How Train Dreams winning the 2026 Oscar for best picture could help spread its most vital message

There is a tranquility in Clint Bentley’s best picture nominee that feels entirely at odds with the clangour of modern America. Set in the early years of the 20th century, the meditative drama tells the tale of a railroad labourer grappling with life’s most existential questions, considering his lowly standing in a world that swells around him. An introspective ballad to the wonder of life’s ephemerality, Train Dreams is the ideal antidote to the desolation of late-stage capitalism.

A stirring celebration of what it means to be alive while sharing similarities with the "great frontier" of classic western cinema, this should be the kind of film that the Academy laps up like a savoury hors d'oeuvre. But, this is not a film made for lovers of mythical gunslingers or elaborate heists in windswept dustbowls — this is a different kind of romance — an impassioned ode to God’s lonely souls, trying to find the breadth to flourish in the face of affliction.

Based on Denis Johnson’s novella of the same name, Bentley’s film is a similar miniature epic that tails Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a man who earns his way felling forests and constructing a grand railroad in its place. A pensive introvert, Grainier finds more kinship in the soaring pine trees than in his ragtag co-workers, though glimmers of companionship are offered in the form of like-minded labourers such as William H. Macy’s Arn.

His tumultuous, industrious life in the forest contrasts nicely with the haven he has created back home, where his wife Gladys (Felicity Jones) and young daughter thrive. Existing in an almost ethereal paradise that is submerged in the same sun-soaked cinematography of a Terrence Malick landscape, the home effortlessly cohabits with the surrounding environment and the family abide by the self-same chaotic forces of nature.

Without warning, their lives are upended by tragedy and their paradise crumbles, leaving Grainier to find meaning in the ash that’s left behind. It’s a devastating tale that unfolds with gorgeous meditation, looking into how one navigates profound ruin with the resilience necessary to rebuild again from the bottom-up. Wondrous and inspiring, it’s an ode to the true meaning of the resolute American Dream.

Such is why Train Dreams resonates so deeply in the midst of contemporary times and would make an apt choice for the best picture statuette, offering a calm reverie of true spiritual prosperity that acts in opposition to the idea of contemporary capitalist glory. Neither money, nor material wealth, is championed in this tale. Instead, the beauty of the wild, and humanity’s innate and inextricable attachment to it is the focus.

This was clearly something the lead actor ruminated about, with Edgerton explaining to Radio Times that he was often struck by how often he needed to remind himself "how disconnected I can be from the planet that I live on". "Human beings, we use the planet," he added, "we really use it, and we chew it up, rather than, as indigenous cultures do, feel like they belong to the land. There's a lot of things that really felt very potent to me, that I felt struck a chord."

As climate change continues to change the shape of our planet and AI threatens the makeup of our very existence, never has it felt so crucial to, both literally and metaphorically, touch grass. By awarding Train Dreams their most prestigious prize, the Academy could underscore the importance of such personal introspection and connection with the natural world during such a tumultuous era that has seemingly forgotten the significance of such virtues.

Though it may not seem like it on the outside, the film makes the perfect companion piece with Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme, with both films singing from different pages of the American Dream. So too is it thematic siblings with Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, as both harness the near-mythological beauty of the natural world to punctuate their passionate pleas of grief and resilience.

Yet, Train Dreams certainly stands as its own epic, differentiating itself from the other nine best picture nominees through its sheer earnestness, pursuing a philosophical meaning to existence with the same impassioned quietude as a late-night campfire conversation. It is executed with delicate precision too, with cinematographer Adolpho Veloso managing to achieve the impossible by making digital film-making look remarkably like the grain and vivid depth of celluloid.

A win in the cinematography category is its most likely success, as while the film is worthy of a best picture statuette, it seems to be languishing behind the pack. Yet, handing Train Dreams the main prize would be an astute choice for the Academy, particularly if they want to be seen as championing the industry’s most exciting upcoming creatives — Bentley and his co-writer Greg Kwedar just last year enjoyed critical and commercial success with the excellent Sing Sing.

Doing so would broaden the film’s modest popularity, making its pertinent message of human resilience and connection in a turbulent world more widespread — and that can only ever be a good thing.

Train Dreams is available to stream on Netflix.

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