Two split-screen scenes: On the left, three adult men with serious expressions sit outdoors among trees; on the right, an older man with a white beard, hat, and glasses leans forward, with trees and two blurred figures in the background.

Based on the novella of the same name, Netflix’s new film “Train Dreams” is shot to look like photos from the era in which the movie takes place: the early 20th century. Although shot on modern Arri Alexa 35 cameras, the film employs a 3:2 aspect ratio, is almost entirely lit with natural light, and has an exceptionally filmic, beautiful appearance.

Netflix’s “Train Dreams” is a feature-length movie based on Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella of the same name. However, the original version of Johnson’s novella, “Train Dreams,” was published in the Summer 2002 issue of The Paris Review. The story follows American railroad laborer Robert Grainier throughout his challenging life in a rapidly changing Western American landscape.

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Clint Bentley directs “Train Dreams,” while also serving as a writer alongside Greg Kwedar (“Sing Sing”) and Denis Johnson, who, alongside being a novelist, is also a screenwriter and playwright. Cinematographer Adolpho Veloso helms the cameras on “Train Dreams.” Veloso, as he explains to Variety in the video above, previously worked with Bentley on 2021’s “Jockey.”

A filmmaker with a camera films a rugged man holding an axe outdoors on a dirt field, with bare trees and a cloudy sky in the background, evoking a dramatic, cinematic scene.Train Dreams. (L-R) Director of Photography Adolpho Veloso and Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier on the set of Train Dreams. | Credit: Daniel Schaefer/BBP Train Dreams. LLC. © 2025.

“It went great, we loved each other and it was a great collaboration,” Veloso tells Variety. “I was just really looking forward to working with him again. I was really lucky that he wanted to work with me again.”

“Our earlier conversations were about how to make this movie feel like you are watching someone’s memories,” the cinematographer explains. “It’s almost like you found that box full of pictures, old pictures of someone’s life and you’re trying to piece those pictures together to understand what life that person leads somehow.”

A bearded man and a woman with red hair sit outdoors, looking up at the sky with thoughtful expressions, against a background of blue sky and clouds at dusk.Train Dreams. (L-R) Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier and Kerry Condon as Claire Thompson in Train Dreams. | Credit: BBP Train Dreams. LLC. © 2025. A man with a beard and wearing a denim jacket looks downward pensively in a forest, with three other men standing behind him, blurred in the background. The scene has a somber, muted tone.Train Dreams. (L-R) Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier and William H. Macy as Arn Peeples in Train Dreams. | Credit: BBP Train Dreams. LLC. © 2025. A woman and a man stand closely, facing each other in dramatic lighting. The woman has her eyes closed, and the man looks at her intently. Both are dressed in vintage-style clothing, creating an intense and emotional atmosphere.Train Dreams. (L-R) Felicity Jones as Gladys Grainier and Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier in Train Dreams. | Credit: BBP Train Dreams. LLC. © 2025. A bearded man in a striped shirt and suspenders smiles at a young child in a red sweater, holding a ball, outside a rustic log cabin at dusk. Trees are visible in the background.Train Dreams. (Featured) Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier in Train Dreams. | Credit: BBP Train Dreams. LLC. © 2025. A bearded man in a hat sits on a log in a forest at dusk while a small child in a blue sweater and white hat stands nearby, pointing toward the distance among tall trees.Train Dreams. (Featured) Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier in Train Dreams. | Credit: BBP Train Dreams. LLC. © 2025.

Veloso and Bentley carefully developed the film’s look and aesthetic by going through countless old photos from the 1920s together, particularly images from the logging world in which the story takes place.

“Most of the pictures we were looking at were at 3:2 aspect ratio, and we just going back to this memory feeling. We were like, ‘Why don’t we just use that aspect ratio?’ It’s also going to be great for the trees, because we need a taller aspect ratio, and if somehow we can invoke that feeling you have when you see your old pictures, they’re basically in that aspect ratio,” Veloso continues.

To further embrace the appearance of a person’s old photos, which are seldom shot using professional artificial lighting, the team shot “99%” of “Train Dreams” using only natural light.

While the final look of the film is spectacular, and any number of frames can be paused to look like beautiful photographs, Veloso says that much of the pre-production effort was spent trying to convince everyone to get on board with the visual approach. It was essential to ensure everyone was on the same page, including the film’s stars, such as Joel Edgerton, Clifton Collins Jr., Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon, William H. Macy, and many more.

As Veloso explains, having the cast and crew excited about the approach matters because the team was routinely at the mercy of the light and weather. Sometimes they had a narrow window to nail the shot, which meant fewer takes and significantly less predictability than on many modern film sets.

