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Plot: Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) tries to prove the innocence of a dedicated Catholic priest (Josh O’Connor) who’s been accused of murder.

Review: Here’s the thing—Rian Johnson’s Knives Out movies depend on the element of surprise. The fun of these films is how he keeps you guessing throughout, with Johnson something of a master of cinematic sleight of hand. As such, as a reviewer, in order to keep my conscience clear, I can’t give away too much, since I don’t want to spoil anyone’s enjoyment. Suffice to say, Wake Up Dead Man is another fun romp, with Johnson doing a great job closing...

Don Zimmerman, a film editor known for his work on the Rocky movies, Jumper, Night at the Museum and Men in Black 3, who also received an Oscar nomination for 1978’s Coming Home, has died. He was 81.

The public relations and marketing agency, Perception PR, announced his death on social media, writing, “Rest in Peace Don Zimmerman … He will be greatly missed.”

Having grown up in Los Angeles, Zimmerman made his way into the entertainment industry in the early 1970s, working in the editorial department for several projects, such as The Landlord, Harold and Maude, The Last of Sheila, The Nickel Ride, Shampoo and Bound for Glory.

After assisting filmmaker Hal Ashby’s 1971 movie Harold and Maude, he teamed up with him again on the 1978 drama Coming Home, which served as Zimmerman’s first solo editor credit. The film, starring Jane Fonda and Jon Voight, also earned Zimmerman his first...

Netflix’s The Residence may be a modern-day murder mystery, but it’s filled with old-school surprises. Yes, it includes a Sherlock Holmes reference that predates even the most famous versions of the legendary detective. Forget Benedict Cumberbatch’s slick BBC portrayal, this one reaches back to 1892.

The Residence takes viewers inside the White House murder investigation led by a detective named Cordelia Cupp. But beyond the whodunit mystery, it’s the show’s literary Easter eggs that truly reward attentive fans. Episode 7, in particular, references one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s lesser-known but thrilling Holmes tales.

The Residence Episode 7 Title Hints at Sherlock Holmes Easter Egg… Uzo Aduba as Cordelia Cupp in The Residence | Credit: Netflix

Showrunner Paul William Davies designed The Residence as both a murder mystery and a love letter to the genre itself. Davies revealed to Netflix Tudum that every episode title is a nod to...

Rian Johnson’s “Wake Up Dead Man,” the third film in the trilogy that began with “Knives Out,” is headed to Netflix on Dec. 15.

The release date for the feature, which once again stars Daniel Craig, this time joined by Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott and more, was revealed during Netflix’s Tudum event in Los Angeles. Most of the cast appeared on stage to tease the film, with Renner receiving massive applause from fans.

“Wake Up Dead Man” follows Craig’s Benoit Blanc as he investigates a new, seemingly very spooky crime, this time in London, England. The first movie, 2019’s “Knives Out,” was set in New England and had the contours of a cozy murder mystery; while the follow-up, 2022’s “Glass Onion,” was set at a private island off of Greece and had the vibe of a glamourous vacation...

The term "underrated" can be a bit nebulous in its definition, and that's especially the case when referring to art forms like films. Some people might say it refers to movies that received lukewarm responses from audiences despite deserving far more love. Others could suggest the term applies to great movies that not enough people have seen or even heard about. For our purposes here, we're going to take a little from column A and a little from column B to create something of a primer on great, underrated crime thrillers.

Of course, that leads us to having to define what exactly counts as a crime thriller. At its most basic (and obvious), a crime thriller -- a subset of the much larger thriller genre of which there are plenty of exquisite examples -- is an emotionally propulsive story with a criminal act at its center. Audiences are witness to...

In the early- to mid-1970s, a number of prominent filmmakers found modest success with star-studded whodunnits. In 1972, Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine in a splendid adaptation of Anthony Shaffer's intricately plotted play "Sleuth." A year later, Herbert Ross directed the wickedly clever "The Last of Sheila," a mystery concocted by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim, and featuring such marquee names as James Coburn, Dyan Cannon, Richard Benjamin, Raquel Welch, and James Mason. Then in 1974, moviegoers got a double dose of Agatha Christie with Sidney Lumet's "Murder on the Orient Express", and Peter Collinson's "And Then There Were None".

There was no cultural development driving this sudden spate of whodunnits; it was just a reminder that people love to watch a bunch of great actors get thrown into the same location where foul play has been committed, and then try to work out...

The new Shondaland murder mystery series “The Residence” shares some DNA with another Netflix whodunit: Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” film.

“It resuscitated the genre,” showrunner Paul William Davies told Variety at “The Residence” premiere in Los Angeles on Wednesday, revealing that Johnson’s film was a “hugely important” guidepost for his show in the way that it drew inspiration from 1970s whodunits.

