Stream of the Day
‘Knives Out’ sequel delivers new Netflix mystery
‘Wake Up Dead Man’ leads detective Blanc to his darkest and most personal case yet.
A new mysterious case arises in Wake Up Dead Man, the third Knives Out movie. The new sequel is written and directed by Rian Johnson, who earned an Oscar nomination for both previous films: Knives Out and Glass Onion.
Wake Up Dead Man is streaming on Netflix from today (12 December 2025).
Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) tackled his last two cases at a New England family mansion and on a tech oligarch’s Greek island. Now he finds himself at a small church in upstate New York, facing his darkest and most personal case yet.
When an incomprehensible murder takes place, the congregation is left reeling, prompting local police chief Geraldine Scott (Mila Kunis) to join forces with Blanc to unravel a story that defies all logic.
At the church, a good-hearted young priest named Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) has been sent to assist Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin). The charismatic Wicks, who comes from a long line of priests, leads a devoted congregation.
The members include a mysterious church lady Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close), circumspect groundskeeper Samson Holt (Thomas Haden Church), tightly wound lawyer Vera Draven (Kerry Washington), aspiring politician Cy Draven (Daryl McCormack), town doctor Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner), bestselling author Lee Ross (Andrew Scott), and concert cellist Simone Vivane (Cailee Spaeny).
“This film charts [Blanc’s] most personal journey yet,” Johnson told Tudum, Netflix’s companion site. “He’s forced to engage with the case – and with himself – in a way that’s completely new.
“Every time we make one of these films, it’s fun to think, ‘How can this one explore a whole different corner of this genre?’”
Wake Up Dead Man, he said, took inspiration from John Dickson Carr, a detective fiction author whose books focused on the locked-room mystery.
“It’s a side alley of the whodunit genre: the impossible crime. A corpse is found in a locked room, a knife in his back, he is alone, and there are no ways in or out. With such a constrained premise, there are only a few real options to work with. It’s the mystery version of a chess puzzle, with just enough pieces on the board and no more, and a few predetermined moves at your disposal.”
Wake Up Dead Man follows a long tradition of clerical tales.
“[Agatha] Christie’s Murder at the Vicarage is a classic, but my biggest influence for this film was GK Chesterton’s Father Brown mysteries. Themes of guilt, mystery, morality, and fallible humanity all feel right at home in a church, with a man of God at the centre of the mix.”
