Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery reunites Daniel Craig as detective Benoit Blanc for a faith-fueled whodunit that premiered at TIFF to strong acclaim, blending sharp satire with soulful introspection ahead of its Netflix debut.

Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall pulsed with anticipation on September 6, 2025, as the curtain rose on Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, the third chapter in Rian Johnson’s slyly subversive detective saga. World-renowned sleuth Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) returned not with a quippy flourish, but a furrowed brow, plunging into a labyrinthine murder amid the hushed corridors of a New England parish. The film, which marks Johnson’s most challenging script to date, transforms a seemingly impossible crime into a meditation on belief, betrayal, and the thin veil between piety and perfidy. Critics emerged from the premiere divided yet dazzled, hailing it as a return to the franchise’s gothic roots after Glass Onion’s sun-kissed satire.

The story unfolds in the frost-kissed town of Eldridge, Massachusetts, where young priest Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) arrives to aid the fiery Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Thomas Haden Church). Whispers of scandal swirl through the congregation—embezzlement rumors, forbidden liaisons, a cryptic sermon on resurrection that unnerves the flock. When Wicks turns up dead in the locked sacristy, throat slashed by an altar knife that vanishes like smoke, the parish erupts in chaos. Local police chief Geraldine Scott (Mila Kunis), out of her depth in this ecclesiastical enigma, summons Blanc, whose arrival in a weathered trench coat and drawling Southern cadence cuts through the incense like a confessional bell.

Johnson, drawing from Agatha Christie’s locked-room classics and John Dickson Carr’s impossible crimes, crafts a puzzle that defies easy assembly. Blanc sifts through a gallery of suspects: the steely parish administrator (Glenn Close), whose ledgers hide more than tithes; the widowed organist (Kerry Washington), whose hymns mask a grudge; the enigmatic groundskeeper (Josh Brolin), tending graves with a gardener’s shears and a killer’s glare; the ambitious deacon (Andrew Scott), whose sermons drip with ambition; and the novice nun (Cailee Spaeny), whose wide-eyed faith conceals a sharper secret. Even Blanc’s old ally, Lieutenant Elliott (Jeffrey Wright), arrives from the force, trading barbs over lukewarm coffee in the rectory. Cameos from Jeremy Renner as a shady diocesan investigator and Daryl McCormack as Jud’s conflicted confidant add layers, while Joseph Gordon-Levitt pops in as a bumbling forensic tech, nodding to the series’ meta whimsy.

At 134 minutes—the longest in the trilogy—Wake Up Dead Man allows its themes to breathe, weaving a tapestry of doubt and devotion that elevates the whodunit beyond mere diversion. Johnson, who penned the script amid the 2023 Writers Guild strike’s aftermath, infused it with personal resonance, exploring faith not as a punchline but a prism refracting human frailty. “This was the hardest script I’ve ever written,” he admitted in a TIFF Q&A, citing the balance of irreverent humor—Blanc’s penchant for malapropisms like “theology of the absurd”—with earnest inquiry into mortality’s mysteries. The film’s title, borrowed from U2’s brooding track, underscores this duality: a wake-up call from the grave, where the dead demand justice.

Craig, 57 and sporting a salt-and-pepper beard that lends Blanc gravitas, delivers his most nuanced turn yet. Gone is the puckish twinkle of Glass Onion; here, Blanc grapples with a case that mirrors his own existential drift, confiding to Jud over midnight chess: “Murder ain’t just a sin, darlin’—it’s a sermon on what we bury alive.” O’Connor, fresh off Challengers, steals the show as Jud, his quiet intensity—a flicker of doubt in prayerful eyes—earning whispers of Oscar buzz. Close chews scenery with matriarchal menace, while Kunis grounds the procedural beats with wry authority, her Scott evolving from skeptic to reluctant disciple.

Production, helmed by Johnson’s T-Street banner with Netflix’s $150 million backing, spanned Vancouver’s rainy pines standing in for Eldridge’s spires, wrapping in June 2025 after delays from Craig’s No Time to Die commitments. Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom bathes the film in chiaroscuro—candlelit vigils casting long shadows, stained glass fracturing light like fractured alibis—while Nathan Johnson’s score swells with choral undertones, evoking requiems laced with bluegrass twang. Editor Bob Ducsay masterfully toggles timelines, planting red herrings in flashbacks to Wicks’ final homily, a fiery takedown of hypocrisy that implicates everyone.

Reception at TIFF skewed positive, with an 89% Rotten Tomatoes score from 45 reviews praising its “soulful fixation on faith” and O’Connor’s “scene-stealing” pathos. Metacritic’s 80/100 echoes “generally favorable,” though some faulted the mid-act convolution: “A bit too labyrinthine for its own good,” noted one Variety scribe. IGN awarded an 8/10, calling it “the best mystery of the bunch,” a corrective to Glass Onion’s perceived bloat. Reddit’s r/movies thread buzzed with 3,400 upvotes, fans dubbing it “gothic Knives Out—introspective and icy,” though a vocal minority griped at the runtime’s “draggy pew scenes.”

Social media amplified the fervor. TikTok edits synced Blanc’s interrogations to Hozier tracks, racking 15 million views, while X threads dissected the altar knife’s provenance—a prop forged from a real 18th-century relic, per Johnson’s trivia drop. Letterboxd logs averaged 4.2 stars from 2,000 logs, with users lauding the film’s “timeless visual style” and “playful yet purposeful” tone. Merch teases—a velvet-lined clue box set with suspect dossiers—sold out at TIFF’s pop-up, while Netflix’s Tudum site crashed under trailer traffic, the 2:15 teaser amassing 50 million views in 48 hours.

Johnson envisions more Blanc, proposing “A Benoit Blanc Mystery” subtitles to honor the detective’s Southern-fried soul. “There’s a vault of cases,” he hinted, eyeing a fourth film probing tech titans or political dynasties. For now, Wake Up Dead Man stands as the trilogy’s contemplative capstone, less a frolic than a reckoning—where clues unravel not just alibis, but convictions.

The limited theatrical run begins November 26 in IMAX and premium formats, a nod to Knives Out’s box-office roots, before streaming December 12. In a landscape of reboots and retreads, Johnson’s sleuth persists: droll, dogged, divine in his pursuit of truth. As Blanc toasts the survivors with bourbon-laced tea—“To the quick and the dead, may they rest in pieces”—audiences will raise glasses to a mystery that lingers like a half-heard prayer.