Movie · 1964 · War, Thriller · 2h 13m · NR · English
Curator score: 9.0/10 (21.8K ratings)
It carried their hopes, their nation's honour!
Overview
As the Allied forces approach Paris in August 1944, German Colonel Von Waldheim is desperate to take all of France's greatest paintings to Germany. He manages to secure a train to transport the valuable art works even as the chaos of retreat descends upon them. The French resistance however wants to stop them from stealing their national treasures but have received orders from London that they are not to be destroyed. The station master, Labiche, is tasked with scheduling the train and making it all happen smoothly but he is also part of a dwindling group of resistance fighters tasked with preventing the theft. He and others stage an elaborate ruse to keep the train from ever leaving French territory.
Ratings
Curator score: 9.0/10
IMDb: 7.8/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 94%
Metacritic: 80
TMDB: 7.6/10
Director
John Frankenheimer
Production
Les Productions Artistes Associés, Les Films Ariane, Dear Film, United Artists, Polyphony Digital, Vides Cinematografica
Cast
Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, Jeanne Moreau, Suzanne Flon, Michel Simon, Wolfgang Preiss, Albert Rémy, Charles Millot, Richard Münch, Jean-Pierre Zola, Jacques Marin, Paul Bonifas, Jean Bouchaud, Donald O'Brien, Arthur Brauss, Jean-Claude Bercq, Howard Vernon, Louis Falavigna, Richard Bailey, Christian Fuin
Where to watch
fuboTV, MGM Plus, Philo
Curator Review
Verdict
A taut, old-school war thriller with unusually tactile action, real machinery, and a sharp moral center about art, resistance, and sacrifice. It’s both a suspense film and a physical spectacle, with a modern feel in its staging and momentum.
Best for
fans of practical-effects action
viewers who like WWII resistance stories
train-movie enthusiasts
people drawn to morally complex wartime dilemmas
fans of tense, procedural thrillers
Skip if
you want fast-cut contemporary action
you prefer character-driven war dramas over plot mechanics
you’re not interested in black-and-white era filmmaking
you dislike long stretches of logistical cat-and-mouse tension
Overview
John Frankenheimer turns a wartime theft plot into something lean, muscular, and almost industrial in its precision. The movie is full of motion, noise, smoke, and steel, but it never loses sight of the human cost underneath the machinery. That balance gives it a rare charge: it plays like a thriller, but it lands like a moral argument.
Worth noting
What makes it endure is the physicality. Real trains, real destruction, real danger — the film’s action has weight because the world around it feels lived-in and dangerous. Burt Lancaster gives the resistance effort a hard, pragmatic energy, while Paul Scofield makes the Nazi obsession with art feel chillingly specific rather than cartoonish.
Bottom line
The movie’s smartest move is refusing to treat cultural treasure as more important than human life, even while acknowledging why the art matters. That tension gives the final stretch real bite. It’s a classic of large-scale craftsmanship, but also a grim reminder that heroism is often just organized damage control.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Patrick Willems (4★) · 823 likes
Every action movie is better with train sequences and this has a lot of train sequences (it’s called The Train)
matt lynch (5★) · 759 likes
"You talk about the war, I'll talk about what it costs."
Proves itself by barely discussing the precious art (mostly a series of names hastily painted on crates), but you see almost every single life lost for it at the very moment of sacrifice.
Nor are people's lives some exalted abstract. Their worth isn't a platitude. their sweat is their value, their labor in every way the equal of that which might go into any painting. Watch Lancaster, in a… more
Josh Lewis (5★) · 574 likes
I have a running theory that the truest, purest capital-C cinema is really just any movie that prominently features a train—both literally and symbolically. Anyway by that measure this is the best movie of all time. At one point two real trains crash into each other and it's not even the most impressive, large-scale destruction Franekenheimer shoots in this inky, perfectly-composed ode to the tangible mechanics of history (drawn in natural landscapes vs. steel, oil, soot, and steam) and the… more I have a running theory that the truest, purest capital-C cinema is really just any movie that prominently features a train—both literally and symbolically. Anyway by that measure this is the best movie of all time. At one point two real trains crash into each other and it's not even the most impressive, large-scale destruction Franekenheimer shoots in this inky, perfectly-composed ode to the tangible mechanics of history (drawn in natural landscapes vs. steel, oil, soot, and steam) and the… more
Xebeche (5★) · 569 likes
The phrase "you could never make this movie today" does not even begin to encapsulate the enormity of The Train. You could never make this movie in 1964.
Burt Lancaster walks across the train yard from the switch tower to his houseboat. The movie does not demand a flawlessly orchestrated background of shifting artillery vessels, marching soldiers, construction crews, smoke, and sparks. Anyone in their right mind would say, "Hey, can we not? Let's just have him entering the houseboat."… more
Christopher McQuarrie · 466 likes
“You talk about the war. I talk about what it costs.”
John Frankenheimer’s extraordinarily crafted thriller about rail workers of the French resistance in the days before the liberation of Paris. A groundbreaking practical action film decades ahead of its time, with genuine substance and powerfully understated performances from Burt Lancaster and Paul Schofield, it deftly conceals a meditation on the value of art weighed against the value of human life.
1963 · Comedy, Mystery, Romance · 1h 53m · NR · Curator 8.5/10 (289K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, Philo, Pure Flix, Amazon Prime Video with Ads, Bloodstream
A stylish, mid-century thriller with espionage flavor, movement through public spaces, and a polished sense of danger.
Topics
WWII, war thriller, resistance, art heist, practical effects, train action, occupation, sabotage, moral dilemma, classic cinema