Trains on film

The drama of train travel, with its power and speed, sweeping landscapes and claustrophobic interiors, has long attracted film-makers. Here are five of the best films about trains currently available to stream online:

The Lady Vanishes

Leavening high tension with comedy and romance, Hitchcock’s 1938 thriller hinges on the disappearance of an old lady (May Whitty) on a train from eastern Europe. Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood are the plucky passengers trying to solve the mystery; Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne are hilarious as cricketobsessed Englishmen abroad.

Murder on the Orient

Express

Sidney Lumet’s starstudded 1974 adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel is the best of several versions. Albert Finney takes the part of Hercule Poirot, while the suspects include Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, John Gielgud and Vanessa Redgrave.

The Titfield Thunderbolt

Charles Crichton directed this delightful 1953 Ealing comedy about a community fighting to keep a branch line open by running their own trains. Stanley Holloway is their wealthy backer, while Sid James is one of a trio determined to thwart them.

Night Mail

A masterpiece of documentary film-making, this 1936 short focuses on a postal train from London to Glasgow. The final sequence, with music by Benjamin Britten and a verse narrative written by W.H. Auden to match the train’s rhythm, is magnificent.

The Train

John Frankenheimer’s 1964 movie stars Burt Lancaster as a Resistance leader trying to stop a Wehrmacht colonel (Paul Scofield) moving a consignment of stolen art treasures from France to Germany. Jeanne Moreau plays the courageous widow who pitches in.