The Midnight Sky
Netflix | Release Date (Streaming): December 11, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 42 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
21
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Screen RantChris AgarDec 30, 2020
The Midnight Sky is a well-made and ambitious piece of sci-fi filmmaking, but it lacks the proper emotional punch it needed to truly connect. Read full review
60
IGNMatt FowlerDec 23, 2020
George Clooney's The Midnight Sky is a gorgeous, glossy doomsday odyssey that feels like too big a winter coat on a small, fragile frame. Read full review
60
CNNBrian LowryDec 22, 2020
George Clooney takes his biggest directorial swing yet with "The Midnight Sky," and comes away with a decidedly mixed result. A beyond-bleak post-apocalyptic thriller, the sci-fi film reaches a reasonably satisfying finish, but follows an uneven orbit in getting there. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDec 17, 2020
Clooney’s hollowed-out performance — truly, he seems exhausted by life and disgusted by humanity, with a notable exception — is effective. But as a director, he creates two distinct worlds and struggles to bring them together. Read full review
60
EmpireNick de SemlyenDec 9, 2020
Swinging between ice and space, Clooney has upped his directorial ambition and delivered a big-scale, big-hearted story, even if it struggles to match the films it riffs on. Read full review
60
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaDec 9, 2020
The Midnight Sky is ambitious in its attempts at pathos. There’s the germ of something beautiful buried in here; a story trying to tell us that every last life is worth saving even if all seems lost. That’s something worth hearing, but The Midnight Sky fails to even get the conversation going. Read full review
60
UproxxMike RyanDec 9, 2020
Clooney wants to direct actors who aren’t himself, which I’m sure is why we spend so much time with the crew of the spaceship. But if Clooney weren’t directing, that director would have probably realized that the story thrives in those small moments with Clooney. It’s almost like the director George Clooney is the actor George Clooney’s worst enemy. Read full review
60
Total FilmJamie GrahamDec 9, 2020
No ray guns, no tentacular beasties, just gravitas in a film that goes boldly about its business but never quite lands. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriDec 31, 2020
As a director, he’s always been more about conjuring a mood than telling a story, about immersion rather than suspense. Filled with large, empty rooms, great blank stretches of barren landscape, and forlorn glimpses of the lonely vastness of space, The Midnight Sky is a movie you’re supposed to lose yourself in, at least a little bit. And on a small screen — even on a really big small screen — that’s practically impossible. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 24, 2020
The last five minutes of Midnight Sky are touching and beautifully acted — if you’re willing to wait for it. Read full review
50
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiDec 24, 2020
At the film’s most entertaining heights, it recalls the novels of Ray Bradbury and the Matt Damon flick “The Martian.” But its final twist is an extremely implausible, easy way out. Read full review
50
Original-CinLiam LaceyDec 23, 2020
Both the Arctic survival story and the spaceship drama are derivative, and while action sequences are well done in isolation, they never develop a convincing momentum. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKevin CrustDec 23, 2020
The film’s themes of extinction and survival are worthy of thoughtful treatment, something that eludes the ambitious movie as it succumbs to a schematic and sentimental telling that overreaches for a grand gesture and obscures the more meaningful ideas. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreDec 23, 2020
“Midnight” is “Martian” without the whizbang humor and optimism, so downbeat it’s like the saddest parts of “Gravity” and all of “Solaris.” And while Clooney & Co. make it watchable, it’s so derivative and over-familiar as to be akin to watching paint dry — richly-tinted, shiny acrylic paint, if that’s any consolation. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrDec 10, 2020
The Midnight Sky is handsome to look at and, in its early scenes, quite engrossing. But it’s an oddly structured affair and, in the end, the director can’t keep it on course. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoDec 9, 2020
He’s a welcome presence in his first on-screen performance since 2016, but Clooney’s direction is as cold as the landscape his character travels, never once finding anything that feels organic or character-driven. It looks good. It sounds great. It’s as hollow as can be. Read full review
50
PolygonRobert DanielsDec 9, 2020
The ticking clock makes The Midnight Sky a post-apocalyptic survivalist space film whose narrative is so overloaded that the emotional weight offers zero gravity. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzDec 9, 2020
From a technical standpoint, this might be Clooney’s finest work as a director. . . . But as a storyteller, The Midnight Sky is an irritating experience. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinDec 9, 2020
It’s a project driven by ideas but made for a mass-market audience, which are always welcome in principle. The problem here is the good ideas are all extremely familiar, and the handful of new ones aren’t much to write home about. Read full review
40
BBCNicholas BarberDec 9, 2020
If The Midnight Sky has the sombre tone of a high-minded art-house project, it has the bland design, sentimental characterisation and flimsy plotting of a children's TV movie. The story may have links with today's reality, but it never feels real. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawDec 9, 2020
Clooney guides the performances competently, but the story drifts pointlessly into space. Read full review
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