“He played around with the history,” Davies explained. “That really opened the door for a lot of us to be like, ‘Oh, yeah, we can do that again.'”

“The Residence,” which is now streaming on Netflix, stars Uzo Aduba as the wildly eccentric detective (and legendary birder) Cordelia Cupp, who is tasked with solving a murder that takes place during a White House state dinner. In creating the screwball comedy — which features a sprawling cast that includes Susan Kelechi Watson, Randall Park and Ken Marino — Davies...

In Shondaland’s latest Netflix series, “The Residence,” created by Paul William Davies and inspired by Kate Andersen Brower’s book “The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House,” viewers get a bird’s eye view (pun intended) of the inner workings of one of America’s most enduring institutions. Every day, hundreds of people labor behind the scenes to ensure everything from major events to the president’s living quarters are seamlessly attended to. A hilarious, eclectic and often bizarre murder mystery, “The Residence” is the closest thing to a comedy that executive producer Shonda Rhimes has ever done. The show is an overwhelming 1000-piece puzzle that eventually comes together should audiences have the patience to stick it out.

The eight-episode murder mystery (critics received seven episodes for review) opens on the night of the Australian State Dinner. Amid strained relations, the new administration led by President...

When Jennifer Euston was casting Orange Is the New Black, it stands to reason that she was selecting interesting performers first and, given the show’s evocative opening credits, interesting faces second. But somewhere on the opening page of criteria, there must have been a listing that read: “Must also be capable of fronting a Columbo-esque mystery procedural.”

In the case of Kate Mulgrew, she’d already starred in the iconic spinoff series, Mrs. Columbo.

Natasha Lyonne is weeks away from the return of her Emmy-nominated turn as human lie detector Charlie Cale in Peacock’s Poker Face.

New to the murder-solving fray is Uzo Aduba, exceptionally eccentric in Netflix’s new Shondaland-produced The Residence. The show is the latest entry in both the burgeoning Orange Is the New Forensic Investigation genre and the even more burgeoning The World’s Greatest Detective Is a Weirdo genre.

The Residence is an entertainingly chaotic goof,...

Quick LinksWhat is The Last of Sheila About?Sondheim and Perkins' Script Adds Layers to the Typical WhodunitThe Last of Sheila is An Absolute Must-Watch For Whodunit Fans

Whodunits have been a popular mystery subgenre for decades. From Clue to Knives Out, audiences love to follow the clues and find a killer for themselves. The Last of Sheila, produced and directed by Herbert Ross, is a '70s-era gem that unfortunately has been sorely underrated. The movie has all the makings of a classic whodunit, but one of the most interesting parts of the film is that it was co-written by one of cinema's greatest killers.

The Last of Sheila features Sheila (Yvonne Romain) and her husband, Clinton Greene (James Coburn) who are causing a scene at a party. Sheila leaves and a car pulls out of nowhere, ripping down the road. Sheila is killed, and the driver takes a...

Plot: As children, two twin brothers find their father’s old wind-up toy monkey. It turns out that the toy carries a terrible curse, as every time they wind it up, someone random will die a horrible death. Twenty-five years later, the monkey once again enters the lives of the now estranged twins (Theo James), wreaking grisly havoc around anyone who gets too close to them.

Review: The Monkey is strikingly different from director Osgood Perkins’s last film, Longlegs, a grisly, ultra-serious serial killer thriller that was the sleeper hit of the summer. Eschewing that film’s dark and foreboding vibe, The Monkey is bug-nuts insane, with it a deliberately campy, gore-soaked flick, which will undoubtedly be a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing for genre fans. It seems destined for future cult status, as it will certainly play to a more niche audience than Longlegs. Still, the people who love...

Before Rian Johnson injected the whodunnit genre with a modern and revitalized twist with Knives Out, The Last of Sheila proved that mystery thrillers didn't have to feel stale like the yellowed, musty pages of the books they so often adapted. The Last of Sheila, even over fifty years later, feels extremely contemporary, with sharp dialogue and an even sharper script. The movie, like Johnson's Knives Out films, owes a great deal to Agatha Christie. However, unlike modern adaptations of her work, The Last of Sheila never tries to be a period piece with a shiny, updated cinematic aesthetic, but instead fully embraces its contemporary setting.

The Criterion Channel has unveiled its streaming lineup for August 2024, which features an eclectic mix of independent films showcasing the work of auteurs from around the world.

