YMMV / Runaway Train

• Awesome Music: How can you possibly improve on Vivaldi's Gloria Mass? Add a One-Woman Wail and accompaniment by an Armenian duduk. You will get a chill going down your spine. The rest of Trevor Jones's score can also count.
• Harsher in Hindsight: While watching the news, Barstow laments why they can't stop disasters when they have so much technology at their disposal. He's watching the Space Shuttle Challenger making a safe landing, the same spacecraft that would be destroyed a year after this film was made.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Manny saving Sara from being dragged under the third engine.
  • Sara blocks the door to prevent Buck from making another suicidal scramble outside. When Manny shoves her aside (causing her to break the engine's window with her head) to get Buck to go out again, Buck immediately defends Sara and threatens to beat the shit out of Manny if he touches her again.
  • Buck comforting Sara who doesn't want to die alone when the train reaches the end of line.
• Hollywood Homely: Rebecca De Mornay was made to look as unattractive as possible ("as possible" being the keyword).
• Nightmare Fuel: The death of the corrections officer who falls under the train is absolutely horrifying. To make it even better, you get a glimpse of the body after it falls under the locomotive. While you don't see anything, the position of the body is such that it's obvious that the train cut his body in half.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Buck becoming disillusioned over the course of the film by Manny's increasing brutality:
    Buck: I thought you was my friend. I thought we were partners.
  • The haunting ending with Antonio Vivaldi's "Gloria" in D. Manny has finally found his freedom in death by uncoupling the lead engine from the rest of the train, waving goodbye over Buck's futile screaming. The convicts young and old in Stonehaven, save for Jonah, are shown all shocked and mourning when the news of their hero's end reaches them.
• Vindicated by History: The movie did not do well upon its initial release, probably because it’s very different in tone than your average 80s action movie. However, its cerebral tone is much more consistent with movies that would come decades later. As a result, it’s now looked back on with great fondness whereas many hits of the era are long forgotten.

---