‘Knives Out 3: Wake Up Dead Man,’ the best of the three
The Knives Out movie series is known for mind-bending, perspective-shifting murder mysteries. Benoit Blanc, the special detective played by Daniel Craig, is the only consistent figure throughout the movies, and he always solves the cases.
The movies often begin lightheartedly, starting with seemingly innocent games or introducing characters that seem as though they would never do anything wrong; however, the true story is always much deeper. The characters are in some way related to each other, and everyone has secrets “they would kill to keep,” a tagline that has been used in movie promos.
Knives Out 3: Wake Up Dead Man is the latest murder mystery in the series, following a new group of characters. The film keeps you on the edge of your seat once the plot is set, your mind begging to know who did it. And you’ll have your suspicions, but you’ll never guess who did it!
Knives Out three follows an ex-boxer, Jud Duplenticy, who accidentally murdered someone in the ring and later became a Catholic priest, which leads him to a strange, ominous, and almost miserable town where he will be an assistant to head priest, Monsignor Wicks. The movie is centered around Wicks’s death, and after he dies, there is panic. Wicks’ death makes no sense. Everyone blames Duplenticy because of the unaccounted-for time he spent with him before he announced that he was dead.
By now, police are on scene about to make an arrest, and Benoit Blanc, the aforementioned legendary detective, arrives on scene and claims that he can solve the mystery, and there is no need to make an arrest just yet. Even though all the clues are pointing at Duplenticy, there are other suspicious figures.
Of course, it’s too perfect that everything is laid out and pointing at him, but he’s helping investigate, he’s cooperating, he’s also searching for information about the true killer, why doesn’t this add up? Who did it? Regardless, it becomes abundantly clear that this was a premeditated and thoroughly thought-out plan that was nearly perfectly executed to kill the priest and frame his assistant. Why? You will have to watch the movie and follow Benoit Blanc’s adventure to solve it, or wait for it to be solved.
Both of the movies that came before follow similar plots: an unsolvable murder case that, to a reasonable person, seems impossible to solve. However, throughout the movie, viewers are provided with the subtlest of clues so that they can follow along and attempt to solve it with Benoit Blanc. By the third movie, one would think that it gets easier, or it loses popularity due to redundancy. That is not the case at all.
All three movies are so different that if Benoit Blanc weren’t there, it could be argued that there would simply be no correlation between the films! Every film is just almost predictable, but once you think you figured it out, you are thrown for another loop. I enjoyed all three films very much as they were incredibly emotionally and psychologically stimulating. But each movie outshone the last. Before the release of the third movie, the second was my favorite, and before the release of the second, the first was one of the best movies I’d ever seen!
All in all, the entire trilogy (so far) is worthwhile, and the third is simply a masterpiece. The entire series is worthwhile, with Knives Out Three: Wake Up Dead Man being the best one yet. Easily one of the top ten films to be released that I watched in 2025. It was such an entertaining viewer’s experience, especially when the entire family is involved watching the movie, following the bread crumbs and hoping they lead to answers, with everyone proven wrong in the end. The killer is always who you’d least expect–or is it?