The boutique service will become the exclusive streaming home of Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2021 comedy “Licorice Pizza,” and will celebrate the occasion by adding four more of his films to the channel: “The Master,” “There Will Be Blood,” “Punch-Drunk Love,” and “Magnolia.” Anderson’s frequent collaborator Philip Seymour Hoffman will additionally be celebrated on the streaming service as part of a larger retrospective. Many of the late actor’s most iconic roles, including “Capote” and “Synecdoche, New York,” will be included, along with his sole directorial outing “Jack Goes Boating.”

The channel will also highlight several other prominent filmmakers including Preston Sturges, who helped pioneer the modern rom-com through films like “The Lady Eve” and “The Palm Beach Story,” and prolific Egyptian auteur Youssef Chahine.

The Criterion Channel’s August lineup pays tribute to auteurs of all kinds: directors, actors, and photographers, fictional or otherwise. In a notable act of preservation and advocacy, they’ll stream 20 titles by the Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine, here introduced by the great Richard Peña. More known (but fun all the same) is a five-title Paul Thomas Anderson series including the exclusive stream of Licorice Pizza, as well as a Philip Seymour Hoffman series that overlaps with Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love (a Criterion Edition this month), and The Master, plus 25th Hour, Love Liza, and his own directing effort Jack Goes Boating. Preston Sturges gets five movies, with Sullivan’s Travels arriving in October.

Theme-wise, a photographer series includes Rear Window, Peeping Tom, Blow-up, Close-Up, and Clouzot’s La prisonnière; “Vacation Noir” features The Lady from Shanghai, Brighton Rock, Kansas City Confidential, Purple Noon, and La piscine. Alongside the aforementioned PTA and Antonioni pictures,...

Kenneth Branagh's supernatural thriller, A Haunting in Venice, is sparking a resurgence of Agatha Christie's works in Hollywood. James Prichard, Christie's great-grandson, believes Branagh could make more movies based on Christie's 33 Hercule Poirot stories if box office performances are successful. The enduring appeal of Christie's works lies in the universal love for great stories, as seen by the recent growth in the whodunit genre.

Thanks to Kenneth Branagh's latest supernatural thriller, A Haunting in Venice, legendary mystery novelist Agatha Christie is experiencing a resurgence in Hollywood, despite her passing nearly half a century ago.

While Branagh's Hercule Poirot trilogy currently has no confirmations of future installments, James Prichard, Christie's great-grandson and CEO of the Christie estate, affirms that the filmmaker could make as many movies as he wants. In an interview with Inverse, Prichard, who plays a pivotal role in ensuring the preservation and adaptation of Christie's writings,...

The cause of Raquel Welch’s death on Feb. 15 was cardiac arrest, with Alzheimer’s disease a possible underlying factor.

The cause of death was disclosed in a death certificate filed yesterday with the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health and obtained by TMZ.

The star of One Million Years B.C. and The Three Musketeers also suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, which might have been an underlying contributor to her death at 82.

Her death had been confirmed in February by her reps at Media 4 Management, who noted that Welch died peacefully following a brief illness.

Welch rose to fame in the 1960s with performances in Fantastic Voyage, One Million Years B.C. and Bedazzled, then reached a new level of notoriety with the 1970 release of the controversial Myra Breckinridge.

Subsequent films included Fuzz, The Last of Sheila, The Three Musketeers and its sequel The Four Musketeers: Milady’s Revenge,...

Raquel Welch, the electric, multi-talented superstar of culture-rocking films like "One Million Years B.C.," "Myra Breckinridge," and "The Three Musketeers" has died. We're only 46 days into 2023, and it seems like the death of a major star has rocked almost every one of them. Burt Bacharach, Carlos Saura, David Crosby, Lisa Marie Presley, Ruggero Deodato, Cindy Williams — the list, unfortunately, goes on and on.

There's something particularly painful about Welch's death. She was best known in her time as a sex symbol. Parts like the role in "One Million Years B.C." which gave her such cultural latitude also hemmed her into a kind of straitjacket, in terms of roles she'd later be asked to play. But Welch soldiered on, delivering dynamic yet precise performances in everything from whodunnits like "The Last of Sheila" and social thrillers like "Bluebeard."

Her brilliant sense of timing regarding line delivery — comic and otherwise — is still deeply,...

Raquel Welch, the movie star and model Playboy declared "the most desirable woman of the 1970s," has died at the age of 82. According to her manager, Steve Sauer, (via CNN) Welch passed away after a "brief illness."

Welch was a much-buzzed-about Hollywood ingenue throughout the early 1960s before attaining international stardom in 1966's sci-fi classic "Fantastic Voyage" and the prehistoric Hammer flick "One Million Years B.C." While the latter movie did little to enhance her reputation as an actor, the sight of Welch in a two-piece deerskin bikini made her the pin-up heir to Marilyn Monroe.

