“As challenging and influential again today as it was in the 1960s.”-Senses of Cinema

At the Gare du Nord railroad station in Paris, three people board the Trans-Europ-Express going to Antwerp. They are a film director (Alain Robbe-Grillet himself), his assistant (Catherine Robbe-Grillet), and producer (Samy Helfon). A man (Trintignant) stumbles in and out of their train compartment, and it is decided he should be cast as Elias, a drug runner, in their upcoming film. Trans-Europ-Express is “filled with cutbacks, recapitulations, inconsistencies, and broad parodies of such moviemakers as Hitchcock and Godard. Spoofy sex is provided by toothsome Marie-France Pisier as a double-agent prostitute, plus the deadpan hero's fatal fetish for naked girls locked up in chains” (Time).