December Movie Marathon: Trains

Every year for the past few, I've been making a point of using December to watch one film within a certain genre. I've done indie sci-fi (twice!), spy stories, cons and heists... but this year, I'm going with a unifying element instead: Trains. Why trains? Well, on the one hand, I have a friend who loves trains and talks about them often. Her ears perk up when there's talk of a train movie, she plays train-themed board games, etc. So it's something that was kind of floating around, waiting to be grabbed. And I can honestly say I LIKE train-themed movies. The steaming pressure cooker of putting your characters in a closed yet moving environment. Or perhaps they're outside, trying to get in, but the plot just won't stop for them. Indeed, one of the problems I had in coming up with a list of 31 train-driven films is that I've seen and enjoyed several in the past year already, and I'm not ready to revisit most of them: Strangers on a Train, The Lady Vanishes, the '74 version of Murder on the Orient Express, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Train to Busan, The Commuter, The First Great Train Robbery... I try to put as many films I've NEVER seen on the list as I can, but I haven't necessarily been shy about revisiting movies when I need to. There are probably half a dozen films I've seen before that made their way to the list anyway.

As usual, I've tried to create broad daily categories to keep things moving:

Saturdays: BLOOD ON THE TRACKS
La bête humaine
Lady on a Train
The Narrow Margin
Silver Streak
Terror by Night

Sundays: LOCO LOCOMOTIVES
Galaxy Express 999
Horror Express
The Signalman
Sleepless
Source Code (rewatch)

Mondays: EXOTIC LOCALES
Darjeeling Ltd. (rewatch)
Dr. Zhivago
Shanghai Express
Transsiberian
Sin Nombre

Tuesdays: SNOWED UNDER
Murder on the Orient Express (2017, rewatch)
The Polar Express (on Christmas day)
Runaway Train
Snowpiercer (rewatch)

Wednesdays: THE RAILWAY MUSEUM
The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat and The Great Train Robbery (1903) double-feature
The General
The Great Locomotive Chase
Trans-Europ-Express

Thursdays: DERAILED!
The Bullet Train
Moebius
Plains, Trains and Automobiles (rewatch)
Unstoppable

Fridays: TRAIN WARS
Night Train to Munich
The Train
Train de vie
Von Ryan's Express

All aboard! Catch the action on Twitter and on each subsequent Sunday, and if you're good, I might even draw a map of all the tracks we traveled together.