''The Overnighters'' is a 2014 American

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

written, directed, and produced by Jesse Moss. It premiered on January 18, 2014, as part of the U.S. Documentary Competition section of the Sundance Film Festival, and it won the festival's Special Jury Prize. The film also won a prize at the Miami International Film Festival, at which it was screened on March 13, 2014. After its premiere at Sundance, Drafthouse Films acquired the film's distribution rights. It was released on October 24, 2014, in United States, with a portion of all box office receipts being donated to affordable housing charities in

North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, So ...

Synopsis

The film depicts the lives of people chasing the dream of high salaries in the North Dakota oil boom, only to discover that affordable housing is almost impossible to find. Much of the focus is on the efforts of local

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

pastor Jay Reinke, who allowed over 1,000 different people to stay at his

Williston, North Dakota Williston is a city in and the county seat of Williams County, North Dakota, United States. The 2020 census gave its population as 29,160, making Williston the sixth-largest city in North Dakota. The city's population nearly doubled between 20 ...

, church over a period of about two years.

Reception

''The Overnighters'' was received positively by critics. On

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, it has a 97% approval rating based on reviews from 74 critics, with an average score of 8.5/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Hard-hitting, absorbing, and painfully relevant, ''The Overnighters'' offers an urgent and compassionate picture of life in 21st century America." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a score of 89 out of 100 based on reviews from 20 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Justin Chang Justin Choigee Chang (born January 3, 1983) is an American film critic and columnist for the ''Los Angeles Times''. He previously worked for ''Variety''. Early life Justin Chang graduated from the University of Southern California in 2004. Chan ...

of ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' called the film "tough-minded, admirably unresolved". David Rooney of ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly larg ...

'' gave the film a positive review, writing: "A scenario with present-day echoes of ''The Grapes of Wrath'' yields perceptive insights into the way we view outsiders." Katie Walsh of ''

Indiewire IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Holl ...

'' said: "''The Overnighters'' is starkly bleak and devastatingly humane, and an indelible American documentary." Colin Covert of the ''

Minneapolis Star Tribune The ''Star Tribune'' is the largest newspaper in Minnesota. It originated as the ''Minneapolis Tribune'' in 1867 and the competing ''Minneapolis Daily Star'' in 1920. During the 1930s and 1940s, Minneapolis's competing newspapers were consolida ...

'' gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and noted: "The film features stunning third-act revelations that compel viewers to rethink its characters' actions and motivations."

Accolades

References

External links

Official website
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Overnighters, The 2014 films 2014 documentary films American documentary films Sundance Film Festival award-winning films Documentary films about petroleum Films shot in North Dakota Films set in North Dakota 2010s English-language films 2010s American films