There’s misadventures from dusk ’til dawn as Tom Jolliffe presents ten essential one night movies…
The humble night odyssey. A protagonist finds them self on a dusk ’til dawn journey or quest. There have been plenty of films over the years which have taken place in a very contained period of time. We’ve seen a day, and we’ve seen real-time adventures but there’s something atmospheric and enjoyable about a night owl misadventure that takes place over the course of one night.
That immediacy brings with it an inherently quick pace, whilst the nature of night-dwelling characters and antagonists also offers a broader canvas for filmmakers to create strange or intense situations. It is, after all, the strange folk who come out at night and not least in the world of cinema. here are ten essential films which take place over the course of one night.
Die Hard
Not so much weird and wonderful, but more like a groundbreaking reinvention of action cinema which spawned its own sub-genre. Yes, Die Hard sees John McClane (Bruce Willis) arrive in the early evening at the Nakatomi Plaza to meet his wife, currently celebrating at the staff Christmas party and No sooner does Alan Rickman stroll in with his group of exceptional thieves, does this film really kick into gear and it never lets up.
Die Hard perfectly creates tension from the confined location, whilst McClane’s improvisational approach to being the monkey in the wrench to Hans Grubers plans, brings all manner of wild situations he needs to escape from, be it elevator shafts or rooftops whilst being fired upon by an FBI chopper.
Die Hard is perfection and yes, it is a Christmas movie. By the time Willis walks back to his limo at the end of the picture, just as dawn is approaching, his once-white vest is now a mess of grey, brown and blood. He has been through the grinder and then some, and the audience has been dragged along for the exceptional ride.
After Hours
Martin Scorsese has made so many great movies it’s sometimes difficult for audiences not to overlook some of those gems. For a time, After Hours was one of his overlooked pictures. It’s a brilliant dusk-to-dawn misadventure for Paul Hackett a bored data entry clerk who meets a woman in a cafe and feels a spark. She leaves her number and close to midnight, throwing caution to the wind, gives her a call and is invited over.
From the moment he sees his 20 dollar bill blow out a cab window, leaving him with only loose change, Paul’s night gets progressively worse and more and more farcical. It’s a film that’s almost fantastical but still captures a feeling of dead-of-night New York when the regular shmoes are sleeping and the night owls come out to play. Griffin Dunne makes for an engaging and slightly beaten-down everyman who continues to dig himself deeper. Scorsese feels like he’s letting loose almost improvising as he goes, yet always retaining that ingenious assuredness he always has.
The supporting cast is also an enjoyable and eclectic mix including Rosanna Arquette, Linda Fiorentino, John Heard, Catherine O’Hara, Cheech and Chong, and Terri Garr. Most importantly for a film like this, we really feel the existential journey that Paul has been on.
Miracle Mile
Much like After Hours, this begins with a boy meets girl-scenario until Steve De Jarnett’s film veers into very different territory. Harry, a jazz musician meets Julie and there’s an instant chemistry. He agrees to meet her later that night but a power outage wipes out his alarm and he misses the chance. Then he takes a call from a public telephone booth and intercepts a warning message about a nuclear missile heading toward LA within 70 minutes at which point his night and everyone else’s will be a lot worse.
This is like After Hours with a late era of Cold War paranoia and apocalypse fear running through it. Despite the horrifying nature of a 70-minute dash to escape being nuclear collateral damage, this one doesn’t become too dark and retains a quirkiness as Harry’s dash to retrieve Julie and escape sees them run into a mass of oddball night characters. The whole film is brilliantly shot and Anthony Edwards imbues Harry with melancholy and the right amount of underdog heroism. This one is even more criminally underseen than After Hours and is also propelled by a fantastic Tangerine Dream score. So fantastic in fact, that one track appears in the recent (and very enjoyable) Ben Affleck sports film, Air.
Clue
Right now we have a brilliantly subversive film in cinemas based on a toy. It’s Oppenheimer… no, not really, it’s Barbie. We also recently saw a resurgence in the murder mystery film thanks to Rian Johnson’s Knives Out films and Kenneth Branagh bringing Poirot back to the big screen. In 1985, a film based on a board game came out and brilliantly skewed conventions with the enjoyable and uproariously witty Clue. Yes, getting your best ideas from browsing in Toys R Us is nothing new.
Like many Christie (and the like) big-screen adaptations of yesteryear and of more recent times, Clue is a star-studded affair. A cast that includes Tim Curry, Christopher Lloyd, Eileen Brennan, Michael McKean and Leslie Ann Warren is always going to impress and it’s clear that they’re all having a whale of a time. A group of strangers come together one night under assumed names (taken from the infamous board game). Then a murder and they’re all suspects in this energetic and infectious comedy. It plays out like a murder mystery weekend on Speedballs and honestly, you’ll see just how much Knives Out owes to it upon (re)watching.
The Warriors
A meeting is called in New York for all the city’s gangs as the Kingpin overseeing them all looks to broker peace between the fractious gangs. He’s murdered and it’s pinned on the Warriors who now have to get across a hostile City, back to their turf. It’s gonna be a long night of running, fighting and hiding for their survival while divisions in the group cause even more issues.
