Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Story (2025) Review

Title: Wake Up Dead Man
Year: 2025
Director: Rian Johnson
Country: US
Language: English

Rian Johnson may not know how to make a great Star Wars film (although I personally liked many ideas presented in The Last Jedi), but his Knives Out installments have been a cinematic goldmine since the first was released in 2019. He is the only film-maker daring to still make these intelligent, comedic, dramatic Agatha Christie style murder-mysteries. which are always highlighted by a fantastic ensemble cast & the enigmatic Daniel Craig, who is a Sherlock Holmes if Holmes had a confounding southern drawl. 

Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) teams up with an earnest young priest (Josh O'Connor) to investigate a perfectly impossible crime at a small-town church with a dark history.

Rooted firmly in the locked-room mystery, a subgenre in which a crime occurs within a confined, often windowless space. The film devotes much of its runtime to methodically establishing stakes, motivations, and character nuances. This deliberate pacing enhances the intrigue surrounding the central crime, allowing the audience to fully absorb each suspect’s psychology. The mystery remains consistently engaging, grounded in strong character work and compelling performances. Each narrative “twist” feels earned, landing with genuine surprise rather than contrivance.

With this entry in the Knives Out series, Johnson explores faith, devotion, and the institutional power of the church with notable care and restraint. Rather than mocking belief itself, the film respectfully interrogates how faith can be weaponized by manipulative leaders to exploit those who trust unquestioningly. The pageantry and grandeur of the church are shown as tools, often used to cultivate a cult of personality around men like Father Wicks (Josh Brolin), whose authority rests as much on perception as it does on conviction.

Ultimately, Wake Up Dead Man may be Johnson’s most thematically ambitious Knives Out film to date. Beneath the clever plotting and razor-sharp dialogue lies a meditation on moral certainty, guilt, and the stories people tell themselves to justify their actions.