Detective stories are immortal. For those who enjoy discovering who the culprit is and interacting with them as if they were a puzzle where solving the mystery is the most important thing, there is something inexhaustible in the twists and turns that writers of this kind of stories come up with. For those who enjoy dramatic twists or narrative development, the fact that there is a crime and it is necessary to dig into the personal circumstances of those involved creates a perfect circumstance to create unique scenarios of characters and interesting situations. Making detective stories, when they are good, a surefire success.
That’s why we shouldn’t be surprised that one of Netflix’s biggest successes, considering its impact on critics and audiences as well as on culture in general, has been a detective story. One that continues and now offers us its third installment. Because it premieres on the platform Knives Out: From the Dead.
A series of highly successful movies
If there is one thing that the Knives Out film series has excelled at, it is in creating two things: a very distinctive authorial style and a memorable character capable of carrying very different films on his shoulders. And in both cases, there are two names responsible for that. In the first case, that is Rian Johnson. In the second, it is Daniel Craig.
Rian Johnson is the director and creator of this movie saga who is also far from being a stranger to mystery stories. Having directed the absolutely fabulous cult film Brick, centered on a mystery in a peaceful residential neighborhood, but also being behind Poker Face, one of the best detective series in recent years, Johnson is the kind of director you can trust to create a fantastic detective story. And not just detective stories.
He became famous for being the director of three of the most famous episodes of Breaking Bad, Fly, Fifty-One, and Ozymandias, and everything that was said about those three episodes applies to all of his films. With an incredible obsession for staging and allowing actors to move and interact with the set, with the camera following them from unusual angles, emphasizing the script with images rather than necessarily with words, his films and series are easy to watch, but they have many more layers of depth than they appear at first glance.
Daniel Craig, for his part, is the visible face and protagonist of the franchise. Playing Benoit Blanc, a flamboyant and as brilliant as peculiar private detective, Craig’s performance elevates the character to the heights of brilliance. Blanc always comes across as intelligent and brilliant, but also strange and most of the time, just an odd gentleman. And that makes it even more remarkable when he demonstrates all his intelligence, or the stupidity of those around him.
Two Brilliant Movies
So far, Netflix has released two Benoit Blanc movies. Both are huge successes with audiences and critics, making it a true milestone in detective stories. Not without good reasons.
The first one, Knives Out, premiered on November 27, 2019, and was an immediate and unprecedented success. With a budget of 40 million dollars, it managed to accumulate over 311 million at the box office, becoming a massive hit. Critics fell in love with the film, praising its virtues and lauding it for the intelligence of its narrative and the strength of its direction and performances by its actors, and it managed to win a good handful of awards. This included Netflix acquiring the rights to make two sequels to the film exclusively for the platform with limited theatrical releases.
The first of these sequels was Knives Out: The Mystery of Glass Onion, a hilarious sequel that presented us with a depressed Benoit Blanc during the COVID pandemic having to participate in the absurd game of a billionaire who is Elon Musk in everything but name that will turn into a real case halfway through the movie.
Absolutely brilliant in its satire of modern wealthy life, still brilliant as a detective movie, it was once again an absolute success. Both critics and audiences rallied around the film once more, and in fact, it has now managed to amass even more nominations and awards. Nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, two Golden Globes, and six Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, the film managed to cement the franchise in the minds of all viewers.
Now comes the third and final installment of Netflix’s deal, titled Knives Out: Glass Onion. Released in theaters worldwide with great success and an exorbitant budget of 200 million dollars, which is explained by the resounding success of the two previous films, it has once again captivated both critics and audiences with a unanimous opinion: it may be the best of the three films in the franchise so far. Which is saying a lot, considering the level of the two previous ones.
Knives Out: From the Dead arrives on Netflix on Friday, December 12, although it is still in some theaters across the country. So don’t miss the chance to see one of the films that promises to be in all the betting pools for the 2026 awards. And in the minds of everyone around the world in the years to come.