Walter Hill’s enduring and pleasingly lithe classic maintains perpetual tension throughout, lensing back street, grimy and inherently threatening areas of New York. On an undoubtedly tight budget, the nighttime aids the cinematography and the film is wonderfully atmospheric. Hill’s film was most recently referenced (or perhaps pilfered mercilessly from) in John Wick: Chapter 4, which not only took that basic premise of a life threatening race across the city, but lifted several particulars too (including the near-fourth wall-breaking radio DJ).
American Graffiti
There’s a real argument that as far as his directorial prowess, American Graffiti was George Lucas’ finest work. Sure, Star Wars is great and a wonderful revolution in fantasy storytelling and special effects but there’s a clear difference in assuredness when Irvin Kirshner steps in to direct The Empire Strikes Back.
American Graffiti is a wonderful film perfectly encapsulating the time it was set, and indeed a time when Lucas himself was growing up. He beautifully captures the period with an undoubtedly romantic lens, but more so it’s a film that beautifully represents the closing of one stage, before entering a new one. It’s the last night together for a group of high schoolers (Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfus, Charles Martin Smith) who each find themselves pulled into different vignettes throughout the night. With stunning cinematography, brilliant direction and a great soundtrack, this nostalgic night odyssey is a classic.
Assault on Precinct 13
The film really brought John Carpenter into public consciousness before he exploded a couple of years later with Halloween. Assault on Precinct 13, to a lesser extent than Die Hard, really did kick off a new action sub-genre, one which is still going strong today (Copshop). Carpenter’s genre-hopping gifts are clear and he creates a taught and tension-filled action thriller out of a simple concept and tight space as a small police precinct due to be closed down, has to fight an onslaught from a wave of criminals.
Much like a lot of Carpenter’s earlier works, he manages to belie a small budget and make a film that is visually dynamic with great cinematography (from Douglas Knapp here). The cast (Austin Stoker, Darwin Joston, Laurie Zimmer, Tony Burton), of largely unknowns at the time, are all engaging. The pace never lets up and this is one added benefit of having a film take place over the course of a night as the protagonists who must reluctantly work together must survive the onslaught.
Glengarry Glen Ross
A group of salesmen are called to a late-night meeting and told (by a barnstorming Alec Baldwin) only the top two performing sellers will keep their jobs. The only one on a hot streak is Ricky Roma (Al Pacino) who exudes arrogance, but the rest bemoan poor leads and want a crack at the fresh Glengarry leads.
A film set in only a few locations about bedraggled and downtrodden salesmen should be like watching paint dry but James Foley’s film, from a David Mamet screenplay, is enthralling and oddly thrilling at times. The further they grind into the dead of night, the more desperate they become, particularly Shelley Levine (Jack Lemmon) who is in dire need of money for his daughter’s hospital bills. By morning, someone has stolen the Glengarry leans, intent on selling them. Glengarry Glen Ross is an acting and screenwriting masterclass. It suitably retains the intimacy and energy of its stageplay roots whilst managing to feel cinematic.
Judgment Night
Another underrated and somewhat hidden gem, Judgment Night is a rollicking thrill ride propelled by a great cast. That Stephen Dorff, Emilio Estevez and Cuba Gooding Junior all faded toward the end of the century seems a shame given their respective talents. It’s all on display here, even if Dennis Leary does steal the movie from under their noses as a bullish, flaming tongued and wisecracking villain.
A group of friends who have drifted apart with their differing maturity and life choices, come together to take an RV trip across town to watch the boxing. Stuck in gridlock and unlikely to make their destination, they take drastic action to reverse out of the traffic and find an alternate route, which takes them into a grim side of town run by Leary’s gang. Like some of the aforementioned films this one does escalation brilliantly, as the group first witness a gang hit and find themselves hunted through the backstreets of a hostile part of the City. Yes, it’s preposterous but this variant on Warriors is a great 90s-era thriller with a killer soundtrack.
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle
A late-night case of the munchies leads Harold and Kumar, two second-generation immigrants, into a quest to find their nearest White Castle burger establishment. As an early noughties stoner comedy this of course leads to all manner of ludicrous situations and farcical comedy but this still endures particularly well thanks to some sharp satire which skewerss stereotypes. Mostly though it rests on the likeability of its two protagonists played by John Cho and Kal Penn.
Every obstacle overcome is met with a more ridiculous and insurmountable one. Each colourful and brilliantly goofy new character they encounter is outdone by the next with Anthony Anderson, Jamie Kennedy, Christopher Meloni, Ryan Reynolds and Neil Patrick Harris (as himself) all brilliant. This film is still so funny it hurts and to this day I still can’t listen to Wilson Phillips’, Hold On without wanting to sing along.
What’s your favourite one-night film? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Tom Jolliffe is an award-winning screenwriter and passionate cinephile. He has a number of films out around the world, including When Darkness Falls, Renegades (Lee Majors and Danny Trejo) and War of The Worlds: The Attack (Vincent Regan), with more coming soon including Cinderella’s Revenge (Natasha Henstridge) and The Baby in the Basket (Maryam d’Abo and Paul Barber). Find more info at the best personal site you’ll ever see here.
