305 S. Campbell, Suite 101
Springfield, MO 65806
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The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality. (R, 111 min.)
7:00 PM
Essential Arthouse 2026
A timeless story of human connection and self-discovery, Moonlight chronicles the life of a young black man from childhood to adulthood as he struggles to find his place in the world while growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami. At once a vital portrait of contemporary African-American life and an intensely personal and poetic meditation on identity, family, friendship, and love, Moonlight is a groundbreaking piece of cinema that reverberates with deep compassion and universal truths. Anchored by extraordinary performances from a tremendous ensemble cast, Barry Jenkins’s staggering, singular vision is profoundly moving in its portrayal of the moments, people, and unknowable forces that shape our lives and make us who we are. [A24]
Starring: Trevante Rhodes, André Holland, Janelle Monáe, Ashton Sanders, Alex R. Hibbert, Mahershala Ali
Director: Barry Jenkins
Genres: Drama
"Jenkins has made something astonishing."
— Amy Nicholson, MTV News
"It’s a true American masterpiece and one of the best films of the decade."
— Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer
"Sensitive, subtle and heartfelt, Jenkins’ genre-buster is a significant work that will knock you out."
— Rob James, Total Film
"This film is, without a doubt, the reason we go to the movies: to understand, to come closer, to ache, hopefully with another."
— Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out
"It’s a thrilling, deeply necessary work that opens up a much-needed and rarely approached on-screen conversation about the nature of gay masculinity."
— Benjamin Lee, The Guardian
"Every year, we get only a few of these, movies that come out of nowhere, that are different, unexpected and wonderfully right. Moonlight is that kind of movie, one of the gems of 2016."
— Mick LaSalle, Mick LaSalle
"In its quietly radical grace, it’s a cultural watershed — a work that dismantles all the ways our media view young black men and puts in their place a series of intimate truths. You walk out feeling dazed, more whole, a little cleaner."
— Ty Burr, Boston Globe
"It’s a masterpiece — an overused word, but not the wrong one."
— John Anderson, Wall Street Journal
"It’s a film that aches with beauty. It cries with longing. It quakes with a rich sadness that lingers with you long after the final moments. A masterpiece of poetic filmmaking, Moonlight is one of the most powerful films of the year."
— Oliver Whitney, ScreenCrush
"Under Jenkins’ direction, Moonlight is both haunting and poetic, a bittersweet elegy for what could have been. His unflinching camera, which tends to follow the film’s characters like a ghost, gives the film a startling immediacy and emotional power."
— Nico Lang, Consequence
"Moonlight is magic. So intimate you feel like you're trespassing on its characters souls, so transcendent it's made visual and emotional poetry out of intensely painful experience, it's a film that manages to be both achingly familiar and unlike anything we've seen before."
— Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
"Moonlight is a film that is both lyrical and deeply grounded in its character work, a balancing act that’s breathtaking to behold. It is one of those rare pieces of filmmaking that stays completely focused on its characters while also feeling like it’s dealing with universal themes about identity, sexuality, family, and, most of all, masculinity."
— Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
"Moonlight is one of those movies that showers its audience with blessings: raw yet accomplished performances from a uniformly fine cast, casually lyrical camerawork, and a frankly romantic soundtrack that runs the gamut from ’70s Jamaican pop to a Mexican folk song crooned by the Brazilian Caetano Veloso. But the film’s greatest gift may be that flood of cleansing tears—which, by the time this spare but affecting film was over, I was also shedding in copious volume."
— Dana Stevens, Slate
