Film
Midnight Television
A seven-minute sci-fi short that captures the loneliness of late-night scrolling in a retro-futuristic world. It's clever, visually stylish, and moves with the precision of a great short story—that satisfying hit of idea and emotion in minimal time. For anyone who appreciates speculative fiction that trusts its audience to keep up.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you like a short, dreamy sci-fi piece that leans on mood and retro-futuristic texture over plot, and you enjoy the feeling of an idea landing in seven minutes flat.
Skip it if you need a story given room to unfold, since at seven minutes this can only sketch its world and leave most of it to suggestion.
What it asks of you: Seven minutes, one sitting, and a patient eye for its nostalgic production design, since the narrative stays spare and the pace is unhurried.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Her2013
Explores connection between human and digital presence with tenderness and wit. A feature-length meditation on parasocial intimacy that shares Midnight Television's core obsession without the retro aesthetic.
But Moves slowly and leans hard on philosophical conversation rather than plot momentum. Some find Joaquin Phoenix's performance precious.
Blade Runner 20492017
Visual poetry in a future world where technology and longing collide. Deliberately paced, gorgeously composed, and interested in what it means to desire something that may not be real.
But Nearly three hours of contemplative science fiction. If you need constant plot movement, the atmospheric stretches will feel like punishment.
The Midnight Sky2020
A lone protagonist and a mysterious voice from screens away; isolation, connection, and the fragile lifelines we find in darkness. Spare and emotionally direct, with the same economy of storytelling.
But George Clooney's aging-astronaut performance is deliberately muted. Some viewers find it withdrawn to the point of distance.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Midnight Television
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Perfect Blue1998
Both explore the collapse between observer and observed—the dangerous symbiosis of creator and audience through screens, rendered as intimate horror.
An anime psychological thriller about obsession, surveillance, and the unbearable weight of being watched. Satoshi Kon's masterpiece moves like a fever dream—what Midnight Television might become if dreamed by someone half-awake.
But The real-time animation can look dated. Sexual violence and implied rape that serves the narrative but will alienate some viewers. Deliberately disorienting and unsettling throughout.
More like this (8)
Under the Skin2014
A masterpiece of mood and visual strangeness that trusts silence and ambiguity. Scarlett Johansson in a role that's the opposite of celebrity—stranger, odder, more unsettling. Unforgettable.
But Deliberately opaque with minimal dialogue. Long, uncut scenes of driving through Scottish landscapes. Patience required; conventional narrative it is not.
Synecdoche, New York2008
Charlie Kaufman's masterwork about a creator losing himself in his creation, blurring reality and artifice until you can't tell which is which. Dense with ideas and images that stick with you for years.
But Deliberately baroque and difficult. It's a puzzle box that may never fully solve itself, which some find frustrating rather than profound.
Arrival2016
First contact becomes love story becomes meditation on time and language. A science fiction film that earns its emotional climax through intellectual rigor. Beautifully structured and genuinely moving.
But Concept-heavy dialogue in the first half. The twist, while beautiful, is knowable if you're paying attention. Some resent being one step ahead.
Annihilation2018
A shimmer of strangeness at the edge of reality, visually hypnotic and deeply unsettling. Low-key and mysterious, it asks questions it doesn't answer—respects your intelligence enough to leave you uncertain.
But The second half moves into body horror and abstraction that alienates some viewers. Tangled narrative structure can feel muddled rather than intriguing.
Ex Machina2015
Claustrophobic chamber piece about artificial intelligence and desire played as high-stakes psychological thriller. Ava's character echoes the girl-in-the-screen dynamic with unsettling precision.
But Dialogue-heavy scenes in featureless rooms. The 'twist' is intellectually satisfying but emotionally cold. Some find it more clever than cathartic.
Strange Days1995
A 90s vision of virtual experience addiction and parasocial connection. Underground, visually kinetic, ahead of its time. The retro-futurism has aged into genuine period atmosphere.
But Dated special effects and some genuinely dated attitudes toward women. Kathryn Bigelow's vision is vivid but uneven, and the climax veers melodramatic.
Wavelength1967
Both are miniature meditations on how screen culture constructs human experience—how we're shaped by the medium itself, not just the content flowing through it.
Michael Snow's experimental forty-five minutes: a single fixed camera in a loft, a slow zoom, and the ambient television of an ordinary day. Hypnotic, maddening, luminous. It's a poem about seeing and time.
But Absolutely no conventional narrative or character. It asks you to sit with visual information and sound design for three-quarters of an hour. Not entertainment in any familiar sense.
Mulholland Drive2001
Both are about the strange eroticism of screens and the hunger they create—the way we project lives and intimacy onto images, and what happens when fiction and longing become indistinguishable.
David Lynch's Los Angeles nightmare about actresses, desire, and the machinery of entertainment that chews people up. Three hours that feel like a single broken dream. The structure matters as much as the images.
But Deliberately non-linear and finally unresolvable. Lynch witholds answers and some viewers feel genuinely angry about that. The second half is oblique even by Lynch standards.
People
Cast
- Jacob ZukowskiAsher
Dana KippelCharlee
Directing
- Gabe MichaelDirector
Writing
- Gabe MichaelWriter