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On the same day the 2026 Sundance Film Festival kicked off, the Academy this morning announced an impressive four nominations for one of last year’s most memorable success stories. Directed by Clint Bentley, who co-wrote it with Greg Kwedar, Train Dreams — the decades-spanning story of a rural logger played by Joel Edgerton — is the little automotive that could, finding its way into the Best Picture race as well as receiving well deserved nods for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography (for Brazil’s Adolpho Veloso) and Best Original Song (for Bryce Dessner and Nick Cave’s haunting title number). The recognition pays off a year of hard work, which began with a high-profile acquisition by Netflix and took the team on a world tour as one of 2025’s festival favorites.
Deadline spoke to Bentley and Veloso shortly after the news broke…
DEADLINE: Where were you both when you heard the news?
VELOSO: You go first, Clint.
BENTLEY: I’m at home in Dallas, and my wife and I got together with two of our closest friends. We got some champagne, and we were like, “We’re going to celebrate either way, whatever happens today.” So, we got together and watched the telecast, and I cried through most of it and then I FaceTimed Adolpho. Adolpho’s in Lisbon right now.
VELOSO: Yeah. I live in Lisbon now, and I was super nervous. And I was super-happy in the first part of the broadcast because Clint and Greg’s names came up. And then, suddenly, they announced a break, and I was like, “Are you kidding me? Why do you need a break? This thing is 10 minutes long. [Laughs] But I couldn’t be happier. It’s amazing, and, yeah, we FaceTimed. So, basically, the whole crew got to celebrate. I just bought a ticket to Brazil, because I was like, “I don’t want to stay here in Lisbon. I need to go celebrate with my family and friends.” So, tomorrow morning, I’m on the first flight.
DEADLINE: When did you first realize this film was touching people?
BENTLEY: I just want to say something. We never thought that it would go this far, right? But even from the script stage, it touched people. And even while we were working on it, I think a lot of us were very moved by the film, and it spoke to a lot of people in different ways, even then. Sundance was very beautiful. Not only did we have a great premiere, but a lot of people came up in the Q&A afterwards and were just in tears, talking about how they understood their grandmother better, or they understood their father better. It was resonating with people even then. I don’t want to speak for everybody, but I don’t think any of us thought we’d be here this morning having these conversations, but it resonated with people early on in a really beautiful way.
DEADLINE: Adolpho, what are your memories of this journey?
VELOSO: Oh my God. I feel like it’s hard to say, because we had no idea. There were so many moments when I was like, “Oh my God, this project is special.” I feel like the first thing was when I got the script, and I was completely in love with what Clint and Greg wrote. And also, every single piece of news that we would get, I would be more confident and nervous at the same time, because suddenly they would tell me, “Oh, Joel Edgerton is attached.” And then I would be nervous because it’s like, “OK, it’s a good script, a good director, a good actor. If everything goes wrong, it’s probably my fault because everything else is amazing.” I needed to be the one not messing everything up! So, I had a feeling that the project was special, but it’s such a small movie also. It’s such a small fish against or all the other big fishes.
DEADLINE: Even though it’s an American movie, it does feel international, in a way. I wonder whether you’d agree with that, whether it has maybe a European aesthetic. In a funny way, it feels like Train Dreams belongs with Sentimental Value, The Secret Agent and Sirāt. I don’t know if you would agree with me there.
BENTLEY: You just made my day, man. Thank you. No, I mean, even from Jockey, I think [it’s clear that] I’m very inspired by American films, but equally — if not more — inspired by what we call international films — Japanese films and Iranian films. And so, yeah, this film was inspired as much by Kiarostami and Tarkovsky as it was by any American films.
And I think that’s something that I love about working with Adolpho and I think is very special. It’s a measure of an approach that I couldn’t quite articulate for you, one that marries these approaches to making a movie that you would normally find in international films but marrying that with old Hollywood style of camera movements and things that you’d maybe see more in a John Ford film or Douglas Sirk film that we get excited about. Marrying those two things together without it feeling all over the place is an approach that Adolfo and I have developed from one film to the next, and we’re just trying to figure out where we can take it from here.
