Back to trending
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Mystery · Crime · Drama · 1997

A visiting city reporter's assignment suddenly revolves around the murder trial of a local millionaire, whom he befriends.

Movie details

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Welcome to Savannah, Georgia. A city of hot nights and cold blooded murder.”

1997 Mystery · Crime · Drama 2h 35m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.6 / 10

44.2K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

50 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

56 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.4 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

A visiting city reporter's assignment suddenly revolves around the murder trial of a local millionaire, whom he befriends.

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 in the Garden of Good and Evil?

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.

Beast

Beast

Mystery · 2018

A troubled woman living in an isolated community finds herself pulled between the control of her oppressive family and the allure of a secretive outsider suspected of a series of brutal murders.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

Crime · 1956

A newspaper publisher, wanting to prove a point about the insufficiency of circumstantial evidence, talks his possible son-in-law Tom into a hoax in an attempt to expose ineptitude of the city's hard-line district attorney. The plan is to have Tom plant clues leading to his arrest for killing a female nightclub dancer. Once Tom is found guilty, he is to reveal the setup and humiliate the DA.

Kids

Kids

Drama · 1995

A group of bored, disaffected New York City teenagers spend a day skating, smoking, drinking, partying, deflowering virgins, and getting into fights.

In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood

Crime · 1967

After a botched robbery results in the brutal murder of a rural family, two drifters elude police, in the end coming to terms with their own mortality and the repercussions of their vile atrocity.

The Nines

The Nines

Drama · 2007

A troubled actor, a television show runner, and an acclaimed videogame designer find their lives intertwining in mysterious and unsettling ways.

Barron's Cove

Barron's Cove

Crime · 2025

When his young son is viciously murdered by a classmate, a grieving father with a history of violence kidnaps the child responsible, igniting a frenzied manhunt fueled by a powerful politician -- the father of the kidnapped boy.

Juice

Juice

Crime · 1992

Four Harlem friends -- Bishop, Q, Steel and Raheem -- dabble in petty crime, but they decide to go big by knocking off a convenience store. Bishop, the magnetic leader of the group, has the gun. But Q has different aspirations. He wants to be a DJ and happens to have a gig the night of the robbery. Unfortunately for him, Bishop isn't willing to take no for answer in a game where everything's for keeps.

Bully

Bully

Crime · 2001

A group of teenagers in South Florida enact a murder plot against their mutual bully, Bobby, who has emotionally, physically, and sexually abused them for years.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed

The Disappearance of Alice Creed

Crime · 2009

A rich man's daughter is held captive in an abandoned apartment by two former convicts who abducted her and hold her ransom in exchange for her father's money.

Rope

Rope

Thriller · 1948

Two young men attempt to prove they committed the perfect murder by hosting a dinner party for the family of a classmate they just strangled to death.

Where it lives

Watch in your region.

Cinema release signals and current streaming, rental, and purchase options for your region.

Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.

Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Clint Eastwood

Written by

John Lee Hancock

John Cusack

John Cusack

John Kelso

Kevin Spacey

Kevin Spacey

James Williams

Jude Law

Jude Law

Billy Carl Hanson

Alison Eastwood

Alison Eastwood

Mandy Nichols

Jack Thompson

Jack Thompson

Sonny Seiler

Irma P. Hall

Irma P. Hall

Minerva

Paul Hipp

Paul Hipp

Joe Odom

Court is in session

Put Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil on trial.

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

The defence The Auteur Devotee

“Form is the argument.”

Every composed frame and deliberate cut is evidence that control can be thrilling in its own right.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Technique in search of a pulse.”

Immaculate construction is still construction. The film may be too busy proving its craft to feel alive.