In the last couple of years, you didn’t need to be sporting a monocle to notice that there were murder mysteries everywhere. On television, you could guess whodunnit on The Afterparty or Only Murders in the Building. On the big screen, Kenneth Branagh worked his way through two starry Poirots with Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile. The Agatha Christie love continued with See How They Run, a retro crime caper pegged to her play The Mousetrap. And then there was Knives Out.
Released in 2019 and directed by Rian Johnson, the film juggled a rollercoaster plot with huge names and borderline slapstick, while giving viewers the vicarious pleasure of watching entitled, bratty rich people collapse into chaos. It starred Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, a southern gentleman detective with a “Kentucky-fried Foghorn Leghorn accent” and a Sherlock-esque mind. Blanc was there to crack the case of a dead crime author who died in his mansion, surrounded by his money-grubbing descendants. The film’s cast was all-star, with Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans and Toni Collette joining the melee, and its tone was fresh. It was thrilling, it was brainy, and it was surprisingly farcical and funny. Unsurprisingly, it was a huge hit. Netflix quickly commissioned two more Knives Out mysteries.
