Vanessa Kirby might be flying high as Sue Storm in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, but if you want to see her in an altogether different role, be sure to add the new Netflix movie Night Always Comes to your weekend watchlist.
All eyes are on the streaming service’s TV content right now. In 2025 alone, we’ve had Squid Game Season 3, Wednesday Season 2 is halfway through airing, and Stranger Things Season 5 is set to wrap up its flagship show at the end of the year.
But Netflix has just as many new and existing movies to get excited about, including The Thursday Murder Club later this month, which sounds like Knives Out meets Miss Marple.
For now, you can catch Kirby in action in a new thriller movie that’s a completely different experience to Marvel’s First Family.
What is Night Always Comes about?
Adapted from Willy Vlautin’s 2021 novel The Night Always Comes, this gritty new thriller follows a woman over one night as she risks everything to secure a house and a future for her family.
As per the official synopsis, “On a dangerous odyssey through a single night, Lynette is forced to confront her dark past in order to finally break free.”
The new movie sees the family facing all the struggles of America’s working class, placing issues like the struggling economy, tanking job market, and housing crisis under the microscope.
Speaking to Netflix’s Tudum, director Benjamin Caron explained, “What drew me to the film was its exploration of survival and sacrifice and the idea of quiet heroism. It asks the question, ‘Who gets to feel safe, and at what cost?’”
“Lynette is driven by a desperate need for security, for the idea of home as much as, I guess, the reality of it. Yet she is haunted by the fear that she doesn’t deserve it,” he added.
“Her journey is a study in propulsion. Each decision, no matter how reckless, is an attempt to outrun her past and carve out a future.”
Vanessa Kirby leads the cast
Kirby takes on the lead role of Lynette in the Night Always Comes cast. She is joined by Zack Gottsagen as her developmentally disabled brother Kenny and Jennifer Jason Leigh as her unreliable mother Doreen.
You can check out the rest of the cast and the characters they play below:
- Stephan James as Cody, Lynette’s co-worker
- Julia Fox as Gloria, an escort
- Eli Roth as Blake, the money man
- Randall Park as Scott, a businessman and client
- Michael Kelly as Tommy, a local dodgy dealer
For Kirby, the role couldn’t be more different to her portrayal of Sue Storm in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, yet she brings the same intensity and precision to both.
As stated by Caron, “Vanessa brings a beautifully wild energy to Lynette, making the character unpredictable and deeply, deeply human.
“Together, we worked on creating a character who is simply not just reacting to the world, but desperately trying to wrest control of her future, even as she teeters on the edge of self-destruction.
“Vanessa was creatively involved from the ground up, which was brilliant. To have someone that was both an actor and producer was incredibly exciting to me.”
Night Always Comes Rotten Tomatoes score
So far, Night Always Comes has received mixed reviews, with a 60% Rotten Tomatoes score from the critics. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad, with many praising the performances and the grounded story.
In fact, CBR gave the Netflix movie 9/10, stating that the “three-dimensional presentation of one woman’s fight for another day to live” is what “makes Night Always Comes one of the most powerful films of 2025.”
Heaven of Horror wrote in its four-star review, “As Lynette, Vanessa Kirby delivers a portrayal that is nuanced, heartbreaking, intense, and absolutely breathtaking.”
Among the many middling reviews, Film Feeder said it’s a “decent ticking-clock thriller that relies on its amusingly sleazy underworld and a barrage of strong performances to carry its occasionally flimsy and on-the-nose storytelling.”
On the lower end, the Guardian gave it two-stars, writing, “Night Always Comes tries to be both seat-edge action thriller and searing social issue drama and while Caron is able to squeeze suspense out of the early, frenetic moments, there’s not enough emotional weight to the more human final act.”
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