Midnight Special
Warner Bros. | Release Date: March 18, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
76
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 44 Critic Reviews
Positive:
37
Mixed:
6
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranMar 17, 2016
Midnight Special announces the arrival of a filmmaker in total control of his technique as well as our emotions. 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. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoMar 16, 2016
Midnight Special respects your intelligence, letting you come to its themes emotionally instead of narratively. It is a breathtaking display of visual storytelling, confidently rendered by someone who understands the power of cinema. Read full review
100
HitfixDrew McWeenyMar 16, 2016
This is a very raw, sad, and beautiful film about faith and fatherhood, and it feels just as grounded and big-hearted as the other films Nichals has made. Read full review
100
VarietyPeter DebrugeFeb 12, 2016
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. Read full review
100
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyFeb 12, 2016
Midnight Special confirms Nichols' uncommon knack for breathing dramatic integrity and emotional depth into genre material. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyMar 17, 2016
As father and son speed toward some doomsday reckoning, 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. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyMar 16, 2016
Shannon, best known for playing weirdos and crazies, is uniquely good at playing restrained everymen, and he inhabits the role of Roy as a man of unspoken internal conflicts and complicated feelings. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaMar 31, 2016
How the film plays out, and what happens to the boy and the adults in his company, may prove a revelation, or a disappointment, or something in between. But getting there is thrilling and wondrously strange. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenMar 31, 2016
The picture is a long tease, artfully constructed. Mood is all-important, and it’s a mood designed to keep the audience off balance and on edge until the very end. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 31, 2016
It’s refreshing to find yourself immersed in a film that zigs and zags between genres — and occasionally zaps your senses with an electric charge of shock and awe. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 17, 2016
Go with it. Let Nichols turn your head around. He sure as hell will. One caveat: Nichols drops you into the action, no backstory road map. What you see is what you get. Luckily, what you get is extraordinary. Read full review
83
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallApr 7, 2016
Jeff Nichols fashions three-quarters of a terrific movie with Midnight Special, a slow burn science fiction thriller. The rest is merely gripping, which isn't a bad problem to have. Read full review
83
The VergeTasha RobinsonMar 9, 2016
The film moves effortlessly, with plenty of tense thrills and surprise reveals. It’s relentless, but rarely rushed. The action is terse, and in one unexpected case, breathless and terrifying. Read full review
83
The PlaylistJessica KiangFeb 12, 2016
Structured as a low-key chase movie, unfolding with the dark urgency of a conspiracy thriller, living mostly not in your heart or even your mind but in the hairs on the back of your neck, "Midnight Special" actually emerges most resonantly as an almost mournful ode, or maybe a psalm, to the primal instincts of fatherhood. Read full review
80
CineVueBen NicholsonApr 7, 2016
The slow burn lead-up may not be to all tastes, but if you can tune in to its broadcast frequency Midnight Special will shine its light on you too. Read full review
80
Total FilmJamie GrahamApr 4, 2016
Taken as a throwback to the thrillers of Carpenter and Spielberg’s cinema of wonder, it is special indeed. Not least because it honours its influences and yet remains, first and foremost, a Jeff Nichols film. Read full review
80
EmpireDan JolinApr 4, 2016
Nichols mounts impressive visual effects and frantic bursts of action.... But the film’s strength is in its humanity rather than its super-humanity. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 31, 2016
This is a really good movie made by a terrific talent, stunningly shot and confidently directed. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMar 17, 2016
A beautifully strange and stirring sci-fi adventure. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'HehirMar 17, 2016
I suspect this movie will sharply divide Nichols' existing fan base for reasons I can only allude to vaguely in a review; I loved it, or almost all of it, but I can understand the uncertainty. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfMar 17, 2016
Midnight Special is a movie worth believing in. It's an alternative to the assembly line that turns hot young directors into purveyors of the latest shade of superhero spandex. Little here feels like science or fiction but sci-fi is exactly what this is, from the heart and out of this world. Read full review
80
