Six Minutes to Midnight
IFC Films | Release Date: March 26, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
48
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
12
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
70
TimeStephanie ZacharekMar 29, 2021
Six Minutes to Midnight is a tribute to those real-life girls who, as guests from a land that would soon become a vicious enemy, represent a strange little intersection of English and German history—the human element behind symbols clashing on a badge. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMar 26, 2021
There’s an old Broadway joke about a musical being so bad that you walk out humming the scenery. Six Minutes to Midnight is a spy thriller, not a musical, and it isn’t bad at all; the factual history it was based on is fascinating. Still, the scenery was what stayed with me most vividly. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comNell MinowMar 26, 2021
It's less effective in the run-with-a-gun scenes, as is the acting and the writing, which all fall off sharply in the final third. The issues of individual, cultural, and national loyalty—and when and how to respond to aggressive actions by other nations—are relegated to the background of some weak chase scenes and plot twists. Read full review
63
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiMar 25, 2021
Director Andy Goddard’s film is far too aware of its subject’s peculiarity, and every frame knows full well that something is a bit off. Read full review
63
The Associated PressLindsey BahrMar 25, 2021
Six Minutes to Midnight is entertaining enough if a little underwhelming. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 24, 2021
It’s a trifle silly. But you don’t have to take Six Minutes to Midnight seriously to lose yourself in the pleasure of some very fine actors having a go at an old fashioned B-movie, poppycock included. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyApr 1, 2021
The film is like a cheeky seaside postcard with swastikas and cryptography on the reverse. Read full review
58
Original-CinThom ErnstMar 26, 2021
Six Minutes to Midnight shifts focus between classroom drama and war thriller without allowing time for either genre to take shape. Read full review
50
VarietyAlissa SimonMar 26, 2021
Six Minutes to Midnight, helmed by Andy Goddard, wants to be a Hitchcockian thriller, but merely manages a familiar pastiche peopled with stock characters that should divert less-discriminating viewers. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMar 26, 2021
Admirers of old-fashioned British war drama should find this passably entertaining, and the dazzling green Welsh countryside and seafront locations that stand in for England's Southeast coast are certainly pleasing to the eye. But handsome production values can't disguise shaky storytelling that relies almost entirely on composer Marc Streitenfeld's agitated orchestral score to stoke suspense. Read full review
50
The New York TimesGlenn KennyMar 25, 2021
The double-crosses are depicted by the director Andy Goddard with better-than-average craft, but the more the movie leans into old suspense conventions the more interest it loses, alas. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinMar 25, 2021
It’s a potentially intriguing bit of fiction that plays out in, at best, serviceable ways. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineDan RubinsMar 23, 2021
Andy Goddard’s film clumsily superimposes a frenzied, completely fictional spy adventure onto a fascinating fragment of pre-war history. Read full review
40
ABC NewsPeter TraversMay 24, 2021
It’s a juicy premise: Eddie Izzard’s British spy vs. a school for daughters of the Nazi high command run by the great Judi Dench. But the crackerjack espionage thriller that might have been, the one filled with ideas and purpose, is defeated by flat execution. Read full review
40
Time OutPhil de SemlyenMar 31, 2021
It’s a patchy but sincerely felt spy thriller that could be harshly described as The 39 Missteps. Read full review
40
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeMar 26, 2021
It would be nice to say that Judi Dench, inevitably the headmistress, elevates the project, but even she can’t get gas back into the plummeting Zeppelin (wrong war, I know). Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 25, 2021
A lively idea for a drama, but the sheer oddity of the real-life premise slows it down. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Helen ShawMar 24, 2021
The movie is dogged by wobbly reasoning and dramaturgical lassitude, but at least one actor tries to spice it up. There are certainly other performers who emerge unembarrassed — Dench does a lovely turn from foolishness into new wisdom, for instance. But D’Arcy is as silly as the film itself and the only one who knows what movie he’s in. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerMar 31, 2021
The photography is elegant, but nothing else is. With action that is standard and not at all tense, the melodrama is much higher than the reward. Read full review
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