Welch's physical beauty was undeniable, and she embraced her sex symbol status. But the Latina performer, who adopted her first husband's last name to avoid the kind of typecasting that drove Rita Moreno from Hollywood at the height of her popularity, knew she was more than just a pretty face, and proved it time and again throughout her career.

We have some sad news to share today, as Hollywood has lost one of its most legendary icons: Raquel Welch has passed away at the age of 82. Deadline reports that Welch’s passing was confirmed by her reps at Media 4 Management, who simply said that she had died after a brief illness.

Welch was born Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois, but her family moved to San Diego, California when little Raquel was just two years old. She knew as a youngster that she wanted to get into the entertainment industry, and studied ballet for several years while entertaining – and winning – beauty contests. She attended San Diego State College on a theater arts scholarship, but despite doing some stage acting and landing a job as a weather presenter on the local news, it took a while for her to break through into films. In fact, Welch had married...

Raquel Welch has passed away after a career lasting more than five decades. The iconic actress, who is best known for her roles in films of the 1960s and 1970s like One Million Years B.C., and the 1973 adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers is beloved the world over. Her career spans from an early gig as a TV weather woman before breaking out in Hollywood to her most recent role as part of the main cast of the short-lived 2017 UPtv series Date My Dad.

Per Deadline, the Fantastic Voyage star Welch has passed away at age 82. Her representatives at Media 4 Management confirmed the news. Tributes have already come pouring in from social media from Welch's viewers and contemporaries. Check out select tributes below:

Related: How Cary Grant Became The King of Classic Hollywood

Rip Raquel Welch (1940-2023)...

Hollywood star Raquel Welch has died at the age of 82.

The star, who appeared in films including Fantastic Voyage and One Million Years BC, died on Wednesday (15 February) following a “brief illness”.

Welch’s rep confirmed the news to ABC, writing: “The legendary bombshell actress of film, television and stage, passed away peacefully early this morning after a brief illness.

“Her career spanned over 50 years starring in over 30 films and 50 television series and appearances. The Golden Globe winner, in more recent years, was involved in a very successful line of wigs.”

“Raquel leaves behind her two children, son Damon Welch and her daughter, Tahnee Welch.”

Tributes have quickly flooded in for the star whose breakout role came in 1965’s Fantastic Voyage, with One Million Years BC arriving the next year.

While Welch had just three lines of dialogue in the latter, a publicity shot depicting her in a bikini costume...

Raquel Welch, the big-screen star of the 1960s and ’70s who gained fame in movies including Fantastic Voyage, One Million Years B.C., Myra Breckinridge and many others, died today after a brief illness. She was 82.

Her death was confirmed by her reps at Media 4 Management.

Related: Raquel Welch: A Career In Photos

Welch’s career spanned more than 50 years, 30 films and scores of TV series and appearances, including about a dozen visits to The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson spanning two decades. She also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Imagen Foundation in 2001.

From left: Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch and Donald Pleasence in ‘Fantastic Voyage’ (Everett Collection)

Born Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5, 1940, in Chicago, Welch’s family moved to San Diego when she was a toddler. She attended San Diego State on a theater arts scholarship and got her start as a local TV weathercaster before starting to...

Raquel Welch, the actor who became an icon and sex symbol thanks to films like “One Million Years B.C.” and “Three Musketeers,” died Wednesday in Los Angeles after a brief illness, her manager confirmed to Variety. She was 82.

She came onto the movie scene in 1966 with the sci-fi film “Fantastic Voyage” and the prehistoric adventure “One Million Years B.C.,” the latter of which established Welch as a sex symbol. The actor went on to appear in the controversial adaptation of Gore Vidal’s “Myra Beckrinridge,” “Kansas City Bomber” and Richard Lester’s delightful romps “The Three Musketeers” (1973), for which she won a Golden Globe, and “The Four Musketeers: Milady’s Revenge” (1974). She was one of the first women to play the lead role — not the romantic interest — in a Western, 1971 revenge tale “Hannie Caulder” — an inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” (2003), according to the director.

(Earlier, Marlene Dietrich and Joan Crawford...

(L-r:) Justice Smith and Julianne Moore in Sharper Image: Courtesy Apple TV+ A sharper is someone who “lives by their wits,” as the opening onscreen text of Sharper informs us. The term could describe nearly every character in this twisty thriller, as well as director Benjamin Caron and writers Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka,...

Mark Twain once wrote that "there is no such thing as a new idea," but apparently the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences disagrees with him because they have two categories for writing: Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay.

The distinction between the two should be pretty straightforward if you think about it. The nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay should be adaptations of pre-existing stories, and the nominees for Best Original Screenplay should not. Except sometimes that's not how it works.