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganFeb 12, 2016
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. Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 12, 2016
The most haunting part of this riskily earnest film isn’t the unmentionable effects coup of its grand finale, but the quieter beats, all in close-up, that comprise its coda: atomised, spent, and sad. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenMar 16, 2016
There’s a certain spiritualism that inhabits all of Nichols’ films, and I’m not sure that the explanations finally offered to shed light on the specialness of this child are truly sufficient. But in the context of the movie, it all works. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreApr 6, 2016
It’s an absolutely chilling road picture, filled with tension, dread and a threat of violence. The longer we don’t know where that threat is coming from, the more suspenseful it is. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrMar 31, 2016
The truth is that this is a mystery movie, and the mystery is trying to figure out exactly what the heck is going on here. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayMar 31, 2016
Nichols establishes such a grounded sense of atmosphere and such superb control of mood and pacing, that the odd hiccup barely matters. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 31, 2016
What happens, when it happens, is … well, either enough or too much, depending on your taste for the fantastic. Read full review
75
USA TodayBrian TruittMar 17, 2016
If E.T. was human, wore swim goggles and read Superman comics by flashlight, he’d be the 8-year-old boy at the center of the heartfelt, lo-fi sci-fi spectacular Midnight Special. Read full review
75
New York PostSara StewartMar 16, 2016
You may feel echoes of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Starman,” but writer-director Jeff Nichols has ultimately crafted his own unique twist on the genre. Read full review
75
ConsequenceDan CaffreyMar 13, 2016
Only in its final stretch does Midnight Special start to lose its distinct identity. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneMar 21, 2016
Yet Nichols’s movie, though smudged by its dénouement, is not wrecked, and already I am desperate — with a Roy-like yearning — to return to it, and to revel anew in its group portrait of those who are haunted by the will to believe. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMar 18, 2016
Nichols’s mythic aspirations are still a puzzle to me; I’m not sure he has connected all the dots in his psyche yet, or that he fully brings off his finale. But I love watching his movies. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMar 17, 2016
The charm and audacity of this film lie in the way it blends the commonplace and the bizarre. Read full review
70
Village VoiceBilge EbiriMar 15, 2016
Nichols has a light touch when it comes to genre, which is Midnight Special's great blessing and curse. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorApr 4, 2016
As other worlds reveal themselves, what started with a gripping premise slackens and goes limp. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineChristopher GrayMar 16, 2016
It starts off as a dynamic parable about faith before wilting into a glum and rather disingenuous paean to the family. Read full review
60
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeMar 17, 2016
Midnight Special goes off its own narrative cliff, capping a compelling story with a third-act resolution so misguided that’s it’s the dramatic equivalent of punching the gas and plunging into the abyss. Read full review
58
The Film StageRory O'ConnorFeb 12, 2016
The details in Midnight Special, Nichols’ homage-heavy sci-fi thriller set in his signature Deep South locale, are sometimes so scant as to be jarring. Yes, less is often more in Hollywood, but it can also be just plain less. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezApr 7, 2016
One question in particular hangs heavily over the entire film, a plot hole so distracting it becomes the only thing you can think about. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleApr 4, 2016
Midnight Special is a sincere movie, but sometimes sincerity is half the problem. Read full review
50
SlateDavid EhrlichMar 17, 2016
Midnight Special eventually sputters to a conclusion that confuses vagueness for ambiguity. The most compelling questions it leaves behind don’t have to do with its plot but with its creator: How much time should a young director have to make good on his potential? Read full review
40
The GuardianBenjamin LeeFeb 12, 2016
There’s an absence of fun here, and for what is ultimately a chase movie, a severe lack of pace. Nichols doesn’t feel like a strong match for the genre or for the very specific type of fantasy movie he wants to make. Read full review
38
ObserverRex ReedMar 16, 2016
Ambiguous and ludicrous at the same time, director Mr. Nichols (Mud) claims to have structured Midnight Special as a fast-moving thriller, but it’s slow as an inchworm and about as thrilling as buttermilk. Clearly, he’s been watching too many Christopher Nolan movies. Read full review
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