The Vast of Night
Amazon Studios | Release Date (Streaming): May 29, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
84
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
35
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
SlateMatthew DessemMay 26, 2020
Every scene has been staged and shot with intelligence, intent, inventiveness, and a sense of play. To watch it is to get excited about the billions of different ways you can combine sound and moving images to tell a story. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleCary DarlingMay 22, 2020
Using long takes, tracking shots, segments where the screen goes pitch-black, and rapid-fire, overlapping dialogue, Patterson has created a film that forces an audience to pay attention for fear of missing something. Read full review
100
The PlaylistChris BarsantiMay 19, 2020
While it nods to everything from ‘The Twilight Zone’ to ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind,’ Patterson’s movie is more a tribute to the romance of a breeze-whispered sprawling night and the shivery thrill of not knowing what nameless threats it hides. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyMay 14, 2020
How on earth Patterson made a movie about a UFO hovering over a small town in the late 1950s without falling back on every cliche in the book is the fun and wonder of The Vast of Night. You already know the plot. You've seen it all before. But the way the story is told is new. With The Vast of Night, it really is about the how, not just the "what happens." Read full review
100
VarietyAmy NicholsonJan 3, 2020
Patterson trusts that chemistry will compensate for a gentle thriller that chooses to impress with ingenuity and charm instead of special effects. Read full review
90
IGNMatt FowlerJun 4, 2020
The Vast of Night is a minimal marvel, drawing out fear and anticipation with not much more than a cunning script, stirring performances from its young stars, and the starkness of the dark skies above them. Within it you'll find a Spielbergian love for sci-fi peppered with a twisted appreciation for negative space and the unknown. Read full review
90
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJun 1, 2020
The Vast of Night is the most absorbing piece of small-scale science fiction — the best since “Monsters” (2010), for sure — into which it’s been my privilege to be sucked. As Everett says, “If there’s something in the sky, I wanna know.” Same here. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreMay 30, 2020
It’s an homage to radio dramas, maybe, but also works as a reminder that while film is a visual medium, sometimes sound can be enough to sustain you. It’s a sound, after all, that opens up the cloistered world that Everett and Fay are living in, exposing them to something terrible and awe-inspiring and new. Read full review
90
TheWrapMonica CastilloMay 28, 2020
Complemented by the eerie work of sound designers Johnny Marshall and David Rosenblad and music by Erick Alexander and Jared Bulmer, The Vast of Night sells its mystery as a package deal, firing on all sight-and-sound cylinders to immerse its viewers in its story. Read full review
90
Rolling StonePeter TraversMay 28, 2020
What makes it one of the best (and most unclassifiable) movies of the year is the hypnotic way it keeps re-inventing itself from scene to scene. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangMay 27, 2020
Its achievement is predicated not on novelty, but on modesty — the way it manages, using little more than a terrific cast and a few shadowy, sparsely furnished rooms, to populate your mind’s eye with ominous visions. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerMay 28, 2020
Part "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," part "American Graffiti," and wholly its own stunning self, The Vast of Night is a debut of captivating weight and ingenuity. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshMay 28, 2020
Feels incredibly fresh and modern in its singular style and tone. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzMay 27, 2020
Alternately deploying twisty monologues and quick back-and-forth exchanges, Montague and Sanger are clearly having a ball. They’re not only riffing on obvious inspirations like Orson Welles’s "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast and "Twilight Zone" mastermind Rod Serling, but also the modern ubiquity of podcasts, and their propensity for devolving into audio fabulism. Read full review
83
IndieWireRyan LattanzioMay 28, 2020
It’s a clever exercise in no-frills science fiction that should please fans of the genre, but it’s more than just a sci-fi exercise thanks to a script that prioritizes, and cares about, its characters. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeJan 3, 2020
It’s impressive to see such sophisticated camera work from a newcomer. But to combine that with experimental narrative and sound techniques, and place it in a detailed mid-century modern environment, and to have all these ambitious gambits (mostly) work, all on an independent film budget...well, it’s quite the feat. Read full review