At the 95th Academy Awards, two nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay blur the line between original screenplays and adaptations, and pretty roughly. These films tell brand-new stories, but they just happen to use at least one pre-existing character. That means they default to the "Adapted Screenplay" category, but is that really in the spirit of the award? Is that really the same job as "adapting" something?

And if it is,...

A good mystery often begins with a clue that’s right out in the open, even if no one recognizes it at first. In a similar way, the extravagant Greek villa that serves as the principal setting for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery impressed production designer Rick Heinrichs when he first visited it early in his location search, but it wasn’t immediately selected for the movie’s game of murder that turns deadly. “It was a place that had a modernist take on classical architecture and had a hierarchy of stairs that led up to it, and I could see us placing a dome on top of it,” Heinrichs tells THR. “But our experience always tells us that the first place is never the one you end up with.” Instead, he conducted “a worldwide search and looked at everything, and it was only then that we fully appreciated the villa we had found.

Glass Onion director Rian Johnson's next whodunit has been revealed in the new trailer for Poker Face. The series, which is a Peacock original, was created by Johnson, who also directed the first two of the season's 10 episodes. The series stars Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cade, a woman on the run who finds herself at the center of a string of murder mysteries featuring a cavalcade of celebrity guests including Adrien Brody, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Chloë Sevigny, Tim Meadows, Benjamin Bratt, Hong Chau, Ron Perlman, Stephanie Hsu, and Luis Guzmán.

Today, Peacock shared the new official trailer for the series ahead of Poker Face's official release on January 26, when its first four episodes will drop. The trailer explores the reason Charlie needs to hit the road when her job as a casino worker lands her in hot water, and she is targeted by a crime boss. She seems to...

From the moment the cast was announced, movie lovers knew that “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” would be a star-studded affair. Rian Johnson’s murder mystery sequel featured an A-list cast of suspects for Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc to investigate, including Edward Norton, Janelle Monae, Kathryn Hahn, and Dave Bautista. But once the film began streaming on Netflix, fans quickly learned that it featured surprise celebrity cameos at almost every turn.

One memorable scene features Blanc playing the video game “Among Us” on Zoom with several famous murder mystery aficionados, including Stephen Sondheim and Angela Lansbury (who both made their final on-screen appearances in the scene).

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Johnson and producer Ram Bergman opened up about working with the two nonagenarians.

“She couldn’t have been lovelier and more generous,” Johnson said of Lansbury, though he noted that the video game-centric...

New Queer’s Eve.

It’s been a pretty wild December, with us covering off-kilter films like the much-maligned Batman & Robin, the not-as-bad-as-you-think Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings and the Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins-penned murder mystery The Last of Sheila. Now we’re wrapping up the year with a discussion of Carter Smith‘s Into the Dark entry “Midnight Kiss“!

In the film, a group of friends gather at a beautiful desert resort on New Year’s Eve, and play a game called Midnight Kiss, as is their tradition. The purpose of the game is for each of them to find someone with whom to start the New Year. When a killer tries to join in, relationships that are already stressed are further tested, and life itself becomes the prize.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts,...

This article contains major spoilers for "Glass Onion."

There are a number of insights one can glean about Rian Johnson as a filmmaker from his "Knives Out" films, but one of his most extraordinary abilities is that of pulling together a show-stopping, ensemble cast. In "Glass Onion," the latest entry in Johnson's whodunit series, folks like Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn, Kate Hudson, Edward Norton, Leslie Odom Jr., and Jessica Henwickare give their all to these puzzle-riddled characters. Then comes Janelle Monáe, who steals the movie right out from under them.

But even beyond the key players, Johnson manages to insert a wealth of cameos, all of which feel natural to the world of "Glass Onion." Serena Williams makes a hilarious appearance on a live interactive interface in Miles' exercise room. Yo-Yo Ma pops his head in for a moment, as does Ethan Hawke. Hugh Grant is perfectly fitting as the...

Rian Johnson's new film "Glass Onion," a sequel to his 2019 comedic murder mystery "Knives Out," boasts, like its predecessor, a massively impressive cast. While the first featured the likes of Christopher Plummer, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, Toni Collette, Michael Shannon, Ana de Armas, and Don Johnson, the sequel contains Dave Bautista, Janelle Monáe, Edward Norton, Kathryn Hahn, Kate Hudson, and Leslie Odom, Jr. "Glass Onion," not to be outdone, also features notable cameos from Hugh Grant, Jake Tapper, Serena Williams, and Yo-Yo Ma. In a very amusing scene, the film's central detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) shares a video call with Stephen Sondheim, Natasha Lyonne, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Angela Lansbury, all playing themselves.

Since the filming of "Glass Onion," both Lansbury and Sondheim passed away, at 96 and 91 respectively. That they were willing to appear in Johnson's film is a testament to their gameness, and perhaps to Johnson's charm as a filmmaker.

