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Midnight Special

Midnight Special

Adventure · Drama · Science Fiction · 2016

A father and son go on the run after the dad learns his child possesses special powers.

Movie details

Midnight Special

“He's not like us.”

2016 Adventure · Drama · Science Fiction 1h 52m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

6.3 / 10

Community rating

A father and son go on the run after the dad learns his child possesses special powers.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Midnight Special?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

Strings

Strings

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Superman/Batman: Public Enemies

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Cave Rescue

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I Am David

I Am David

Drama · 2003

A 12-year-old boy manages to flee a Communist concentration camp on his own, through sheer will and determination. All he has in his possession is a loaf of bread, a letter to deliver to someone in Denmark, and a compass to help get him there.

G.I. Joe: The Movie

G.I. Joe: The Movie

Animation · 1987

G.I. Joe faces a new enemy as an ancient society of snake people known as Cobra-La try to forcefully take back the earth from those who drove them underground eons ago.

Wildlike

Wildlike

Adventure · 2015

Fourteen-year-old Mackenzie is sent to live with her uncle in Juneau when her mother can’t care for her anymore. The living situation quickly takes a turn for the worse, and she runs away to rejoin her mother in Seattle. While on her dangerous journey of sleeping in cars and breaking into hotel rooms, she’s drawn to Rene, a lonesome backpacker looking for tranquility in the wilderness.

The River Wild

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Chronicle

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Three high school students make an incredible discovery, leading to their developing uncanny powers beyond their understanding. As they learn to control their abilities and use them to their advantage, their lives start to spin out of control, and their darker sides begin to take over.

The High and the Mighty

The High and the Mighty

Adventure · 1954

Dan Roman is a veteran pilot haunted by a tragic past. Now relegated to second-in-command cockpit assignments he finds himself on a routine Honolulu-to-San Francisco flight - one that takes a terrifying suspense-building turn when disaster strikes high above the Pacific Ocean at the point of no return.

Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Jeff Nichols

Written by

Jeff Nichols

Michael Shannon

Michael Shannon

Roy Tomlin

Jaeden Martell

Jaeden Martell

Alton Meyer

Joel Edgerton

Joel Edgerton

Lucas

Kirsten Dunst

Kirsten Dunst

Sarah Tomlin

Adam Driver

Adam Driver

Agent Sevier

David Jensen

David Jensen

Elden

Sam Shepard

Sam Shepard

Calvin Meyer

Court is in session

Put Midnight Special on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Sentimental Softie

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Cool Ironist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.