Film

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Rian Johnson's sequel-of-sorts trades the gothic mansion for a Greek island and a tech billionaire's disaster of a vanity project, then lets Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc pick through a cast of influencers, sycophants and one very angry genius. It's brighter, meaner about the rich, and more interested in structure-as-punchline than the first film. Pure pleasure if you like your mysteries clever and your satire loud.

TMDb rating7.0

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Knives Out2019

Blanc's first outing, tighter and warmer, with a whodunit engine so well-built you'll want to watch it twice just to admire the joints.

But You've already seen it, obviously, and going backwards can feel like homework.

Knives Out poster

Murder on the Orient Express2017

Branagh's lavish, star-stuffed Christie adaptation gives you the moustache, the snowbound train, and a parade of suspects each hiding something delicious.

But It plays the genre straight rather than winking at it, so the comedy you loved here is mostly absent.

Murder on the Orient Express poster

Clue1985

A gloriously silly board-game adaptation with rapid-fire farce, six endings depending on the cinema, and a cast having far too much fun.

But It's broader and dumber on purpose — if you wanted wit over slapstick, this leans the wrong way.

Clue poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

And Then There Were None1945

Glass Onion's island setting and vanishing-guest structure are a direct descendant of this — the black-and-white grandparent of the entire trapped-together-with-a-killer formula.

The original isolated-island body-count mystery, adapted from Christie herself, sly and stylish long before country-house whodunits became a genre unto themselves.

But Black-and-white pacing and 1940s manners will feel slow next to Johnson's zippy editing.

And Then There Were None poster
More like this (7)

The Nice Guys2016

Shane Black's buddy noir has the same delight in a plot that keeps folding back on itself, plus terrific comic chemistry between its leads.

But It's grubbier, more violent, and 70s LA sleaze rather than Aegean glamour — different flavour of fun.

The Nice Guys poster

Death on the Nile2022

Another sun-drenched, all-star Christie puzzle box, this one steeped in old-money jealousy and a genuinely tragic core.

But Slower and more melodramatic, with less of the satirical bite you might be craving after Glass Onion.

Death on the Nile poster

A Simple Favor2018

A twisty, campy thriller about toxic friendship and secrets that swerves tone as gleefully as Johnson does, with Blake Lively at her most delicious.

But It gets nastier and more melodramatic than a cosy whodunit, closer to trash than to elegance.

A Simple Favor poster

Gosford Park2001

Robert Altman's country-house ensemble is the sophisticated ancestor of this whole genre — overlapping dialogue, class warfare, a murder almost beside the point.

But It's slow-burn and talky where you want propulsion; the mystery is secondary to the social observation.

Gosford Park poster

See How They Run2022no page yet

A cheeky meta-whodunit set backstage at a West End Agatha Christie production, with Saoirse Ronan stealing every scene she's in.

But Lighter and slighter than Glass Onion, more of a pleasant diversion than a fully satisfying puzzle.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang2005

Shane Black again, this time with Robert Downey Jr. narrating a noir so self-aware it practically winks at the camera every scene.

But Its jokes are sharper than its plotting; if you want a clean solvable mystery, this isn't quite that.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang poster

Serial Experiments Lain1998

Glass Onion is a comedy about the pleasure of untangling a puzzle; Serial is the sobering real-world version, where that same detective urge has genuine human cost.

The true-crime podcast that reinvented amateur detection for the internet age, unpicking a real murder case with the same obsessive, layer-by-layer curiosity Blanc brings to fiction.

But There's no tidy resolution, no wit, no reassurance — just the discomfort of an actual unsolved life.

Serial Experiments Lain poster

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