DEADLINE: The passing of time is what makes it unusual for an American movie; it’s very subtly portrayed.
BENTLEY: Well, we wanted it to feel like not a record of a life, but a dream of a life and a memory of a life. I mean, can you tell me what year exactly you got your first cell phone? Probably not, but you can remember what was happening around your life at the time when you got that, or when you got your first smartphone. And so that was very much intentional in the process. But it’s not something that you can pull off unless you have everybody on the crew doing an amazing job, from costume design, production design, Joel, Adolpo, everything down to the prop master. It all has to come together to be able to pull that off, because you’re right, you don’t have the trick of being able to say, “All right, now it’s 1962.”
DEADLINE: Adolpho, how was this for you?
VELOSO: I also feel that it’s never really necessary to know which year, and I feel like we start that way. Like Quinn said, it’s all just impressions and memories. It was important to know roughly where he was in relationship to his life, but not necessarily the exact year. We wanted you to feel that time is passing and things are changing, the technology’s evolving. But even though it is set in the past, it could be a story about today. I feel like all those things we see in the movie are things that we’re still going through today.
DEADLINE: I was hoping to see some good news for Joel, so I was a bit disappointed on his behalf.
BENTLEY: We all feel that way, I think it’s indicative in the moment itself when they put up the photo for Best Picture and they used a photo of Joel. I think that speaks to the fact that the film doesn’t work without Joel, and none of us could have done what we did without Joel. I know that Joel believing in this style of filmmaking — that we were just talking about, that we were endeavoring to do — is the only way we were able to do it. And I certainly wouldn’t have been able to do my job without Joel’s encouragement and help along the way. And so, it’s very bittersweet that we’re not also celebrating Joel, but, at the same time, we are, because the film doesn’t work without him. It doesn’t exist without him at the center of it.
VELOSO: And what he did is so hard to do. I feel like it’s so hard to be quiet and say all the things that a scream can say. And I feel like he did it in so many times in this movie. And like Clint said, I don’t feel like anyone else could have played it. So, I feel like if the movie is any good, it’s because of him.
DEADLINE: Adolpho, a lot has been made of your shooting style and your use of natural lighting. Did you expect that to become as big a deal as it has?
VELOSO: Not at all. I feel like I’m really happy it does because I feel like all the reasons we did it were, first of all, to remove all the layers between the viewers and the characters and the emotions. I feel like when we watch movies, we want to connect with other emotions and with other characters and people. And I feel that stripping that down to make that as big as possible in a way and as approachable as possible, as grounded as possible, is the reason we did it. And it’s good to know that this is being recognized too, because sometimes this can pass like an invisible thing. As much as a good VFX is invisible, I feel sometimes that good cinematography ends up being invisible, so I’m really happy with all the reactions. Surprised, but also really, really happy.
DEADLINE: So, has this attention completely disrupted what you were planning to do? Have you been able to carry on with your work, or have you taken a year out to deal with this juggernaut?
VELOSO: I keep texting Clint, saying, “No pressure, but when do you think we’re going to be ready to go and do the next one?” And he’s like, “Does it look like I have any time?”
BENTLEY: Yeah, there’s not much time left for writing right now, and also I have a seven-month-old baby. So really there’s no time and no sleep, but I don’t know, it’s like we’ll be back on set soon and it’s really lovely to be able to celebrate a film like this, an independent film, that has made it this far and it’s like really nothing to complain about that we’re still able to celebrate and share it with audiences. It’s great.
DEADLINE: So, it’s not going to go to your head. You’re not going to go and make a huge, bloated studio movie?
BENTLEY: Why not? [Laughs.] The thing we always talk about is just that Train Dreams came from the heart, from a place of no expectation that anything would come from it — we all just wanted to see this movie made.
English (US) ·