Six great films fea­tur­ing kids with extra­or­di­nary powers

Just as the media loves a sto­ry about a three year old who can play a piano con­cer­to, the movies have long been fas­ci­nat­ed with prodi­gious kids, be it Dan­ny Tor­rance in The Shin­ing or the gag­gle of super intel­li­gent tots in Baby Genius­es (itself appar­ent­ly not so smart film giv­en that it’s cur­rent­ly sat at 64 on the IMDb’s Bot­tom 100). Writer/​director Jeff Nichols’ lat­est, Mid­night Spe­cial, stars Jae­den Lieber­her as Alton, a young lad forced to go on the lam with his father after the author­i­ties get wind of his mys­te­ri­ous abil­i­ties. With the film arriv­ing in cin­e­mas this week, here are six more young char­ac­ters with awe­some and unusu­al powers.

This Stephen King adap­ta­tion tells the sto­ry of an eight-year-old girl (Drew Bar­ry­more) who has the abil­i­ty to set things on fire. Nat­u­ral­ly, she’s sought out by a shady organ­i­sa­tion for their own nefar­i­ous means. Firestarter is worth a watch for four rea­sons: George C Scott; Mar­tin Sheen; Art Car­ney and David Kei­th. Oh, and some nifty pyrotech­nics. The film has a sequel, of sorts, in the form of a 2002 TV movie, called Firestarter 2: Rekin­dled, which is either the best title for a sequel ever, or one of the worst, depend­ing on your fond­ness for puns.

Bowl-hair­cut wear­ing Dede Tate is a kid genius who can solve tricky maths prob­lems – rather like a young ver­sion of Matt Damon in Good Will Hunt­ing. It’s an appro­pri­ate sub­ject for Jodie Foster’s direc­to­r­i­al debut, con­sid­er­ing she emerged as a gift­ed child actor in the likes of Taxi Dri­ver and Bugsy Mal­one. It’s also worth track­ing down the under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed 1976 chiller The Lit­tle Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, which was recent­ly released on DVD for the first time. In it, Fos­ter plays a pre­co­cious teen who man­ages to out­wit a men­ac­ing and dan­ger­ous bul­ly, played by Mar­tin Sheen.

Star and direc­tor Dan­ny Devito’s adap­ta­tion of Roald Dahl’s beloved book is a real treat – a fam­i­ly friend­ly com­e­dy that doesn’t dilute Dahl’s dark­er impuls­es. DeVi­to and Rhea Perl­man are out­stand­ing as Matilda’s obnox­ious par­ents, and Mara Wil­son is per­fect in the title role, a cute but not cloy­ing kid who just hap­pens to be able to make inan­i­mate objects levitate.

Nine-year-old autis­tic savant Simon is revealed is have a head for num­bers after inad­ver­tent­ly crack­ing a top secret gov­ern­ment code. Pre­dictably the shad­owy organ­i­sa­tion, head­ed up by a won­der­ful­ly sin­is­ter Alec Bald­win, are not hap­py. Cue spe­cial agent Bruce Willis, who takes it upon him­self to pro­tect Simon from gun-pack­ing bureau­crats. It’s com­plete and utter hokum star­ring child act­ing prodi­gy Miko Hugh­es, who pre­vi­ous­ly scared the beje­sus out of cin­ema­go­ers in the film ver­sion of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary at the ten­der age of two and a half.

In 2004, a tal­ent­ed new painter explod­ed onto the Amer­i­can art scene, likened to the great Jack­son Pol­lock for her intense and unique abstract can­vass­es. She was four years old. While crit­ics and buy­ers fell over them­selves to praise the prodi­gy painter, ensur­ing the prices of her art­works rock­et­ed, some were rather cyn­i­cal. Might her father, him­self a not so suc­cess­ful painter, be giv­ing his daugh­ter a help­ing hand? Amir Bar-Lev’s extra­or­di­nary doc­u­men­tary is billed as a ​‘mys­tery’, and plays out like a super-sophis­ti­cat­ed episode of Columbo.

Spelling Bees are fierce­ly fraught and com­pet­i­tive events that seek to find the kid most like­ly to grow up to be derid­ed on social media as a gram­mar Nazi. The doc­u­men­tary Spell­bound, about the 1999 US Nation­al Spelling Bee, is as nerve-wrack­ing as the 1945 Hitch­cock film of the same name, and as far as ​‘teens being elim­i­nat­ed’ films go, it’s bet­ter than all the Hunger Games films put together.

Mid­night Spe­cial is released in cin­e­mas 8 April.