An impossible crime, a burdened priest, and a befuddled detective drive the narrative of Rian Johnson’s latest Knives Out mystery, Wake Up Dead Man.
The third installment in this franchise centering around Daniel Craig as the theatrical and ever-so-charming Detective Benoit Blanc, brings us to a small town in upstate New York where a murder occurs, leaving an unending pile of loose threads and suspects.
Wake Up Dead Man is the second Knives Out film to be released since Johnson struck a deal with Netflix to make two sequels, amounting to what could be the last one under this streaming giant’s umbrella, as he has indicated a preference for more robust theatrical releases.
Though Wake Up Dead Man is only playing on limited screens, it will begin streaming on December 12, 2025, making a perfect opportunity if you are looking to escape the harsh winter weather or to watch a movie over the holidays with friends and family. Wake Up Dead Man is a thrill ride full of laughs and clever twists, anchored by Craig’s fantastic return as Blanc and a riveting performance from Josh O’Connor as a young priest at the heart of this story.
Josh O’Connor is the Heart and Soul of This Murder Mystery
Like Knives Out and Glass Onion before, Wake Up Dead Man finds a central cast member who becomes Blanc’s trusted sidekick. However, this installment sees that role expanded to the degree that O’Connor, as Father Jud, ends up being the lead of the film. Blanc does not even appear before the half-hour mark, giving us a lengthy setup where Father Jud sets the stage for the mystery and introduces us to the rest of the ensemble cast.
A number of well-known actors join O’Connor and Craig, including Glenn Close, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner, Mila Kunis, and Josh Brolin. While every one of the major players in this cast works in the movie, it remains true that neither Glass Onion nor Wake Up Dead Man have been able to match the lightning-in-a-bottle character dynamic of the first film.
The original movie’s ensemble felt like one massive unit of moving parts that seamlessly worked together. Both sequels have felt unbalanced in terms of who gets the most screentime or dimensionality. Cailee Spaeny, an exciting rising star, and Andrew Scott, an acclaimed stage and screen actor most known as Moriarty on the hit BBC Sherlock series, are great additions but the film gives them little to do, lost in the shuffle among more important characters played by less compelling performers.
Nevertheless, O’Connor’s performance alone brings Wake Up Dead Man to new heights for this franchise. Aside from Craig himself, no one has injected so much life into one of these movies as O’Connor’s Father Jud. One standout scene where Jud offers a prayer to a concerned woman over the phone takes such a sharp turn from comedy to empathy, delivered with absolute mastery by O’Connor, that it really becomes the key to unlocking this entire film.
Conflicts of Faith Run Through ‘Wake Up Dead Man’
The central thematic conflict of Wake Up Dead Man revolves around Father Jud wanting to use his faith as a guiding light to serve the world around him, to help lost souls find their way and to bring comfort to those in need. In stark contrast, Josh Brolin’s fiery Monsignor Wicks takes on a Trumpian quality, a vicious faith leader who has developed a cult of personality built on fearmongering and blind loyalty. Jud and Wicks clash over these differences, while Jud also experiences lapses of faith through reckoning with an inability to solve the central murder.
Jud’s beliefs also clash with Blanc, a cynical non-believer who sticks only to what is rational, though as the film unravels, he finds himself increasingly open to the idea that there are some things he cannot explain.
Craig, who plays Blanc with an ever-growing cartoonish glee, matches O’Connor’s energy when the two discuss matters of faith and truth, differing perspectives that are mutually beneficial as both are built on trying to make the world a better place, unlike Wicks’ approach of burning it to the ground to suit his own ego.
The issues of faith, those who weaponize it in a political context, how it should be used instead as a spiritual tool, how it can waver and flow in times of turmoil, make Wake Up Dead Man a more thematically resonant movie than either of its predecessors. But the film is in no way preachy, and consistently delivers on the fun, cleverly plotted mystery elements of the two before. Johnson continues to strike gold with this franchise, handing us another impeccably crafted and effortlessly entertaining murder mystery.
Nine out of 10
Wake Up Dead Man is in select theater now and on Netflix December 12, 2025.
This article appears in Dec. 1-31, 2025.