A Midnight Clear

In the Ardennes forest in December 1944, a small American intelligence unit made up of unusually bright young soldiers is sent on a reconnaissance mission. They find a group of German troops who are exhausted and frightened, and who would rather give themselves up than die in the fighting still to come. Cut off for a time from the wider war, the two sides set their differences aside and spend Christmas together. That fragile understanding is tested when the surrender plan goes wrong, and the men are pushed back into combat against each other.

Keith Gordon directed and wrote the screenplay, making his debut behind the camera after working as an actor. The cast includes Peter Berg, Kevin Dillon, Arye Gross, Ethan Hawke, Gary Sinise and Frank Whaley as members of the American squad. The film was produced by Dale Pollock and Bill Borden for A&M Films, Beacon Communications and Interstar on a budget of about 5 million dollars, and its worldwide box office was around 2 million.

On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.1 out of 10 from roughly 11,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.6 out of 10 from a much smaller number of votes. A film critics' rating of 7.2 out of 10 from 40 reviews places it in similar territory to the audience scores. Gordon went on to direct Mother Night in 1996.