The only thing more romantic than meeting on a train is saying goodbye at a train station. Let’s pay homage to the most romantic train scenes in film and television, starting with three that came out in 2025.
Trains are a secret sauce for romances of all shapes and sizes. Why is that, you wonder? Could it be that they’re public spaces and force characters who wouldn’t normally act into confined spaces? The odds of having a meet-cute on a train feel high. Even if you’re not the type to chat up a stranger, I bet you’ve thought about it while people watching on public transit. As for train goodbyes, I think it’s the inflexibility of a departure time and a track. It adds stakes and a sense of destiny. You have to relinquish control to something bigger than yourself (the train), and that can be romantic in itself.
Trains are also a little old-fashioned, in a romantic way, whether a story is set in modern times or a hundred years ago. What can I say? Ground transportation makes things feel grounded. There are some great books with this theme too, like Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop for example. But let’s focus on the imagery in film and television first.
Eternity (2025)
The pre-afterlife “junction” that serves as a setting for the love triangle that should be a throuple in Eternity is a train station. The recently deceased are given a few days to choose a final destination. I don’t want to give too much away, as this is a new film. But one of my favorite scenes between Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) and Larry (Miles Teller) takes place in front of one of said trains. It’s romantic and unexpected with the ticking clock that is a train departure looming in the background.
The Summer I Turned Pretty (2022-2025)
The Summer I Turned Pretty would not have done right by its romantic comedy roots had it not included someone running through an airport or train station of some kind. To my train romance-loving delight, they went with the latter. Belly’s (Lola Tung) frantic, luggage-free dash to tell Conrad (Christopher Briney) she loves him on the train in the middle of the night was romantic and cathartic all at once.
She’s allowing herself to follow her heart. She has a navigational mastery of Paris that she did not have a year prior. She willingly boards an international train without a passport or a ticket. So she’s clearly also confident enough to handle some uncertainty in the name of love. Belly has grown up in more ways than one.
Severance (2022-)
One of 2025’s most romantic train scenes was actually devastating. Burt (Christopher Walken) not getting on the train with Irving (John Turturro) on Severance proved why it’s powerful when they do get on the train. These two men, whose innies had a secret romance at Lumen, are drawn to each other in their outie life even though they don’t remember each other.
At the end of season 2, Burt drives Irving to a train station and urges him to get out of town. Irv more or less asks Burt to run away with him. He leans in to kiss him. But Burt’s not ready and they part ways. Every time the couple doesn’t get on the train makes you appreciate the times when they do.
Brief Encounter (1945)
Much of David Lean’s film, in which a woman recants a short-lived extramarital affair to her husband, takes place at a train station. It’s where Laura (Celia Johnson) and Alec (Trevor Howard) first meet. It’s also where each goodbye is more painful than the last. Trains are so important as they continuously come together and break apart.
The film’s secondary romance takes place at the train station too, between two employees flirting in secret. There’s never been so much sexual tension and so many unsaid feelings in one train station refreshment room.
Before Sunrise (1995)
For a decent number of millennials and Gen Xers, at least, the fantasy that you’ll meet the love of your life on the train can be traced back to Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise. Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delphy) strike up a conversation on a train about a couple they saw fighting.
Like a train charging ahead, they don’t stop talking. Then, the pair’s decision to get off the train and spend the day in Vienna together represents a break in their life’s routine. Love can, and should be, spontaneous! It doesn’t hurt that the European countryside views from the train are so romantic all by themselves.
Run (2020)
Once upon a time, there was a show on HBO Max about a former couple (Merritt Wever and Domhnall Gleeson) who made a pact in college to be each other’s escape valve in their post-breakup future. The plan? Text “RUN” and, if the other responds “RUN” as well, meet at Grand Central Station in New York City for a cross-country getaway.
Seventeen years later, they make good on that arrangement. The limited series started out so strong and so sexy. Unfortunately, it did eventually go off the rails–pun intended–in a bad way! Regardless, Run understood the railway romance assignment. They made Amtrak hot, like, come on!
Weekend (2011)
Over a decade before Andrew Haigh made the devastating All Of Us Strangers, he made this quiet romantic drama. It stars Tom Cullen and Chris New as two gay men at different stages in life. Their characters have a brief encounter of their own, sealed by a whopper of a train station goodbye.
