a young boy (Dev Patel) reflecting while playing TV game show on how he and his brother survived by being thieves on the streets of Mumbai after the death of their mother.
Full steam ahead action train scenes
- The Lone Ranger (2013) – Gore Verbinski’s take on the masked hero of the Old West with Arnie Hammer and Johnny Depp.
- Back to the Future III (1990) – click title for 3 1/2-min of video hilites of the second sequel to the 1985 classic; this one taking place in the Old West.
- Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 (2023) – The final 45-minutes is one long train chase in the first of a two-part mission starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, and Henry Czerny.
- The (First) Great Train Robbery (1978) – Author-turned director Michael Crichton”s heist comedy based on the actual 1855 robbery of boxes of gold bullion, starring Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland and Lesley-Anne Down.
- Octopussy (1985) – Roger Moore’s penultimate 007 mission found him riding the rails again, this time in a car, as well as hanging underneath and on the side of a train car and running across the roof and jumping from car to car.
- Goldeneye (1995) – Pierce Brosnan got the 007 train experience in his first outing as James Bond.
- Solo (2018) – Stars Wars spinoff story of Han Solo origin starring Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandiwe Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Joonas Suotamo, and Paul Bettany, and featuring 10-min snowy mountain monorail scene near beginning.
- Spectre (2015) – Daniel Craig was back on a train for the third time in his first four 007 missions, this time finding romance and a big fight just as Connery had experienced 52 years earlier.
- Go West (1940) – The Marx Brothers hopped a train and executed some amazing stunts in their venture out west.
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) – To open the film with a bang, Steven Spielberg knew a train would do the trick, but it wasn’t Harrison Ford or his father played by Sean Connery who provided a wild adventure on the rails, but young Indiana Jones, played by River Phoenix.
- Narrow Margin (1990) – In this color remake Anne Archer is the woman who realizes that she’s in danger after witnessing a murder by a crime boss, and sneaks onto a train in Canada, and Gene Hackman is the man trying to protect her from the mobsters who are pursuing her without knowing what she looks like.
- The Narrow Margin (1952) – A mob boss’s widow carrying a payoff list of her murdered husband’s on a train from Chicago to Los Angeles to testify to a grand jury is pursued by mobster hitmen who don’t know what she looks like while being guarded by a detective.
- Once Upon a Time in the West (1969) – The ranch inherited by a newly-widowed mail-order bride (Claudia Cardinale) sparks several showdown gunfights among bandits and rival outlaws, including Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, and Henry Fonda as a ruthless villain in this Sergio Leone Western in which trains play a pivotal role.
- Young Tom Edison (1969) – Mickey Rooney plays the young problem-causing inventor who peddles food and snacks on trains, sets up a printing press in a baggage car where he causes a fire, and becomes a hero when he uses the train’s engine whistle to send Morse code to warn an oncoming train that the looming railroad bridge is out.
- The Station Agent (2003) – Peter Dinklage plays a train aficionado who inherits an abandoned rural train depot that he makes his home, triggering the meeting of several new friends that impact his life and theirs..
Nice brief train moments
- Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) – A train was one of the multiple modes of problematic transportation for Steve Martin and John Candy in this John Hughes holiday classic, but ultimately it was another train that saved the day.
- The Great Race (1965) – Dastardly Jack Lemmon and Peter Falk took fatefully to the rails as one of many illegal methods they tried to use to defeat squeaky-clean Tony Curtis and his eye-fluttering damsel Natalie Wood.
- The Great Escape (1963) – a train becomes one of several key elements of the massive escape of prisoners of war.
- Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974) – A train is responsible for one of the most shocking, sudden and dramatic endings in cinema in this Peter Fonda film that is otherwise an exciting car chase from beginning to end.
- Live and Let Die (1973) – Jane Seymour unexpectedly has to compete for Bond’s attention in their private train car berth.
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- The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) – Barbara Bach as Anya Amasova had the same kind of romantic experience with Bond on a train that Solitaire enjoyed four years earlier – their rhythm was interrupted by the metal-toothed Jaws just as Tee Hee disrupted Solitaire and Bond.
… - Anna Karenina (1935) – Traveling by train through Russia to smooth things over between her philandering brother and his Princess wife, Anna meets a man with whom she cheats on her own husband, and also witnesses a horrible tragic accident on the tracks at a train station, both of which cause her emotional distress in this MGM adaptation of the classic Leo Tolstoy story starring Greta Garbo, Fredric March, Basil Rathbone, and Maureen O’Sullivan.
… - Anna Karenina (2012) – Traveling by train through Russia to smooth things over between her philandering brother and his Princess wife, Anna meets a man with whom she cheats on her own husband, and also witnesses a horrible tragic accident on the tracks at a train station, both of which cause her emotional distress in this British adaptation by Tom Stoppard starring Keira Knightley.
… - Death Wish (1974) – Charles Bronson stars in the very successful vigilante movie in which he takes on would-be muggers on a New York subway.
… - Saturday Night Fever (1977) – Neighborhood disco dance king John Travolta needs some time alone, so he rides the New York subways to clear his head after a wild and tragic night with friends and girls.
