Wake Up Dead Man Review: LFF 2025

Wake Up Dead Man: Rian Johnson’s latest Knives Out murder mystery is a certified slam dunk

Wake Up Dead Man is the third outing in writer/director Rian Johnson’s smash hit series Knives Out, in which private detective Benoit Blanc solves impossible cases. Coming off the back of Glass Onion’s more tropical sojourn, we are taken back once again to a gothic town in misty New England – the natural setting for murder mysteries.

Once a violent boxer and now reformed into a true believer, young Father Jud (Josh O’Connor) is the new junior priest in a small-town parish presided over by the captivating but tyrannical Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin.) While Jud preaches love and forgiveness, the two holy men could not be more opposite in their teachings, and it causes no small amount of friction. Wicks is a bitter man, spreading anger and fear to his parishioners in order to keep them in the thrall of the church; he whips them into a hateful frenzy every Sunday.

Despite his abrasive ways, Wicks has a small but extremely dedicated following, who hang on every word he says and are less than welcoming to Jud. Johnson once again pulls in an ensemble cast of megastars including Glenn Close’s pious housekeeper, Jeremy Renner’s alcoholic doctor, Andrew Scott’s paranoid writer and Daryl McCormack’s aspiring politician. Each seem thrilled with their chance to chew the scenery in such meaty melodrama.

When Monsignor Wicks winds up dead – in impossible circumstances – the suspicion naturally falls to the killer being one of his flock. But the investigation only becomes more complicated when rumours start to fly around that a genuine act of God has happened in the town of Chimney Rock. Has there been a murder, or has there been a miracle? With emotions and religious fervour at fever pitch, they’re going to need the worlds greatest detective to figure it out…

Daniel Craig is once again impeccably dressed and delivering reams of foghorn leghorn dialogue with that ineffable charm of mysterious origin. Responsible for carrying much of the campy comedy that keeps this sequel whodunnit witty and fleet, he is clearly having the time of his life.

Josh O’Connor’s earnest priest Father Jud is possibly my favourite companion yet (and yes, I suppose I do consider Benoit Blanc to be a variant of the Doctor.) With the famed detective not showing up in Wake Up Dead Man until a full 40 minutes into the film, O’Connor and the supporting cast of murder suspects have a lot of heavy lifting to do in a film that could have suffered from the audience feeling like we’re just waiting for the main act to start – but they’re so much fun to be around that honestly I could have waited longer for Blanc to appear and wouldn’t have minded.

The labyrinthine nature of the closed room murder is once again filled with so many twists and turns that even if you successfully figure out one part of the conspiracy (which I’m thrilled to finally say I did) you’ll never guess the whole thing – providing a decent level of satisfaction for mystery lovers and proving that Rian Johnson shows no sign of losing his shine.

Wake Up Dead Man has a darker tone than the previous Knives Out movies, and not just because it’s slightly gorier. There’s hateful doctrine being spewed, with organised religion being weaponised. It’s distinctly gothic, with much questioning surrounding faith, death and guilt. Bolstered by the words and actions of the wise beyond his years, Father Jud, Benoit Blanc has the most character development we’ve seen from him yet, and may be forced to show humility in the face of something much larger than himself, or worse yet, actual faith.

Yet it’s also probably the funniest of the series. The priests are all foul-mouthed, the parishioners all genuinely mental but also terrifyingly close to reality, and Blanc himself is on an Andrew Lloyd Webber kick. Father Jud describing himself as ‘young, dumb and full of Christ’ is an all timer of a line and it comes only a few minutes in.

Ultimately, Wake Up Dead Man delivers exactly what you want from a Knives Out movie: it’s a hell of a good time. With an absolute superstar turn from Josh O’Connor, a terrific supporting cast, and a reveal so juicy it’ll have you grinning at the screen like a lunatic. It’s excellent, we’ll have three more, please.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is playing as part of the BFI London Film Festival 2025. It will have a limited theatrical run from 26th November before being released on Netflix on 12th December 2025

Check out more reviews from the 2025 London Film Festival here