Click here to copy URL

Midnight Special

2016

Jeff Nichols

Michael Shannon, Jaeden Martell, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst ...

5.8

7,819

Sci-Fi. Drama A father and his 8-year-old go on the run when dad realizes the boy has some kind of special powers. Roy (Michael Shannon) is a father desperate to protect his uniquely gifted, eight-year-old son Alton (Jaeden Lieberher). Joined by his accomplice, Lucas (Joel Edgerton), and his ex-wife, Sarah (Kirsten Dunst), this group must race to get Alton to a secret location all while being hunted by an extreme religious sect led by Calvin Meyer ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Chris Nashawaty Entertainment Weekly	"Nichols keeps us guessing in a way that evokes Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Midnight Special is a more modest, more enigmatic film than that one was, but it's no less gripping"	POS
United States	Rex Reed The New York Observer	"Nichols claims to have structured Midnight Special as a fast-moving thriller, but it’s slow as an inchworm and about as thrilling as buttermilk (...) Rating: ★½ (out of four)"	NEG
United Kingdom	Tim Robey Telegraph	"A darkly addictive mystery (...) Jeff Nichols's sci-fi chase movie mixes super-powers, religion and an offbeat cast to dazzling, Spielbergian effect. (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of five)"	POS
United States	David Rooney The Hollywood Reporter	"A suspenseful, beautifully acted supernatural thriller (...) In all departments, Nichols' film is a rare throwback to mesmerizing sci-fi for grownups."	POS
United Kingdom	Benjamin Lee The Guardian	"Sadly, the Spielbergian magic that Nichols so desperately wants to recreate is almost entirely absent from the end product and without it, there's something disappointingly lifeless instead. (...) Rating: ★★ (out of five)"	NEG
United States	Kenneth Turan Los Angeles Times	"A bravura science-fiction thriller that explores emotional areas like parenthood and the nature of belief, it's a riveting genre exercise as well as something more"	POS
United States	Peter Debruge Variety	"Nichols' impressively restrained yet limitlessly imaginative fourth feature takes its energy from an ensemble of characters who hold fast to their convictions, even though their beliefs remain shrouded in mystery for much of the journey."	POS
United States	Brian Truitt USA Today	"Spielbergian in themes and conflict but with a relentlessly individual style (...) Terrific performances by Shannon and Lieberher are the anchors to the storytelling (...) Rating: ★★★ (out of four)"	POS
United Kingdom	Fionnuala Halligan Screendaily	"Nichols aims high with this film. As with all its cinematic precedents, there's a race to a destination, many people involved, and at times the going can be uneven. The payoff, though, is worth it."	POS

Return to movie

We encourage you to check the reviews' original sources. Intellectual property rights of these reviews belong to their authors and/or the correspondent media from which they have been extracted. If you'd like to help us to add more reviews to your favorite movies, just send us a message.