… - A Hard Day’s Night (1964) – Even The Beatles find a moment of solace on a train.
… - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) – One of cinema’s greatest-ever cinematographers Roger Deakins lights and filmed the approach of a train = the tracks, wooded area in the fog, and a lantern – like no one else.
… - The Music Man (1962) – The rhythmic sounds and movement of a train are blended to ingenious musical perfection, providing the perfect vehicle to introduce the flim-flam salesman Professor Harold Hill .
… - Asteroid City (2023) – Director Wes Anderson loves to use trains to set the scene for his always-visually dazzling films.
… - Collateral (2004) – When an L.A. cab driver (Jamie Foxx) realizes that his hitman customer (Tom Cruise) is targeting a federal prosecutor (Jada Pinkett Smith) whom he met earlier in his cab, he tries to save the woman by hiding on a metro rail train as the now-wounded assassin chases them.
… - Enemy of the State (1998) – Train movie Unbreakable director Tony Scott also created an exciting sequence with Will Smith and Gene Hackman at a freight train yard in this political action thriller.
… - The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) – The Cecille B. DeMille film depicting life in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, starring Betty Hutton, Cornel Wilde, Charlton Heston, James Stewart, Dorothy Lamour, and Gloria Grahame, was the first film seen by Steven Spielberg, with the train crash scene being one of his inspirations to make movies.
… - Strangers on a Train (1951) – Hitchcock makes his cameo while returning to a train to establish the set-up of this suspense drama that begins when a psychopath proposes a plan to a fellow passenger that they should each murder someone for the other’s benefit.
.. - East of Eden (1955) – In one of just three movies starring James Dean, he hops a freight train in California as he deals with his father whom he struggles to please, his estranged mother who owns a brothel, and his brother whose girlfriend he falls for.
… - Cat Ballou (1965) – Jane Fonda’s pursuit of the gunman who killed her father with the help of handsome bandit Michael Callan and “Uncle” Dwayne HIckman leads to a chase on a train in this award-winnning comedy starring drunken gunslinger and hosted/narrated by musical storytellers Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye.
… - The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) – a train ride to a familiar beach with romantic memories for an estranged couple (Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet) that have had their memories erased, triggers new experiences and maybe happier memories.
… - The Girl on the Train (2016) – Emily Blunt stars in this mystery psychological thriller as a recovering divorced and out-of-work alcoholic who grows dangerously agitated by her daily fleeting observations of her ex-husband’s new home life during her commuter train ride.
… - Shanghai Noon (2000) – A bumbling Imperial Guard of the Forbidden City in China in 1881 who is intent taking over the mission to rescue a princess who fled to the United States with her tutor, first uses martial arts to take on a gang of train bandits in Nevada, uncouples the train cars and escapes on the engine. (Click here for 65-sec video hilites)
- A Little Romance (1979) – A train to Venice plays a critical role in the fulfilment of the quest of a young French boy and American girl (Diane Lane) to ensure their romantic future in this brilliant and lovely film by acclaimed filmmaker George Roy Hill, co-starring Sir Laurence Olivier.
… - Batman Begins (2005) – young Bruce Wayne gets a ride on the futuristic new train through gleaming Gotham before everything turns dark in this Christopher Nolan origin story.
… - Throw Momma from the Train (1987) – the plan of two writers to take inspiration from Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (see above) goes awry when one (Billy Crystal) tries to eliminate the cantankerous overbearing mother of the other (Danny DeVito in his directing debut).
… - The Grey Fox (1983) – Former stuntman Richard Farnsworth stars in this true story of an Old West train robber in Canada.
… - A League of Their Own (1992) – Two young sisters in Oregon (Geena Davis and Lori Petty) in 1943 run to jump on a train as it is pulling away in order to follow a baseball scout (Jon Lovitz) to Chicago in this story of the formation of a women’s baseball league during World War II, also starring Tom Hanks, Madonna, Rosie O’Donnell, and others.
- Picnic (1956) – A vagrant (William Holden) jumps off a freight train box car in a small Kansas town to visit a fraternity friend, where he winds up in scandal and romance before jumping back on a freight train box car to leave town.
- Downton Abbey (2019) – An impressive early 20th-century steam train leaving the station in London and traveling through the beautiful countryside to Yorkshire sets the stage for the first big-screen version of the popular TV series.
… - Night Train to Paris (1964) – A New Year’s Eve party train from London to Paris by way of a ferry boat serves as the setting for this black-and-white spy film starring Leslie Nielsen.
… - The Train Robbers (1973) – A beautiful woman (Ann-Marget) arrives in an Old West town by train to meet a man (John Wayne) who has agreed to take her to find the gold her dead husband stole and left on a wrecked train in the desert, or at least that’s her story.
… - 3:10 to Yuma (1957) – Glenn Ford and Van Heflin star in this Elmore Leonard story about a rancher and an outlaw in the Old West, which builds to a confrontation at an arriving train destined for a prison at the end of the movie.
… - 3:10 to Yuma (2007) – Russell Crowe and Christian Bale star in this James Mangold remake of the 1957 Western that builds the entire movie to a showdown when a critical train arrives in town.
