Film
Knives Out
A modern whodunit that treats the country-house mystery like a puzzle box built to be admired, not just solved. Rian Johnson stuffs it with red herrings, class commentary, and a note-perfect Daniel Craig as a Foghorn Leghorn Poirot, but keeps the plotting airtight underneath the jokes. Funny, twisty, and rewatchable — for anyone who wants Agatha Christie with a wink and real teeth.
If you liked this
Gosford Park2001
Robert Altman's country-house murder mystery is the blueprint Knives Out is riffing on — overlapping dialogue, class warfare between upstairs and downstairs, and a killer buried under decades of good manners.
But Slower and more novelistic than Knives Out; it trusts you to piece together thirty characters' worth of resentment without much hand-holding.

Murder on the Orient Express2017
Kenneth Branagh's lavish, star-stuffed Christie adaptation gives you the same pleasure of watching one impossibly composed detective work a locked-room full of liars, just with more moustache and more train.
But Plays it straighter and more reverent than Knives Out — gorgeous, but less interested in subverting the genre than celebrating it.

Clue1985
A gleeful, quotable farce built from a board game, with a mansion full of suspects, multiple endings, and comic timing so sharp it's become a cult classic in its own right.
But Broader and sillier than Knives Out's dry wit — this is slapstick first, mystery second.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
And Then There Were None1945
This is the ancestor Knives Out is in conversation with — same closed circle of suspects, same slow reveal of everyone's secret, decades before irony got involved.
The original template: ten strangers stranded on an island, picked off one by one, in a crisp black-and-white adaptation of the Christie novel that basically invented this whole genre.
But No jokes, no winking at the camera — the tone is genuinely tense rather than playful, and the pacing is very much of its era.

More like this (8)
The Nice Guys2016
Shane Black's buddy comedy has the same DNA — a genuinely tangled case wrapped in constant, character-driven banter, with Gosling and Crowe doing note-perfect comic chemistry.
But Trades the drawing-room elegance for 70s LA grime and a much higher body count.

A Simple Favor2018
A twist-a-minute thriller that never stops enjoying its own cleverness, with Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively turning a missing-persons case into pure, stylish fun.
But Tonally messier — it swerves harder into camp and melodrama than Knives Out ever does.

Only Murders in the Building2021
Three washed-up true-crime obsessives investigate a death in their own apartment building — funny, warm, and structured like a puzzle you can pause and actually try to solve.
But Episodic TV pacing means less of the single, satisfying mechanical click Knives Out delivers in one sitting.

Death on the Nile2022
More Branagh-Poirot glamour and misdirection, this time on a boat instead of a train — a solid, handsome, old-fashioned mystery if you want another dose of that world.
But Overstuffed cast and a slower middle act make it feel less tightly wound than Knives Out.

See How They Run2022no page yet
A meta whodunit set backstage at a West End Christie production, poking gentle fun at the genre's own clichés while still delivering an actual mystery.
But Lighter and slighter than Knives Out — charming rather than dazzling, and the twist is easier to see coming.
The Grand Budapest Hotel2014
Not a mystery exactly, but Wes Anderson's caper shares the same delight in ornate plotting, eccentric ensembles, and a story nested inside a story.
But Far more whimsical and stylised — if you came for the whodunit mechanics specifically, this is a different kind of pleasure.

Soupçons2004
Same structure — a wealthy family, an ambiguous death, a house full of people who all tell it differently — but played completely straight, with a real family's devastation instead of a script.
A documentary series following the real trial of a novelist accused of killing his wife at the bottom of a staircase — the same forensic fascination with competing stories, but with actual grief at stake.
But There's no puzzle-box satisfaction here, no tidy solution — it's slow, ambiguous, and genuinely upsetting in a way fiction rarely is.

Wild Things1998
Same engine — a story built entirely to be re-solved on a second viewing — but stripped of class commentary and dignity, and dialed all the way up to pulp.
A trashy, sun-drenched Florida thriller that keeps flipping who's conning who long after you think you've caught up — pure plot-twist adrenaline with none of the manners.
But Sleazy, campy, and morally weightless where Knives Out has real social bite — this is the genre with its clothes off.

People
Cast
Daniel CraigBenoit Blanc
Chris EvansRansom Drysdale
Ana de ArmasMarta Cabrera
Jamie Lee CurtisLinda Drysdale
Michael ShannonWalt Thrombey
Don JohnsonRichard Drysdale
Toni ColletteJoni Thrombey
LaKeith StanfieldLieutenant Elliott
Christopher PlummerHarlan Thrombey
Katherine LangfordMeg Thrombey
Jaeden MartellJacob Thrombey
Riki LindhomeDonna Thrombrey
Directing
- Rian JohnsonDirector
- Jamie ChristopherFirst Assistant Director
- Jessica LichtnerScript Supervisor
- Kenneth DonaldsonSecond Assistant Director
- Scooter PerrottaSecond Second Assistant Director
- Bruce Wayne GilliesSecond Unit First Assistant Director
Writing
- Rian JohnsonWriter
Production
- Terri DouglasADR Voice Casting
- Meaghan CarrollAssistant Production Coordinator
- Angela PeriCasting
- Mary VernieuCasting
- Sydney ShircliffCasting Assistant
- Bret HoweCasting Associate
- Melissa MorrisCasting Associate
- Leopold HughesCo-Producer
- Nikos KaramigiosCo-Producer
- Tom KarnowskiExecutive Producer
- Aaron KahlExtras Casting
- Marina Clarke PaolinoExtras Casting Assistant
- Molly OliverExtras Casting Assistant
- Charles HarringtonLocation Manager
- Gregory ChiodoLocation Manager
- Ariane ChatmanPayroll Accountant
- Ram BergmanProducer
- Rian JohnsonProducer
- Dax A. CuestaProduction Accountant
- Jake SwartzProduction Assistant
- Joshua GonzalesProduction Coordinator
- Tom KarnowskiProduction Manager
- Kieran ThompsonProduction Secretary
- Amy GreeneProduction Supervisor
- Chris StinsonProduction Supervisor
- Abby MulhollandSecond Assistant Accountant
- Bradley FieldSecond Assistant Accountant
- Dov Kling-LevineSecond Assistant Accountant
- Montae ReedSecond Assistant Accountant
- Ram BergmanUnit Production Manager
- Tom KarnowskiUnit Production Manager
Recommended by
Parasite, The Menu, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Clue, Murder on the Orient Express, Game Night, Gosford Park, Ready or Not, Triangle of Sadness, A Simple Favor, Only Murders in the Building, The Last of Sheila, Sleuth, Columbo, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Thin Man, Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, Evil Under the Sun, Witness for the Prosecution, Agatha Christie Poirot, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Death on the Nile, Brick, The White Lotus, The Usual Suspects, The Big Lebowski, Scream, And Then There Were None, The Sheep Detectives, Saltburn, The Handmaiden, The Cat and the Canary, Murder by Death, Death at a Funeral, The Lion in Winter, Happy Death Day, Unforgotten, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Identity, The Split Up, Deathtrap, The Old Dark House