10 must-see movies that Star Wars fans can watch on Netflix right now
By Jacklyn Krol
9. Midnight Special
Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) portrays one of the lead characters (named Sevier), so you know this movie is something special. Michael Shannon, Kristen Dunst, Joel Edgerton also star in this sci-fi thriller.
The movie begins with an AMBER alert playing for an 8-year-old boy named Alton Meyer. Alton is seen sitting on a motel floor while his father Roy (Michael Shannon) and his friend Lucas (Joel Edgerton) watch the television play the warning. The father and son just escaped from a religious cult in Texas, not soon after the FBI raided the cult’s property.
NSA analyst Paul Sevier asks the church’s pastor how classified transmissions were featured in his sermons. The pastor revealed that Alton has special powers and that he speaks in tongues. After his mother Sarah (Kristen Dunst) abandoned the child, the people of the cult ranch raised him with his adoptive father as Pastor Calvin while Roy is his biological father. The two men and son are on the run not only from the ranch but the FBI, all while Alton is controlling his powers in different ways.
Director Jeff Nichols had no idea who Adam Driver was or that he would be apart of the Star Wars franchise prior to his audition and casting him for the film at the request of a Warner Bros. executive. “And he showed up, and he was so much more intelligent than that, and skilled. He really was building this character before my eyes and making what could have been one of the weakest, more stock characters some real personality,” Nichols shared.