“WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY” ON NETFLIX

What makes Rian Johnson’s Knives Out films stand out isn’t just their clever plotting or star-studded casts, but their bold refusal to settle into franchise routine. Each entry resets the board, keeping only Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc while reinventing the setting, tone, and themes. The third installment, Wake Up Dead Man, streaming on Netflix, pushes the series into darker, Gothic territory, using a small-town Catholic parish to explore questions of faith, power, and morality.

Set in upstate New York, the film introduces Father Jud Duplenticy, a young priest reassigned after controversy, and a tightly wound religious community dominated by an authoritarian monsignor. When a suspicious death occurs, Jud turns to Blanc, whose secular logic collides with spiritual uncertainty. As clues and red herrings pile up, the mystery becomes something richer: a meditation on belief, doubt, and human frailty. In doing so, Wake Up Dead Man proves the Knives Out series still has surprising places left to go.