The setting represents a place where lovers might publicly declare affection, something that one of the two struggles with in the film. It also puts a time limit on verbalizing and expressing feelings in general. You can’t wait for the right time when the train’s coming.
While You Were Sleeping (1995)
I, for one, will defend the wackadoo premise of this 90s romantic comedy. For the uninitiated, Sandra Bullock’s character Lucy works for the Chicago Transit Authority and saves the life of a commuter she’s been crushing on for months when he gets pushed onto the tracks. So maybe she doesn’t correct a nurse at the hospital who overhears her mutter “I was gonna marry him” and thinks she’s his actual fiancée and not just yearning dramatically.
Is it so bad that Lucy, albeit reluctantly, goes along with it when his family welcomes her with open arms? Can we forgive her for falling in love with his brother? It all works out in the end, and her happy ending begins right at the train station where everything started.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
Damien Chazelle’s two bittersweet musicals Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench and La La Land were inspired by French director Jacques Demy and this film in particular. His don’t have any trains, though. Tsk tsk! The Umbrellas of Cherbourg not only has a romantic train goodbye, but it’s a whole song! Just the way that Guy (Nino Castelnuovo) leans out the door as he says/sings goodbye to Geneviève (Catherine Deneuve) is perfect.
Desert Hearts (1985)
I really, really don’t want to give away what happens in the train goodbye scene at the end of Desert Hearts. I genuinely believe that it is a perfect ending worth experiencing fresh. But in order to explain why it deserves a place on this list, I must spoil the ending of this 40+ year old film, so scroll quickly if you want to take my word for it and see for yourself.
When Vivian (Helen Shaver) asks Cay (Patricia Charbonneau) to get on the train to New York with her, she’s not asking her to run away with her. It’s not a marriage proposal. She’s just asking for 40 more minutes until the next stop. Sure, they’ll probably keep going. But the point is that opening your heart to someone else doesn’t need to be perfect or grand or forever. It just needs to be. The train is such a good vessel for that kind of revelation about love and what it means to be alive.
Modern Love (2019-2021)
While I can’t say I approve of all of the Covid-19 safety protocol in “Stranger on a (Dublin) Train,” the episode of Modern Love Season 2 starring Kit Harrington and Lucy Boynton, I applaud the effort. To be fair, the story is set in the very early days of 2020. We didn’t know any better! We thought things would be back to normal in a manner of weeks instead of years.
It’s also a little bit of musical, written by Sing Street and Once‘s own John Carney. Lockdown made meeting new people outside of the internet almost impossible. So the connection that Kit and Lucy’s characters make feels so vital and important.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Due to some clever non-linear storytelling, the full significance of Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet) meeting on a train to Montauk is not revealed until the end of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. But the implication is as romantic as it gets. Again, watch out, because I’m about to spoil a 20+ year old film.
One day after Joel erases the memory of his ex-girlfriend Clementine, who has done the same to him, the two of them meet on the Long Island Railroad. They unknowingly rekindle their romance fresh. The love between them is so strong that they will seemingly always find each other, even on a train.
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
I remember Elio (Timothée Chalamet) crying in his mom’s car in Call Me By Your Name so viscerally that I sometimes forget that he and Oliver (Armie Hammer) say goodbye at a train station first. It’s almost cold, especially compared to some of the other examples on this list, which makes it all the more heartbreaking. But not unfeeling.
They actually don’t say anything at all. Their goodbye is a wordless, lingering, complicated hug. Elio doesn’t run after him, but the way he stands still until the train has completely passed him hurts. The whole encounter is so overwhelming that Elio has to sit in the station by himself for quite a while before he’s ready to return to reality and call for a ride. Relatable!
Casablanca (1992)
Finally, while half of the couple does not physically appear in this Casablanca flashback scene, it absolutely counts as a romantic train scene. It’s one of the most dramatic breakups committed to film. Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) was supposed to run away with Rick (Humphrey Bogart), but decides against it at the last minute. Sam (Dooley Wilson) hands Rick a note telling him that she loves him, but is not coming, and to forgive her.
The rain hits Ilsa’s note like so man tears. Rick leans against the train door as it takes him away, heartbroken, defeated, and cynical. It’s an absolute gut punch. This train in particular takes Rick and Sam out of Nazi occupation to to safety in Casablanca. The stakes really could not be higher.
(featured: Warner Bros./A24/Sony Pictures Classic/Caravan Pictures/ Columbia Pictures)
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