This piece contains mild spoilers for "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery."

The first time Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) appears on screen in Rian Johnson's latest installment to the "Knives Out" franchise, he is in a tub. From the looks of it, it's an average tub spruced up with a chic, wooden tub tray, a bottle of Ricard, and one lone but cheery-looking rubber ducky. Benoit indulges in a cigar as he struggles to understand the rules of the popular video game, "Among Us." Viewers quickly learn that he's in the midst of quarantining during the pandemic, which has forced him to seek out new intellectual pursuits to keep his mind busy while he waits to return to his true passion of detective work.

Of course, Benoit is not playing "Among Us" alone. He is tapped in to a Zoom call with four friends: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Natasha Lyonne, the late Angela Lansbury (i.

Glass Onion, the sequel to Rian Johnson’s hit 2019 murder mystery film Knives Out, has finally arrived on Netflix.

Glass Onion has been warmly received by critics, with The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey describing it as “populist entertainment with its head screwed on right”.

It’s fair to say not everyone agrees, however.

The film sees Daniel Craig return as the ace sleuth Benoit Blanc, surrounded by a host of new characters played by Edward Norton, Dave Bautista, Kate Hudson, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr, Jessica Henwick and Madelyn Cline.

In addition to the core cast, however, Glass Onion also featured a number of high-profile celebrity cameos.

While most of these were hard to miss, there was one secret cameo that only came to light after the filmmakers gave it away.

Here’s a rundown of all the celebrity cameos in the film...

Yo-Yo Ma

Revered classical cellist...

Glass Onion, the sequel to Rian Johnson’s hit 2019 murder mystery film Knives Out, has finally arrived on Netflix.

Glass Onion has been warmly received by critics, with The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey describing it as “populist entertainment with its head screwed on right”.

It’s fair to say not everyone agrees, however.

The film sees Daniel Craig return as the ace sleuth Benoit Blanc, surrounded by a host of new characters played by Edward Norton, Dave Bautista, Kate Hudson, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr, Jessica Henwick and Madelyn Cline.

In addition to the core cast, however, Glass Onion also featured a number of high-profile celebrity cameos.

While most of these were hard to miss, there was one secret cameo that only came to light after the filmmakers gave it away.

Here’s a rundown of all the celebrity cameos in the film...

Yo-Yo Ma

Revered classical cellist...

Bitchy, Bickering Bitches.

It’s been a pretty wild December, with us covering off-kilter films like the much-maligned Batman & Robin and the not-as-bad-as-you-think Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings. Now for a special holiday treat, we’re covering Herbert Ross‘ 1973 mystery The Last of Sheila, which not only inspired Rian Johnson’s Knives Out (review) and Glass Onion (review), but was also the only screenwriting collaboration between famous queers Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim!

In the film, movie producer Clinton Greene (James Coburn) invites a group of friends to spend a week on his yacht a year after his wife Sheila (Yvonne Romaine) was killed in a hit-and-run accident. While the plan is to have them play a scavenger hunt mystery game, it comes with a hidden agenda: exposing their worst secrets and possibly revealing one of them as Sheila’s killer. Is it Alice the actress (Raquel Welch), her...

Leave it to Edgar Allan Poe. While many probably associate the mercurial author and poet with horror milestones like “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” he’s also widely credited with inventing the detective story with his 1841 publication, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Since then the genre of detective fiction has spanned untold numbers of short stories, novels, plays, radio shows, TV series, and of course, movies.

One of the subsets of detective fiction, the whodunit, remains almost interchangeable with the genre itself and one of its most popular variations. From the urbane, eccentric likes of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot to the more grizzled Sam Spade and Mike Hammer, to the shapeshifting meta-detective Ellery Queen, stories that allow the reader or viewer to solve the mystery right alongside the protagonist are an entertainment staple to this day, as borne out by...

This article contains Glass Onion spoilers.

Agatha Christie once famously said, “Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend.” Perhaps that’s why in Rian Johnson’s latest whodunit, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, the filmmaker has littered the screen with pals. If Benoit Blanc—who is winsomely as ever played by Daniel Craig—is a pursuer of the truth, and the vigilant hound dog chasing hidden murderers wherever they may dwell, surely he is then conscious of the company he keeps? There might even be some murderers in his midst… or at least fellow detectives.

Indeed, Johnson and Craig use their second Benoit Blanc picture to invite a lot of real-life friends to come out and play, and many of whom’s appearances have hidden ulterior motives that only the most eagle-eyed sleuths might notice. Let us explain…

Angela Lansbury

Among the first and most fan-pleasing cameos is...

