Film

Tracks

Name: Tracks
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Released: 2013
Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Adam Driver, Emma Booth, Jessica Tovey, Lily Pearl

Action
Drama
Slow-burning

Tracks follows a real woman crossing the Australian outback alone with camels and a dog—a film about radical solitude, self-discovery, and the particular stubbornness required to choose yourself over everything else. It's meditative and visually stunning, asking what we owe ourselves versus what the world demands of us. For anyone drawn to quiet, character-driven journeys.

TMDb rating

3.4

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like journeys where the landscape does the talking and a quiet, stubborn woman's inner life slowly comes into focus through small moments and long silences.

Skip it if you need a lot of incident to stay hooked, since much of the running time is simply walking, camels plodding and the wide, flat desert rolling past.

What it asks of you: Settle in for just under two hours of patience; it moves at the pace of its title character's footsteps, so attention rewards you more than momentum does.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Into the Wild2007

A young man abandons everything to test himself against nature and solitude. Like Tracks, it's a respectful portrait of someone choosing an unconventional path, with landscape as character and genuine spiritual searching beneath the adventure.

But The protagonist's idealism can read as naïve, and the film doesn't entirely critique it. Some find it frustratingly romantic about self-destruction.

Nomadland2021

An older woman lives mobile and solo across America, building meaning from movement and minimal possessions. Both films trust their audiences to sit with solitude and find beauty in it. Neither rushes to resolve their subjects or judge their choices.

But It's deliberately paced and often quiet. If you need dramatic conflict or a clear three-act structure, you'll find it thin.

Morning Glory2010

A determined woman fights for what she wants despite resistance from everyone around her. Mia Wasikowska's quiet intensity carries both films, and both are about refusing to shrink yourself to make others comfortable.

But It's a conventional romance with Hollywood polish, the inverse of Tracks' rough sincerity. The comparison ends with Wasikowska's refusal to compromise.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Tracks

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Kes1970

Both find complete understanding through an animal companion; the external journey mirrors an internal becoming.

A working-class boy in industrial England finds freedom and mastery through training a kestrel hawk. The connection is the animal as mirror: both Robyn and Billy find in their non-human companions what other humans cannot give them—nonjudgmental presence and purpose.

But It's in black and white and set in a bleak mining town. The story is tragic. The register is social realism, not adventure—and it will break your heart.

A Walk to Remember2002

A journey film that values introspection over spectacle, and lets its central character's inner world matter more than plot mechanics. Both are interested in transformation through movement and time in nature.

But It pivots toward romance and sentimentality in the third act. Tracks maintains its solitary focus throughout.

The Secret of Kells2009

Visually lush animation about a journey of self-discovery across a beautiful, dangerous landscape. The hand-drawn world has the same meditative quality as Tracks' cinematography, even though the genres couldn't be more different.

But It's a fantasy adventure for younger audiences. The tonal shift from realism to fairy tale will feel jarring if you came for grounded human drama.

127 Hours2010

James Franco in a survival story that's as much about psychological endurance as physical. Both films understand that the real journey is internal, and use isolation as a crucible for that.

But It's far more intense and traumatic. Tracks is contemplative; this one is harrowing.

My Own Private Idaho1991

Two young men journey across America looking for home and meaning. Like Tracks, it's invested in the psychology of movement—why we leave, what we're searching for, whether we can find it.

But It's structurally loose and some viewers find it plotless. The tone is melancholy bordering on despairing, far removed from Tracks' hard-won peace.

The Straight Story1999

David Lynch's only G-rated film: an elderly man travels by lawnmower across Iowa. Like Tracks, it moves slowly and finds profundity in small moments. Both films trust landscape and silence.

But It's deliberately, defiantly slow. If you want plot momentum or conventional narrative satisfaction, you will be frustrated.

Waltz with Bashir2008

Both are personal journeys of excavation—the filmmaker and the cameleer moving through space to understand themselves.

An Israeli filmmaker traces his own fragmented memories of the Lebanon War through rotoscoped animation. Like Tracks, it's a real person excavating their past while moving through physical and psychological space. The form is completely different but the emotional archaeology is identical.

But It's an animated documentary about war and trauma. The animation is hypnotic but disturbing. This is serious, difficult material, not escape.

A River Runs Through It1992

Both find spiritual truth in wild landscape and solitary pursuit; both suggest that some things can only be learned alone, on the land.

A meditation on solitude, nature, family, and what we can and cannot control, framed through fly-fishing in Montana. It shares Tracks' belief that landscape and solitary activity can be profound spiritual experience—but it's told through memory and reflection rather than real-time journey.

But It's romantic and literary in a way Tracks is not. Some find it overwrought. It ends in grief, and the tone is elegiac rather than transcendent.