‘Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery’ Review

Rian Johnson has always loved playing with fire. In Wake Up Dead Man, he steps directly into the flames and somehow walks out holding something tender, provocative, and unexpectedly soulful. This third Benoit Blanc mystery is not only the darkest and most emotionally charged of the series, it is also the most spiritually alive. It asks big questions about belief, truth, and the fragile armor people build around their convictions. It toys with our expectations before revealing a story that is richer and more humane than anything Johnson has attempted in this franchise.

And at the center of it all is Josh O’Connor. What an actor, and what a year he’s having.

Johnson loves characters who fracture under pressure, and O’Connor gives him the ideal vessel. As Father Jud Duplenticy, O’Connor carries the film with warmth, humanity, and the kind of empathetic anguish that makes this story throb with life. This year alone he has delivered an insanely creative and fruitful run of performances, and this one might be the crown jewel. He deserves to be in everything.

The setup sounds simple enough. A young priest. A charismatic monsignor. A small-town congregation in quiet panic. A murder that should not make sense. A detective who famously sees through illusion. But Johnson quickly reveals more than a puzzle box. He pulls at the threads of faith, grace, and community, interrogating why people cling to belief systems even as those systems fail them. The result is a staggering blend of poignancy and playfulness.

Characteristically for Johnson, the film is meticulously constructed and still somehow delightfully inelegant. It is occasionally too precious. It is always funny and thoughtful. It baits and switches the audience with surface level nods toward contemporary political chaos before tilting into something deeper and more spiritually nourishing.

Right from the opening frames, the use of lighting announces this as Johnson’s most visually striking work yet. The contrast between cool and warm tones is entrancing. Pale blues wash across the lonely corners of the church. Golden light glows against confessionals and kitchen tables and silent hallways. The visual language becomes a battle between clarity and obscurity. Light and shadow play out like combatants wrestling for control. Watching it, you feel the characters’ internal wars, their longing for mercy, their terror of exposure. This attention to visual storytelling elevates the entire experience.

Johnson seems very aware that a third installment in a series must justify itself. This one has the most to prove. Astonishingly, it succeeds. In fact, it exceeds. While Daniel Craig remains a riot as Benoit Blanc, the film does not revolve around his antics. Instead, Blanc becomes a supporting beam for the story Johnson truly wants to tell. Craig is funny, razor sharp, and charming. But this is the first Knives Out entry where Blanc is not the gravitational center. That honor belongs completely to O’Connor, and the film is stronger for it.

The supporting ensemble is stacked with powerhouses. Glenn Close delivers one of her best performances in years. Josh Brolin brings fascinating texture and grounding. Mila Kunis, Cailee Spaeny, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner, Daryl McCormack, and Thomas Haden Church each add welcome color. At the same time, it must be said that the ensemble is used less effectively than in the previous films. These characters feel more like a true flock than a set of sharply defined individuals. Sometimes this works beautifully, especially when Johnson explores the complex social dynamics of a church community. In those moments, the collective identity of the congregation becomes the point. But the tradeoff is a loss of the crisp, individualized detail that made the first two films feel so participatory for the audience.

Still, the film’s portrayal of faith-based communities, especially through the experiences of the women in the congregation, is astoundingly effective. Johnson understands the labor, emotional and otherwise, that sustains religious spaces. He understands the mixture of solace and suffocation. The laughter this film inspires is generous, but the tears come surprisingly often. For a filmmaker who once reveled in the mechanical joy of puzzle plotting, this is a new register. And it is a thrilling one.

Johnson has gone three for three. Each entry in the series feels familiar and fresh at the same time. That is not an easy tightrope walk. Knives Out was cozy. Glass Onion was shiny. Wake Up Dead Man is gothic. Johnson differentiates each installment while preserving the essential pleasures of the genre. The eccentric detective. The unreliable ensemble. The shifting alliances. The slow drip of clues that are obvious only in hindsight. And yes, some of those clues here fall into place a little too easily. There are moments when the formula becomes visible. But the ambition behind the craft makes up for it.

Most importantly, the mystery is genuinely fun. It is also genuinely challenging. There are reveals no audience could possibly predict. There are moments that make you doubt your own eyes, moments that border on the impossible. Yet Johnson always plants the truth within reach. He never cheats. Instead, he hides the answers in plain sight. When the revelations arrive, you feel like an absolute fool for not noticing.

Some viewers may find the film a touch too dense. Its themes stack on top of one another until they threaten to wobble. Faith, logic, manipulation, the politics of fear, the poor state of public discourse, the myth of the righteous leader. But this density is part of the film’s charm. It might even improve on rewatch, once the pressure of solving the mystery is lifted and the thematic architecture becomes easier to examine.

What impresses me most is how Johnson engages with Christianity not as an institution but as a philosophical framework. He treats faith as something worth interrogating. Worth challenging. Worth cherishing. This approach gives the film an emotional potency that the previous entries lacked. It becomes a story not just about crime but about the human search for meaning.

Josh O’Connor just showed why he is one of the best actors working today. He is the emotional heart of the film. He is its anchor. He is its storm. As Father Jud, he embodies guilt, hope, longing, and vulnerability in equal measures. If Johnson and Craig decided to call it quits here, this would be a perfect note of grace to end on. But if they choose to resurrect this series, I will be waiting with great anticipation.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is now in select Theaters and will release on Netflix on December 12, 2025.