The Night of the Hunter

1955 Directed by Charles Laughton

The wedding night, the anticipation, the kiss, the knife, BUT ABOVE ALL...THE SUSPENSE!

In the Deep South, a serial-killing preacher hunts two young children who know the whereabouts of a stash of money.

Robert Mitchum Shelley Winters Lillian Gish James Gleason Evelyn Varden Peter Graves Don Beddoe Billy Chapin Sally Jane Bruce Gloria Castillo James Griffith Gloria Pall

Alternative Titles

Mensageiro do Diabo, 猎人的夜晚, 雾夜惊魂, La noche del cazador, La Nuit du chasseur, Trasdockan

crime thriller

93 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Adam Cook ★★★★★ 15

One of cinema’s great travesties is that Charles Laughton only directed one official film. So poorly received, both critically and commercially, was The Night of the Hunter that Laughton never helmed another film again. Whilst many works of art go unappreciated in their creator’s lifetime it still begs the question: why were people in 1955 such fucking idiots?
To miss this film’s brilliance is difficult to comprehend. Laughton has created one of the great American films of the ‘50s, a decade positively bursting with classics. It is hard to pigeonhole (and may well be the reason for its poor reception upon release) because whilst it is a noir thriller it feels more like a twisted bedtime story. It blends the…
Review by Lucy ★★★★½ 7

went to a mystery screening tonight and when the opening credits started playing, i couldn't contain my excitement. this works on so many levels for so many reasons, even the occasional hokeyness adds a new layer to the sickly dark humor. but it's the cinematography and unusual directing that kicks this up a notch, and as a result, it transcends
this might be one of the best films ever made
"i can feel myself gettin' awful mad. i'm out of patience, children. i'm coming to find you now."
Review by Rida ★★★★½ 20

The Night of the Hunter is a classic Gothic fairytale: an evil being charms an unsuspecting parent, while only the children are aware that things are not what they seem. It was only while watching the film, enthralled but also deeply unsettled, that I fully realized just how insidiously terrifying the stories of our childhoods are. It's probably not the kind of entertainment that children should be absorbing, but there you are.
When Reverend Powell arrives in town, singing a hymn in his deep, carrying voice, he immediately charms everybody but the children he wants to steal ten thousand dollars from. Little John and Pearl have been burdened with an enormous secret: to keep this vast amount of money safe…
Review by Filmspotting ★★★★★ 9

A Southern Gothic masterpiece about the insidiousness of shame.
(And with a narrative driven by a con man obsessed with money claiming moral authority who has issues with women... not at all timely.)
Review by Jeff ★★★★★ 27

One of my unspoken rules here was that I wasn't going to give any movie a five-star rating on its first watch. It was really only a matter of time before I looked like an asshole on that one.
Admittedly, I am a sucker for stylized sets and expressionistic lighting and movies about bad people doing bad things. But apart from my personal tastes, The Night of the Hunter is filmmaking firing on all cylinders.
There's nothing new I can add to the discussion of this film, but I will say that I was fairly surprised at the turn it took in the third act revealing itself to be not (only) a noir thriller, but a classic fairy tale set in the real world.
. . . and that crazy sound design move when Mitchum yells at the kids was so cool it broke my brain.
Review by Peter Labuza ★★★★★ 1

First viewing in 7+ years, and only seems more complex, disturbing, and impossible to fully grasp the various layers working through Laughton’s singular work. Hugely influenced by Griffith and Murnau, Hunter resembles a comic book more than any other film in cinematic history, as in Laughton opts for a series of tableaux shots with very little movement (a few shots recall another 1955 masterpiece, Ordet, and maybe Dreyer in general). All the tracking shots are usually left to right or right to left movement, and there’s definitely a flatness to his images the makes it feel all the more painterly.
But what we really have here is a film built on the power of manipulation; where the same authority (religion,…

Recent reviews

Review by Chuck ★★★★½

It's amazing what people will do in the name of God. Robert Mitchum is deliciously evil as Reverend Powell, a wolf in sheep's clothing. The other characters are trying to live as righteously as they can, while Powell takes advantage of them. This includes a widow and her children. Powell marries the widow in search of a large sum of money that the widow's dead husband stole. Rather than delve further into the plot, I'll just say it gets quite terrifying, even when we approach the film's ultimate conclusion.
Review by timmybash ★★★

My first exposition to classic Hollywood Cinema and it was a delight. Robert Mitchum was fantastic and had a presence on screen similar to Heath Ledger in The Joker and Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men. The cinematography was quite impressive with some impressive angles used, shadow effects and movements. I could see the influence of this film all over movies I have seen - especially when most I have seen are from the last 30 years.
Review by G-Anne ★★★

The lines! They speak to my soul! Great ending.
Review by Amar ★★★★★

sangat menyentuh dan memiliki daya tarik yang tinggi. sinematografi yang sangat baik, aktingnya dan klimaks yang sangat powerful.
Review by Benjamin Harrison ★★★★★

This looks incredible on the big screen. I forgot how musical it is. Robert Mitchum is magnificent and terrifying. A big bloody classic.
Review by RagingNoah ★★★★★ 1

It’s all for the watch.
Review by seba_roar_ ★★★★½

'La Noche del Cazador' es magistral.
Robert Mitchum nos da con el falso predicador Harry Powell a uno de los mejores villanos de la historia del cine: aterrador y pelos de punta cada vez que hace acto de presencia con la canción "Leaning"...
Charles Laughton, gracias.
Review by Miles Jackson ★★★

Much has been made of the limitless influence Charles Laughton's debut film has had on modern classics innumerable, but I never realised just quite how much this had an impact on the most important books of my childhood, A Series of Unfortunate Events. Not just in its scenery-chewing antagonist and plucky yet world-weary kiddos, but also in its caustically tongue-in-cheek satire. This is a movie that I find very hard to take at face value; the thing's a joke, every scene blisteringly mocking the Christian South, to the point that it gets a bit one-note.
Still, for a film that is supposedly so invested in kids' ability to endure the toughest of situations (a recurring theme throughout fiction that is…
Review by BananaPudding ★★★

Add this to the list of critically acclaimed movie that I don't get all the hype about

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