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Wake Up Dead Man Review: The 'Funniest and Most Playful' Knives Out Mystery Yet
The film explores a murder mystery in a gothic village church, highlighting a clash between religious faith and rational investigation with a 95% Rotten Tomatoes rating, critics say.
- At the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, Rian Johnson premiered Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, scheduled for theaters November 26th and Netflix December 12th, 2025.
- As the third Knives Out film, Johnson set out to shift tone, drawing on Edgar Allan Poe, gothic fiction, and a 1997 U2 song, framing themes of faith versus logic.
- Josh O'Connor's portrayal of Father Jud Duplenticy anchors the story in Chimney Rock, with Benoit Blanc arriving about forty minutes in to investigate a locked-room murder at a neo-Gothic church.
- Rotten Tomatoes currently lists Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery at 95% from 22 reviews and Metacritic at 82/100 from 12 reviews, with Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Deadline praising it as a Toronto International Film Festival highlight and Rian Johnson's best yet.
- As a dense, idea-rich mystery, it may play even better on repeat viewings, and observers say it would benefit from a robust theatrical run while sparking conversations about myth and faith.
12 Articles
12 Articles
Review: Canadian pride booms, dual Hamlets duel and Rian Johnson's knives are out (again) at a 50th TIFF
The first days of TIFF were jam-packed with Oscar hopefuls and genre thrillers: Rian Johnson's "Wake Up Dead Man," Chloé Zhao's "Hamnet" and Potsy Ponciroli's "Motor City."
TIFF 2025 Review: ‘Knives Out’ Takes on a Locked Room Mystery in ‘Wake Up Dead Man’
Father Judd (Josh O'Connor) is a good man. After a minor slip-up, he is assigned to be the second-in-command of a shrinking parish headed by Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin), a firebrand of the pulpit who spews hate and division to...
Scandal Actor Confesses What Makes Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery Beat the Prequels
Daniel Craig is back as Benoit Blanc in Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. But this time, the story will not only be a lot different from the prequels but will also beat them. At least that’s what Scandal actor Kerry Washington assured during her interview with People at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. [Wake Up Dead Man] grapples with these real issues of faith and the idea of having the courage to examine wha…
TIFF 2025 Day Three: 'Christy', 'Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery', 'The Furious'
Chatting with my TIFF pals this week, I realized that I, consciously or not, always have a few selections in my 20-30 film lineup each year that trend towards ‘normie.’ Big, splashy productions with recognizable stars that I can talk to my family or coworkers about and not some obscure, ultraviolent foreign film that no one but the hardest-core cinephiles has heard of or will conceivably ever see. And certainly not something like Fuck My Son! Th…
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