While Rian Johnson attempted to avoid any direct influence from other films while crafting his murder mystery masterpiece Knives Out, his love of certain films is still very evident in both the finished product and the interviews he did to promote it. As Johnson is set to make a return to whodunnits with the forthcoming sequel to Knives Out, there's no better time than the present to check out the movies that fostered his love of the genre.

Those films, many of which are either parodies, satires, or "deconstructions" (as is the case with Knives Out) of the mystery genre as a whole, are all available to stream online for those who need a quick fix before Knives Out 2 drops on Netflix.

Update: 2022/12/10 By Ruby Brown

Knives Out was a successful whodunit with an exciting cast and captivating plot. As a sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery was recently released in cinemas,...

Three years following the release of Knives Out, writer-director Rian Johnson is back with Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, which picks up with Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) investigating a new murder mystery case. Glass Onion received a limited theatrical release on November 23 and will release on Netflix December 23.

As a director, Johnson is not one to do the same thing twice. And though Glass Onion is another whodunit mystery for Benoit Blanc to solve, the filmmaker finds new ways to get creative with the story. Johnson left New England behind for Glass Onion, introducing the audience to a group of friends who gather on an island in Greece for a murder mystery party that ultimately goes awry.

Related: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery Review - Johnson Delivers Fun, Wild Sequel

Johnson spoke to Screen Rant about Glass Onion, his approach to the whodunit sequel, the dynamic friendships...

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is Rian Johnson's latest hilarious whodunit, and several of its funniest moments come from the movie's celebrity jokes and references. While Glass Onion is a sequel to Johnson's 2019 mystery Knives Out, the only returning character is Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc. This time around, Blanc heads to Greece with a group of wealthy friends who have been invited to take part in a murder mystery party, hosted by Miles Bron in the Glass Onion mansion on his private Greek island.

Daniel Craig is joined by an ensemble cast for Glass Onion including Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, and Dave Bautista - but it's Glass Onion's celebrity references and cameos that make for some of the most memorable moments. Rian Johnson is known for including his celebrity friends in his movies, with Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright appearing as a Resistance soldier...

Major spoilers for "Glass Onion" follow.

After the success of "Knives Out," you can imagine Rian Johnson had the ability to rope in just about anyone he wanted to be a part of the latest case for the brilliant detective Benoit Blanc, "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery." Just look at the people on the poster. Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, and more fill out the latest slate of potential murder mystery suspects, and when the cast for the inevitable third film gets announced, I do not doubt that its ensemble will be just as eclectic and exciting.

But this doesn't just stop at the main cast. Oh, no. Even though the film is mostly confined to a secluded private island off the coast of Greece, "Glass Onion" is peppered with a string of delightful, and in a couple of cases bittersweet, cameos that each got massive...

"Knives Out" is one of the best movies of the past decade. There, I said it. The film has some very cool and inventive visuals, is brilliantly written by Rian Johnson, with plenty of memorable twists and jokes, a very memorable sweater, and an exquisite ensemble cast you just want to follow for hours on end. Not only is Daniel Craig endlessly watchable, hilarious, and charismatic as the mysterious Benoit Blanc, but the rest of the cast is quite memorable, both in terms of the main characters but also the cameos.

Now, Rian Johnson does it again with "Glass Onion," a movie that is bigger and better in virtually every way. As our own review called it, "'Glass Onion' is loaded with huge belly-laugh moments and the types of ultra-clever jokes that will make you want to cheer." Indeed, the film is bolder, it has something to say about class warfare,...

Spoilers ahead for both "Knives Out" and "Glass Onion."

The idea of "true disruption" runs rampant through the new Netflix film "Glass Onion." True disruption, we're told by a very confident billionaire living it up on his private island, comes in many forms. It can come in the form of a viral influencer who pushes questionable medical remedies. It can come in the form of a politician bucking norms regarding worldwide climate change. And it can come in the form of pushing out new energy sources supposedly intended for the benefit of mankind but primarily for the benefit of investors and stakeholders.

Anyone familiar with the work of writer/director Rian Johnson will be unsurprised to know that "Glass Onion," much like its 2019 predecessor "Knives Out," is a force of disruption itself, gleefully upending its own rules by fooling both the audience and many of its characters with information placed...

When Oscar-winning production designer Rick Heinrichs (“Sleepy Hollow”) was first tasked with designing the titular structure for Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” he treated it like a literal onion, taking the model apart and cutting into it to study the layers. “There was something so cool and architectural about it, that it became part of the design,” he told IndieWire. “You really see the layers of depth in the dome. The metaphor of the Glass Onion works so well and I tried not to invent stuff that wasn’t there.”

