Film

Crooked House

Name: Crooked House
Genre: Mystery, Crime, Thriller
Released: 2017
Cast: Glenn Close, Max Irons, Stefanie Martini, Christina Hendricks, Terence Stamp

A locked-room mystery steeped in Agatha Christie's cunning: a private detective returns to solve a patriarch's death within a mansion full of scheming relatives, each with motive and secrets. Glenn Close commands the screen as the ice-veined matriarch. It's elegant, twisty, and deeply satisfying for anyone who loves a puzzle where everyone's guilty of something.

TMDb rating

3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy Agatha Christie-style country-house puzzles where every family member has a motive and the fun is in sorting suspects, with a cast of sharp older performers doing the heavy lifting.

Skip it if you want a brisk, tightly plotted thriller; at just under two hours it lingers over a sprawling household, and its tone is more stately and talky than tense.

What it asks of you: Settle in for a leisurely film of roughly two hours that rewards patience, with many characters to keep straight and a mood that stays measured rather than jumpy.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Murder on the Orient Express2017

Branagh's gleaming remake of Christie's masterpiece: an impossible crime, a killer among passengers, and the delight of watching brilliant detection unfold across an opulent setting.

But The solution hinges on contrivance that asks you to accept a large leap in logic. Some find the artifice more apparent than thrilling.

Knives Out2019

A country mansion, a dead patriarch, a family crawling with secrets and spite. Rian Johnson updates the Christie formula with dark humour and gives you the solution early, then plays a different game entirely.

But The tonal shift halfway through will feel jarring if you wanted a traditional whodunit. Some resent the geniality underneath the murder.

Rebecca2020

A haunting reimagining of du Maurier's gothic: a woman enters a grand house where the previous wife's shadow looms, murder festers beneath politeness, and nothing is as it seems.

But The pacing is deliberate and atmospheric rather than propulsive. If you wanted plot velocity, the mystery takes a backseat to dread.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Crooked House

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Grifters1990

Both use family and inheritance as the engine for moral collapse; both suggest that everyone under the same roof is capable of murder.

A mother, a son, and a lover—all con artists—ensnared in a trap of their own making. It's a Christie-logic plot (everyone guilty, everyone scheming) shot through a Noir lens with Anjelica Huston prowling like a predator.

But The cynicism is absolute and the violence sudden. No one is redeemable. If you wanted elegance and puzzle-craft, you're getting the ugly machinery instead.

The Little Things2021

Denzel Washington and Rami Malek hunt a serial killer across 1990s Los Angeles. Morally grey, character-driven, with the texture of a crime procedural and the philosophy of a tragedy.

But The payoff is bleak and the investigation meanders. Expect regret and emptiness rather than satisfaction—which is precisely the point.

See How They Run2022

A charming 1950s whodunit where a detective and his protégé solve a backstage murder at a West End theatre. Smart, funny, and deeply affectionate about the genre itself.

But The self-awareness occasionally tips into cuteness. The mystery isn't punishing—it's designed to be fun above all else.

Death on the Nile2022

Branagh again, this time on a paddle steamer with multiple suspects, a bride, a poisoning, and the luxury of time to let the plot breathe and twist. Visually sumptuous and narratively intricate.

But At two and a half hours, it can feel indulgent. The glamour sometimes overwhelms the mystery's tension.

Dial M for Murder1954

Hitchcock's confined masterpiece: a man plots his wife's murder in real time, and you watch the machinery of intention meet reality. Economical, audacious, and perfectly constructed.

But It's staged like a play and shot from one room—the lack of cinematic scope can feel static if you need visual variety to hold attention.

The Lady in the Van2015

Maggie Smith as a prickly, brilliant woman living in a van on a London street. A character study wrapped in gentle eccentricity and real kindness beneath the acerbity.

But There's no plot in the traditional sense. It's meandering and small—wrong film if you need narrative momentum.

And Then There Were None2015

A BBC miniseries of Christie's most audacious novel: ten strangers on an island, accused of unseen crimes, eliminated one by one. Atmosphere, paranoia, and the slow collapse of civilisation.

But The bleakness is relentless and the pacing glacial. If you need hope or momentum, this suffocates you deliberately.

You Can't Take It with You1938

Both are ensemble mysteries set in grand houses; Capra shows you that the mansion's rot comes from rigidity, while Christie suggests it grows from within the blood itself.

Capra's celebration of eccentricity: a family of lunatics welcomed into a mansion of rules, and the slow combustion that follows. It's the inverse of Crooked House—madness as salvation instead of corruption.

But The sentimentality is thick enough to choke on. Modern taste finds it cloying, and its faith in human goodness feels naive.

Mulholland Drive2001

Both are about surfaces and concealment in enclosed spaces; both suggest that the deeper you dig, the less real the structure becomes.

Lynch's labyrinthine Los Angeles: two women in a house, secrets piling like snow, the line between truth and performance dissolving. A mansion mystery where the solving is impossible but the atmosphere is hypnotic.

But The narrative refuses clarity. Some view this as genius; others see pretension masquerading as depth. You will argue about what it means.