2025 is going to be a big year forNetflixmovies, and it looks like the streaming platform is saving its most exciting feature releases until last. At the back end of the year, right around the holiday season which typically sees small-screen viewing figures hit their annual peak, Netflix is going to drop two of its biggest ever film premieres. It’s no coincidence that both of these movies belong to the same genre. Their top billing on the world’s biggest streamer is part of a wider trend that’s revived the murder mystery genre by taking it in brilliant new directions.
Wake Up Dead Man, the third installment of Rian Johnson’sKnives Outseries, andThe Thursday Murder Club, the first screen adaptation of Richard Osman’s best-selling novel series, are justthe latest murder mystery big hitters to receive star treatmentfrom Hollywood. The trend they’re following began back in 2017, and was picked up by major streaming platforms at the start of this decade. Now, everyone from James Bond star Daniel Craig to comedy legend Steve Martin and teen pop sensation Selena Gomez is in on the act, and by 2023 even Hollywood directorSteven Spielberg had joinedThe Thursday Murder Club.
Knives Out 3 And The Thursday Murder Club Are The Latest Revivals Of The Murder Mystery Genre
But They’re The Biggest Releases Yet In This Broader Genre Trend
The return of Craig’s Benoit Blanc inWake Up Dead ManfollowsNetflix’s phenomenal success with the firstKnives Outsequel,Glass Onion, released on the platform around Christmas of 2022. Meanwhile,Knives Outitself was released in cinemas back in 2019 to massive audiences and rave reviews, which confirmed to studio executives that they were onto a winner with projects aiming to revive the murder mystery genre.
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Johnson’s movie series consciously pays homage to classic works of the genreand its most recognizable tropes. In this way, its success demonstrates beyond doubt that traditional murder mysteries once again have mass appeal for both big and small-screen audiences, as long as they’re presented in innovative and exciting forms.
Osman’s story is also set in a retirement village, which follows a common trope among the current trend of mystery genre revivals.
This balance betweennostalgia for the murder mystery genre and creative innovationis what those adaptingThe Thursday Murder Clubwill be hoping to achieve. They includeHome Alonedirector Chris Columbus, Steven Spielberg on production duties, and a raft of A-listers fronted by Helen Mirren and Daniel Craig’s fellowBond actor Pierce Brosnan.
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Osman’s story is also set in a retirement village, which follows a common trope among the current trend of mystery genre revivals on streaming. Ted Danson’s Netflix sitcomMan on the Insidefeaturesan amateur detective infiltrating a retirement community, while two of the three main characters in Steve Martin’s Hulu seriesOnly Murders in the Buildingare essentially retirees.
Kenneth Branagh’s Murder On The Orient Express Started This Trend In 2017
Before Branagh’s Box-Office Triumph The Genre Appeared To Have Gone Stale
Tracing this trend of movies and TV shows reviving the murder mystery genre back to its origins, it’s clear thatthe success of Kenneth Branagh’sMurder on the Orient Expressin 2017has a lot to do with it. Branagh certainly went out on a limb with the project, directing and starring in the fourth different English-languageversion of Agatha Christie’s classic Hercule Poirotnovel.
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Death and Other Details has some striking similarities to an Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot movie, but it also manages to set itself apart.
For a start, it was initially hard to imagine Branagh himself as the legendary detective, especially after another British actor, David Suchet, had made the character his own during a 13-season,70-episode run of Poirotmysteries on UK television. Then there was the danger of inviting a host of Hollywood stars such as Penélope Cruz, Johnny Depp, Judi Dench and Willem Dafoe to dress up in period costumes for a highly-stylized genre piece. There was every chance thatBranagh’s movie was going to be a spectacular, expensive failure, putting the final nail in the coffin of a genre which appeared to have gone stale in cinematic terms.
On the contrary, though,Murder on the Orient Expresswas a triumph, making its money back seven times over. The movie received mixed reviews, due to its self-conscious extravagance and Branagh’s deliberately over-the-top portrayal of Poirot, intended to celebrate the eccentricity of Christie’s genre storytelling. Yet it was precisely these aspects of the film that proved a hit with audiences, demonstrating to movie and TV bosses that classic murder mysteries could be on their way back in a big way.
Steve Martin’s Only Murders In The Building Put Murder Mysteries On The Streaming Map
It Was The First Major Murder Mystery Series Made For Streaming
Three years on from Branagh’s first Christie adaptation, and a year afterKnives Outbecame a box-office smash, comedian Steve Martin finally got the chance to make a murder mystery series he’d been sitting on for almost a decade. Admittedly,Martin’s comeback showOnly Murders in the Buildingwasn’t the first new mystery series to make it big in the last decade, with the BBC’s adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s Cormoran Strike becoming a sleeper hit on Cinemax around the turn of the decade.
ButOnly Murder in the Buildingwas the first big murder mystery show made for streaming, and its unprecedented success proved to major platforms that this genre revival wasn’t just the preserve of the big screen. Incidentally,C.B. Strikehas begun to pick up a head of steam on Max, HBO’s streaming platform, only this year, off the back ofOnly Murders in the Buildingand other similar shows.
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What’s more, Cormoran Strike is more of a hard-boiled detective than a classic murder mystery protagonist. Like Branagh’sPoirotmovies and Johnson’sKnives Out, on the other hand,Only Murders in the Buildingindulges in the fun and fanciful elements of traditional murder mysteries, whilst updating the genre for the true-crime podcast generation.
This Trend Is A Callback To Classic TV Murder Mysteries Like Poirot And Murder, She Wrote
Those Reviving The Murder Mystery Genre Are Aware Of Its Traditions
A key aspect of today’sbest murder mysteryrevivals is their self-awareness, which allows them to poke fun at themselves and the genre with a knowing wink to the audience. Nevertheless,this self-awareness is also a mark of respect for the genre’s traditions. Many fundamental elements ofKnives Out,Only Murders in the BuildingandThe Thursday Murder Clubpay homage to the tropes of classic murder mysteries. It’s not just the literary great Agatha Christie they’re referencing, either, but seminal TV murder mysteries like Angela Lansbury’sMurder, She Wrote.
“Several characters outright reference, in a very meta way, how a new body seems to appear whenever a murder is solved."- Rachel Labonte -ScreenRant’s review ofOnly Murders in the Building’s season 4 finale
It’s partly the affection that these new movies and TV shows demonstrate for the genre itself that wins the hearts of so many millions of viewers around the world. The murder mystery genre never really went out of fashion, and Osman’s novel series has proved that it’s more popular than ever. As long as the mystery is well-written and handled with care, there’ll always be an audience for it.Netflixwill be hoping that, in streaming terms at least, 2025 will see a bigger audience for the genre than ever before.
Knives Out 3
Cast
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery follows Benoit Blanc as he embarks on his most perilous case yet, unraveling a complex web of deception and uncovering hidden truths. This installment continues the suspenseful narrative of the detective’s intriguing investigations.