For Johnson — whose latest whodunit takes inspiration from such iconic films as “Sleuth,” “The Last of Sheila,” and “Evil Under the Sun” — the metaphor of The Glass Onion was wrapped around the narcissistic, bad-boy mind of tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton). Bron hosts a murder mystery weekend getaway on his private Greek island with his...

Plot: Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) travels to a remote island in Greece to solve a murder involving a reclusive tech billionaire (Edward Norton).

Review: Knives Out will probably become one of TIFF’s biggest success stories. Considered a risky gamble in its time, the movie proved to be a sensation upon its first screening. In the end, Knives Out was a smash hit at the box office that Netflix (who snapped up the rights to the series) has turned into what’s bound to become their first real franchise. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is bigger and perhaps even more brilliantly written than the first, sporting a tremendous cast led by Daniel Craig and Janelle Monáe.

If Glass Onion suffers at all, it’s that we go into it expecting a twisty murder mystery, while the original took us by surprise as it was so unique. It was...

It beggars belief that what started out as an idle thought — to continue the adventures of detective Benoit Blanc, the world’s “greatest detective” — has resulted not in just the inevitable franchise placeholder but one of the most exciting, funny and downright enjoyable movies of the year. Shrewdly cast, it boasts one of the most brilliant screenplays of the year, not just in terms of its exquisite, laugh-out-loud dialogue and satirical barbs at pop culture but in the meticulous, meta plotting of a traditional whodunnit that keeps the mind ticking over from start to finish. Unusually for a recent Netflix presentation, hardly a minute is wasted, and it’s no surprise that a Christmas release is planned for an intelligent crowd-pleaser that hits a bull’s-eye with every beat.

Toronto Film Festival: Deadline’s Complete Coverage

Director Rian Johnson was quite open about the original Knives Out‘s influences, and...

Did you know that Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins wrote a mean-spirited murder mystery film? Yes, that Sondheim of West Side Story (and perhaps more aptly Sweeney Todd) fame and that Perkins of Psycho infamy. To this day, not many folks are aware. But Rian Johnson has been for a long time. He previously cited The Last of Sheila, which was made from Sondheim and Perkins’ script, as one of his favorite whodunits in the lead up to Knives Out’s 2019 release.

Now with our first trailer for Johnson’s follow-up, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, it would seem the director is intent on doing his own take of that 1973 cult classic—or at the very least homaging it extensively.

This fact is made clear at the beginning of the Glass Onion trailer. Before we even see Daniel Craig’s well-groomed gentleman sleuth onscreen, we hear that unmistakable “Southern” drawl.

Is that a donut hole inside of a donut hole? No! Look a little closer, and you will see the donut hole has what seems to be a hole at its center. It's actually not a donut hole but a sequel to Rian Johnson's splendid 2019 whodunnit mystery-comedy "Knives Out" titled "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery." And our donut is not whole at all, but a whole franchise!

"Glass Onion" is indeed the second entry in Johnson's original property about the ongoing saga of Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) and his bad habit of getting mixed up in murder mysteries involving wealthy jerks who all have a reason to bump one another off. This time, Benoit finds himself on a private Greek island owned by Miles Bron (Edward Norton), a tech billionaire who has invited all of his pals for a getaway trip when wouldn't you know it, one of them turns up dead.

Did you miss him? Of course you did! Everyone's favorite private detective with an unparalleled nose for the truth is back and ready for another round of "CSI: KFC" action. After writer/director Rian Johnson promptly reinvigorated the murder-mystery genre with the Oscar-nominated "Knives Out" in 2019, audiences, in no small part due to Daniel Craig's gloriously campy portrayal of Benoit Blanc, immediately looked ahead to the next time we could see the detective doing what he does best — snooping around in everyone else's business, casually making suspects uncomfortable, and using his vast insights to solve all the most complicated crimes.

"Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" is the next buzzworthy installment of Johnson's hit original franchise and now we're getting a fresh look at what the sequel has to offer. If you recall, Netflix scooped up the rights to the second film (and a third!) in a frenzied bidding...

One of the most delightful surprises for the 2022 Emmy Awards was the unexpectedly large haul of nominations — 17 in all — garnered by “Only Murders in the Building.” The comedy mystery movie received more than twice as many as any other freshman comedy series. Though once a popular genre on TV, the comedy mystery series today might seem to stand out as a bit of a novelty, but it’s only the latest variation on a long line of comic whodunnits in both film and literature. Particularly in the past 50 years, the comedy mystery film has been a familiar genre to moviegoers, and many helped to lay the groundwork for what “Only Murders” has taken to the next level.

SEEJohn Hoffman interview: ‘Only Murders in the Building’ showrunner

Comedy mysteries have been fertile ground for innovation, as well as delivering laughs both very light, very dark (“Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”) and very shady.