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Nightingale

Play trailer Poster for Nightingale TV-14 2014 1h 23m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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82% Tomatometer 22 Reviews 61% Popcornmeter 250+ Ratings
A dangerously unstable man (David Oyelowo) addresses the unseen followers of his video log about his obsession with an old Army buddy.
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Nightingale

Nightingale

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Critics Consensus

Nightingale serves up a breathtaking solo performance by David Oyelowo in a film served well by its modest cinematic style.

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Critics Reviews

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Aramide Tinubu indieWire In HBO's Nightingale, David Oyelowo gives the best performance of his career as Peter Snowden, a man quickly and violently descending into madness. Apr 12, 2017 Full Review Jason Bailey Flavorwire It's a film that burrows into an unstable psyche, and nestles there uncomfortably. May 28, 2016 Full Review David Sims The Atlantic An audacious one-man show-a series of deluded, sometimes charming, often tragic, occasionally frightening monologues delivered by a troubled veteran clearly in the midst of a dissociative crisis. Dec 3, 2015 Full Review Stephen Marche Esquire Magazine It captures the anomie of screened-in life only too well. It seethes with the sense of boredom and self-obsession and confusion we all live with. But how much of that do you really want to surround yourself with? Oct 19, 2018 Full Review Alison de Souza The Straits Times (Singapore) As much as the claustrophobia of watching him alone spinning his wheels reinforces the idea of a man trapped, the story soon runs out of momentum. Sep 26, 2016 Full Review Bob Strauss Los Angeles Daily News Everything about Nightingale is richly expressive and chillingly effective. May 29, 2015 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Audience Member Disturbing. Fabulous performance. Feel shaken. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/18/23 Full Review Audience Member David Oyelowo is superb! Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/17/23 Full Review Audience Member stellar acting solo seemed like theater Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review Audience Member An interesting film set in one house with one actor. David Oyelowo gives such a powerful performance here, an actor to watch out for. Even though I found it interesting I didn't love it, you can tell that it is based upon a play it just has that feel. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/19/23 Full Review Audience Member I have worked in an early childhood classroom as an assistant teacher. In these situations it is good if everyone works together. Yet there is often someone who wants, and can easily get, attention by being silly. He, I think it is usually a he, will draw others to him by his silliness and can, of allowed, become a really controlling factor in the room. We like the novel, something different, someone shaking things up and the people who can provide this get attention and are held in some sort of esteem by the group. I open with this because I'm thinking about mass entertainment and wondering if having the class clown or the one presenting something novel, or out of the ordinary, get center stage is, in the long run, a good thing generally. Because this is the situation with mass entertainment, where corporations seeking profit through attention have presented us with endless numbers of class clowns, constant killers, psychos, power junkies. Their stories are the ones we watch, the ones that are interesting, exciting, riveting. I don't really know what the world felt like before mass motion picture entertainment, How many murders, or murderers did people see in olden times when maybe a theater troupe came through town and maybe we got out to see what they had to offer once a week, or month, or year. Now they are there daily, nightly, constantly. This type on mass electronic entertainment is a very new thing in human evolution. Nightingale takes us to the extreme again. Here we have a solo movie about a very isolated man who has murdered his mother in the house in which they live. I'm not spoiling here, that is how the thing starts, he has already murdered his mother before we join him, before we invite him into our living room as he rides in via a trillion dollar entertainment corporation electronic infrastructure. This is a solo acting piece with actor David Oyelowo. He has, as I said, killed his mother and he talks and talks. He gets to talk out loud a lot of the time because he is using webcams recording video that he is either uploading to youtube, or not, they never make that totally clear until the end where he refers to people's comments on presumably his earlier uploaded videos. Anyway, he is a sad lonely man and he falls more apart during the 83 minute running time of this thing. His one ray of hope is that his old army buddy will show up for a special dinner, someone he is clearly in love with. This night turns into Charlie Chaplin on a Gold Rush New Year's Eve but instead of the relatively subtle reaction of The Little Tramp at being stood up, of course this guy goes into a rage. This is what this product is. It kind of offers nothing. It is nothing. It doesn't show us anything new about the human experience. The thing is a oddball in the corner demanding attention for his own benefit and providing us, the community, with nothing. Is it great, powerful acting? Not particularly because I don't think that it is a harder job for the actor to be extreme than to be subtle. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review filippo v L'andamento monotematico del film rende la pellicola fin da subito noiosa e ripetitiva. L'interpretazione dell'attore principale è notevole ma solo questo aspetto non riesce a reggere una trama che non decolla. Il messaggio non mi è arrivato e nonostante un'idea sfruttabile "Nightingale" non lascia il segno. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Nightingale

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Cast & Crew

Where Hope Grows 54% 75% Where Hope Grows Watchlist Savannah 20% 37% Savannah Watchlist The Arbalest 20% 50% The Arbalest Watchlist TRAILER for The Arbalest Bad Hair 95% 69% Bad Hair Watchlist Time Out of Mind 80% 42% Time Out of Mind Watchlist Discover more movies and TV shows. View More

Movie Info

Synopsis A dangerously unstable man (David Oyelowo) addresses the unseen followers of his video log about his obsession with an old Army buddy.
Director
Elliott Lester
Producer
Lucas Akoskin, Jonathan Gray, Sarah Esberg, Alex Garcia
Screenwriter
Frederick Mensch
Production Co
BN Films, Weinstock Entertainment
Rating
TV-14
Genre
Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Streaming)
Aug 10, 2016
Runtime
1h 23m
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