… - Brief Encounter (1945) – David Lean’s British black-and-white adaptation of Noël Coward’s one-act romantic drama play starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard revolves around two people unhappy in their marriages who come together due to their regular train rides.
… - Casino Royale (2006) – Daniel Craig came out of the station in his first outing as British secret agent James Bond with an electric verbal exchange on a train with a beautiful partner.
… - Before Sunrise (1995) – Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy star in Richard Linklater’s romantic drama about a young couple whose meeting on a Eurail train leads to a life-changing relationship.
… - At the Circus (1939) – Chico recruits Groucho to come on board a circus train to help him recover the money he was going to save the circus, including performer Harpo, from closing down..
… - White Christmas (1954) – A pair of singers (Bing Crosby/Danny Kaye) lose their beds on a train to another pair of singers (Rosemary Clooney/Vera-Ellen) and rehearse a quartet holiday song on their way to stage a holiday benefit show for their former commander.
… - Human Desire (1954) – When one volatile railroad employee (Broderick Crawford) is fired and takes out his jealous vengeance on his boss (Grandon Rhodes), the man’s wife (Gloria Grahame) decides to seduce his former co-worker train conductor (Glenn Ford) in order to get him to kill her husband, but her plot backfires while on a train journey.
… - Nickelodeon (1976) – An attorney (Ryan O’Neal) and gunslinger (Burt Reynolds) who board a train when they are hired to stop an illegal silent film production wind up directing and starring in the movie themselves which includes a dramatic final scene atop the train before they both fall for the same movie starlet (Jane Hitchcock).
… - The Harvey Girls (1946) – The classic song The Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe is the big showcase number on a train in this film named after the famous restaurant starring Judy Garland and Angela Lansbury.
… - Ride ’em Cowboy – Abbott and Costello (1942) – Two peanut vendors on the run from their boss get jobs as cowboys on a dude ranch.
… - In the Heat of the Night (1967) – Black Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs rides into tiny Sparta Mississippi on a train during the opening credits to the theme sung by Ray Charles, is quickly suspected of murder by the local racist police chief, clears himself and another innocent suspect, and then partners with the chief to track down the real killer, before leaving on the same train in a much more contemplative manner during the closing credits and reprise of song by Charles.
… - Last Train from Gun Hill (1959) – A classic Western steam train, complete with cattle catcher on the front, plays a pivotal role in this movie about a U.S. Marshall (Kirk Douglas) who tracks down the son (Earl Holliman) of a wealthy cattle rancher (Anthony Quinn) when the son rapes and murders his Native American wife (Ziva Rodann).
… - The Hucksters (1949) – Eager to prove himself after being hired at an advertising agency, Vic Norman (Clark Gable) boards a cross-country train to Hollywood with a talent agent and enlists his former flame, a torch singer (Ava Gardner), to help him manipulate the agent into signing a contract with his new comic actor client.
… About 50 of the many other brief train appearances in movies
- Anna Karenina (1948-1997)
- A River Runs Through It (1993)
- Back Roads (1981)
- Big Jake (1971)
- Bound for Glory (1976)
- Boxcar Bertha (1972)
- Bridge of Spies (2015)
- Calamity Jane (1953)
- Cat People (1982)
- The Clock (1945)
- Dead Man (1996)
- Duel (1971)
- Face of a Fugitive (1959)
- The Flim-Flam Man (1967)
- The Fury (1978)
- The Getaway (1994) – remake with Alec Baldwin, Kim Bassinger
- Get Carter (1971)
- Going Home (1971)
- The Gypsy Moths (1969)
- Harry Angel (1987)
- Harry and Tonto (1974)
- Home Alone (1990)
- The Horse Soldiers (1959)
- The Hustler (1961)
- King Solomon’s Mines (1985)
- The Living Daylights (1989) – see Bond franchise movie hilites above
- National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985)
- Night Train to Lisbon (2013)
- No Time to Die (2021)
- On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) – see Bond franchise movie hilites above
- Outsourced (2007)
- Red River (1948)
- Sliding Doors (1998)
- Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)
- Striking Distance (1993)
- Switchback (1997)
- The Third Man (1949)
- This Property is Condemned (1966)
- Trading Places (1983)
- Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)
- U.S. Marshalls (1998)
- Weird Science (1985)
- Wild Boys of the Road (1933)
- Without a Clue (1988)
- Wrongfully Accused (1998)
- You Only Live Twice (1967) – see Bond franchise movie hilites above
Movies where trains are prominent but mostly obviously digital or rear-screen
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- 1946 The Harvey Girls
- 1999 Night Train – Danny Glover
- 2019 D-railed
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Bonus TV train Christmas movie exceptions
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- The Christmas Train (2017) – Hallmark Hall of Fame magical romance cross-country train ride starring Dermot Mulroney, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Joan Cusack, and Danny Glover as a famous movie director.
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- This is Christmas (2022) – An idealistic young man who rides a London commuter train every day with the same fellow passengers who never talk to each other, decides to throw a Christmas party for all of them, which leads to multiple inspiring connections in this wide-screen two-hour Sky Cinema/MGM movie.
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— By Scott Hettrick