David Farnor | On 13, Dec 2025

Director: Rian Johnson
Cast: Josh O’Connor, Daniel Craig, Josh Brolin, Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner
Certificate: 12

Say “Agatha Christie” to someone and they’ll likely picture a big house with dark secrets and family plots, or maybe a suspicious death on an exotic holiday. Rian Johnson’s Knives Out franchise has had great fun playing with both those scenarios over its first two films, getting flashier and more self-aware as it goes. Wake Up Dead Man, the third and possibly final outing for detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), delves into the other corner of Agatha Christie conventions: the shadowy, spooky corner where death is taken more seriously than the genre’s cuddly familiarity usually allows.

If the sun-drenched Glass Onion verged on silly and cartoonish, Wake Up Dead Man is a refreshingly dark puzzle that has far more layers to peel back. It’s less romp and more reflective, and all the better for it. We follow Craig’s Blanc to a rural Catholic church, where a priest – Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin) – has died in front of his congregation, right after delivering a particularly blunt sermon.

A fiercely forthright preacher with an unapologetically conservative outlook, he holds significant sway over his flock: a cellist, Simon (Caliee Spaeny), who is praying for healing, a washed-up novelist, Lee (Andrew Scott), who wants to turn Wicks’s teachings into a world-changing religious book, a doctor, Nat (Jeremy), who spends more time drinking than helping patients, and a lawyer, Vera (Kerry Washington), who keeps a close eye on the would-be influencer Cy (Daryl McCormack). Stalwart throughout is Wicks’s devoted housekeeper, Martha (a scene-stealing Glenn Close), who has her own devoted follower in the form of gardener Samson (Thomas Haden Church).

Inevitably, this colourful bunch of lost sheep all have reasons to bump off their shepherd. Blanc’s thrilled to have an opportunity to take on a seemingly classic locked room mystery, with no clear way of Wicks’s murder being carried out. But it’s an emotional puzzle as much as a logical one, and as the motivations unravel slowly and thoughtfully, what emerges is a mosaic of bullying and shame.

This kind of nuance only works because the cast are willing to be vulnerable within what initially apear to be archetypes, and because Johnson’s script makes a welcome key decision: to take religion and faith seriously. That decision is grounded by the film’s secret casting weapon: Josh O’Connor, delivering perhaps the best performance of his disarmingly versatile career.

O’Connor is marvellous as Father Jud, a junior priest with a violent past who has been sent to the church for insubordination. What ensues is a thrilling clash of values and personalities, as Josh Brolin sinks his teeth into Wicks’s righteous fury and Josh O’Connor finds understated authority in Jud’s dismayed frustration and unwavering mercy. Both are determined and strong in their own ways, and they trade confessions like blows in a boxing ring, each one convicted of how the church should respond to the world around it.

Rian Johnson ups the ante come the superb final act, challenging us to believe in the extraordinary. But the film’s revelation is one of quiet humility and service more than dramatic punches; its philosophy and understanding of Christianity is rooted in Jud’s convincing, heartfelt certainty that grace is always the answer to any mystery life throws our way. The result is a thought-provoking exploration of guilt, power, corruption and, above all, kindness.

That’s not to say it isn’t enertaining – Johnson weaves it together with all the wit, humour and smarts you’d expect, and O’Connor gives one of his most overtly funny performances to date. But the case that’s cracked is less about a murder and more about Benoit Blanc himself, as Craig unpacks his detective’s deadpan persona to unearth new depths. If Blanc began as a playful crime-solver, then became a fiery dismantler of superficial immorality, here he grows into a lover of reason who learns the value of compassion. What a moving climax for this multi-faceted, always surprising franchise.

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