A Thief in the Night is a 1973 American evangelical Christian horror film written by Jim Grant, and directed and produced by Donald W. Thompson.

[1] In medias res, Patty Myers awakens to a radio broadcast announcing the disappearance of millions around the world.

Patty considers herself a Christian because she occasionally reads her Bible and goes to church regularly; however, her pastor is shown to be an unbeliever.

The film's title is taken from 1 Thessalonians 5:2, in which Paul warns his readers that "the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night."

[8]: 207  The locusts from Revelation 9 with human faces, ready for battle – to torment those without the seal of God – are represented in the film as attack helicopters, taken from Christian writer Hal Lindsey's understanding of the end times.

[1][9] Fears of globalism and big government are prominent themes in the film, with "the Antichrist...literally a branch of the United Nations claiming control over the entire world.

"[10] In 1972, Iowa-based filmmakers Russell Doughten and Donald W. Thompson formed Mark IV Pictures to produce A Thief in the Night.

[1][9] Produced on a $68,000 budget, A Thief in the Night earned an estimated $4.2 million during its first decade of release, the majority of which came from audience donations.

In 1989, historian of religion Randall Balmer wrote that producer Doughten estimated that 100 million people had seen the film.

I have found that A Thief in the Night is the only evangelical film that viewers cite directly and repeatedly as provoking a conversion experience.

[1] It has been described as traumatic for children, who comprised a significant percentage of its original audience, and criticized for using scare tactics to produce religious conversions.