A woman wearing a brown jacket and headscarf sits on grass in a forest, looking thoughtful. A camera operator is next to her, suggesting a film is being shot.Train Dreams. (L-R) Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier and Felicity Jones as Gladys Grainier in Train Dreams. | Credit: Daniel Schaefer/BBP Train Dreams. LLC. © 2025. Three people stand outdoors near a vintage train; one holds a device with antennas while the others observe. They wear retro-style clothing and appear to be discussing something technical. Trees and train cars are visible in the background.Train Dreams. (Featured) Director Clint Bentley and Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier in Train Dreams. | Credit: Daniel Schaefer/BBP Train Dreams. LLC. © 2025.

The desired look and feel of “Train Dreams” necessitated smaller cameras that didn’t compromise image quality or dynamic range, so Veloso and his team settled on Arri Alexa 35 cameras.

“That camera just felt right,” Veloso says. “17 stops of dynamic range is just like amazing.”

Optics matter just as much, if not more, than the camera itself. Veloso says they had two sets of lenses. One set was rehoused Kowa Cine Prominars, Japanese cinema lenses from the 1960s that promise excellent central sharpness and medium to low contrast. 



A set of nine black camera lenses with blue accents, arranged in a semi-circle on a white background, with one lens lying in the front and the others standing upright behind it.Credit: Old Fast Glass

“Their bokeh is very special, with enough character to make the lenses stand out from modern options, but not so busy that it distracts from your subject,” Old Fast Glass explains.

“I love the texture of that lens,” Veloso says of the Kowa cine primes. “But I also think it’s the most beautiful sun flare ever on a lens, and I knew we were going to have a lot of sun and we’re shooting a lot of the film outside.”

The team also needed faster lenses for the night scenes, as the Kowa Cine Prominars only reach T2.3 for select focal lengths and can be even slower.

“We knew we wouldn’t want to change the ISO, we just decided to have a different set of lenses,” Veloso says. The team settled on Zeiss Super Speed primes, all T1.3 except the 135mm T2.1.

Nine black Zeiss Super Speed camera lenses of varying sizes are lined up in a row against a white background. Each lens has white markings and is positioned upright, showing their different focal lengths.Credit: Old Fast Glass

“Zeiss Super Speeds are arguably the most capable and some of the most beautiful vintage lenses available. Their T1.3 maximum aperture is an obvious advantage and puts them in rare company. Whether you are wide-open or stopped down, the images they produce are magic,” Old Fast Glass says.

Veloso notes that they also shot with one separate zoom lens, the Angénieux Optimo Ultra 12x. As Veloso explains, zooming is an important way he depicted one of the film’s characters, Arn Peeples, played by William H. Macy.

A man in old-fashioned clothes and a hat sits on large cut tree logs in a forest, holding an axe. Other men work around him, sawing and chopping logs among tall pine trees.Train Dreams. (Featured) William H. Macy as Arn Peeples and Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier in Train Dreams. | Credit: BBP Train Dreams. LLC. © 2025. A bearded man wearing a hat and denim jacket stands in a rustic outdoor camp with trees, wagons, and tents in the background under a cloudy sky.Train Dreams. Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier in Train Dreams. | Credit: BBP Train Dreams. LLC. © 2025. An older man with a white beard, wearing glasses, a black hat, and a beige vest, sits outdoors in a forest, looking thoughtful. Two men stand in the blurred background among tall trees.Train Dreams. (Featured) William H. Macy as Arn Peeples in Train Dreams. | Credit: BBP Train Dreams. LLC. © 2025.
A bearded man is seen through a window, looking pensively into the distance. He is outdoors with a forest and blue sky in the background, while the interior is dimly lit and partially visible.Train Dreams. Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier in Train Dreams. | Credit: BBP Train Dreams. LLC. © 2025. A woman in a pale yellow, vintage-style dress stands in a field of yellow wildflowers surrounded by tall pine trees, looking to the side under a cloudy sky.Train Dreams. Felicity Jones as Gladys Grainier in Train Dreams. | Credit: BBP Train Dreams. LLC. © 2025. A man in a hat and striped jacket stands in a lush forest, holding an axe and gazing upward at a tall tree surrounded by green ferns and dense foliage.Train Dreams. Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier in Train Dreams. | Credit: BBP Train Dreams. LLC. © 2025.

While the rest of the interview offers spectacular insight into the filmmaking process and how camera technology works alongside storytelling, it is worth noting how Bentley, Veloso, and the rest of the team treated nature as a character. Veloso notes that nature, particularly trees, is such an important part of the story that trees are, in a way, characters.

The crew routinely asked, “If this tree was a person, how would we shoot this scene?” This makes the decision to shoot in 3:2 even more important. Modern aspect ratios like 2.39:1 cut off so much of the top and bottom of the frame, which can be very powerful in most cases, but limits the impact of vertically anchored shots. When dealing with massive, tall trees, the shooting must be done in service of height rather than width.

“Train Dreams” is streaming now on Netflix and has already been nominated for Best Picture in the 2026 Critics’ Choice Awards. Adolpho Veloso has been nominated for Best Cinematography at the same awards, as well as the Independent Spirit Awards and the Astra Awards.

Image credits: Netflix, BBP Train Dreams. LLC. © 2025, unless otherwise noted.