82
PolygonTasha RobinsonJun 10, 2020
The story of The Vast of Night is nothing particularly special. The storytelling, though, is spectacular. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawJun 1, 2020
With great style and technical bravura, the film takes us on a fairground ride, running on rails right up to the final question. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Mark KermodeJun 1, 2020
That a film with such an apparently familiar narrative can keep us this intrigued is a credit to the film-makers – particularly Patterson, from whom we should expect to hear much more in the future. Read full review
80
The AtlanticDavid SimsMay 29, 2020
The aesthetic is Twilight Zone, and the plot could be right out of The X-Files. But despite its small-screen influences and tiny budget, The Vast of Night is shockingly cinematic, overflowing with the kind of inventiveness you rarely see from a first-time filmmaker. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerMay 29, 2020
The Vast Of Night is a modest film about small-town dreamers that delivers big-time rewards and announces a singular, exciting talent in director Andrew Patterson. Read full review
80
VoxAlissa WilkinsonMay 28, 2020
In using all those technical aspects of filmmaking to tell this story, director Andrew Patterson manages to marry form and content beautifully. The tale is engrossing, reminding us that even the simplest technologies we take for granted now have an element of magic to them. Read full review
80
Screen RantHannah HoolihanMay 28, 2020
The Vast of Night is a captivating sci-fi thriller that's elevated by its rich script, stunning cinematography, and incredibly charming leads. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMay 28, 2020
The direction in the film is terrific, with an atmosphere and vibe so pervasively thick you can practically feel what it’s like in the town. And on this particular night — this vast night — it’s creepy indeed. Read full review
80
SlashfilmMarisa MirabalJan 3, 2020
Like the characters that are drawn to the peculiar sound and dark sky on that fateful evening, The Vast of Night is a film that lures the audience’s attention to the screen and will leave you wanting more films from Patterson down the road. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMay 30, 2020
Although the narrative trajectory may be familiar, the specific path taken by director Andrew Patterson feels fresh. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJake CoyleMay 29, 2020
The Vast of Night is, in a slinky way, about escaping small-town small-mindedness. Read full review
75
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiMay 28, 2020
The Vast of Night goes cold-turkey on most of the elements that have come to define science-fiction in recent years. There are no explosions, car chases, superheroes, hot aliens or lack of self-respect here. Instead, it boldly goes where great sci-fi used to go. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrMay 28, 2020
Yet not only does this bares-bones “Close Encounters” make a virtue out of found locations and empty night-time streets, it has the confidence of a story sure in its telling. It feels original. Read full review
75
The Film StageJordan RaupMay 27, 2020
While a few too-prescient touches pull one out of the experience and its inevitable conclusion leaves a bit to be desired, The Vast of Night is a mightily admirable and entertaining tale that heralds the birth of a career to watch. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChuck BowenMay 26, 2020
Director AndrePatterson never breaks the film's incantatory spell with pointless freneticism, patiently savoring the great thrill of genre stories: anticipation. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenMay 14, 2020
It’s less Close Encounters of the Third Kind and more like a special episode of The Twilight Zone, starring The X-Files’ Mulder and Scully. Which is to say, pretty fun. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisJun 2, 2020
The actors add some filigree to their genre types, but are consistently upstaged by the superb, supple camerawork. With the cinematographer Miguel Ioann Littin Menz, Patterson turns the camera into an uneasily embodied presence and when it takes flight so does the movie. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJustin LoweJan 3, 2020
By turns intriguingly odd and frustratingly obscure, this is confidently quirky material that nonetheless boasts superior production values with style to spare. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreMay 16, 2020
That said, it works, sucking you into its “vast night” and taking us all back to an innocent time where the future was endless possibilities, “radio” was how a small town kid punched his “ticket out of here,” and TV took you to “another dimension…the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition.” Read full review
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