Continuing my countdown of last year’s best films…

Best Films of 2025
#8. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

Writer/director Rian Johnson’s latest Benoit Blanc whodunit is a great example of how streaming dilutes the cinematic experience. While I’m sure a ton of people watched this on Netflix between loading the dishwasher and taking out the trash, it doesn’t have the cultural footprint of a movie that plays for a couple of months in theaters.

Given a proper theatrical release, I bet this movie would have had the same water cooler appeal of the 2019 original. And I bet Glenn Close would have been on her way to that elusive Oscar.

Alas, this is a Netflix franchise now, and as much as that annoys me I’m still dying to see what delicious mystery Johnson cooks up next for Daniel Craig’s southern friend detective.

As for this installment, I’m tempted to call it the best one yet, though if I had to choose I’d probably still go with the original. This chapter nods back to what made the first one so special by once again giving Blanc a partner in crime (who also happens to be a lead suspect).

That partner is Father Jud Duplenticy, a newly assigned assistant pastor at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, an upstate New York church run by Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, a fiery, domineering leader. When Wicks is murdered, both Duplenticy and the church’s small flock are implicated in the crime.

Enter Benoit Blanc, a religious skeptic who has no patience for the corruption or hypocrisy of the institution but takes an instant liking to Father Jud.

Jud is played by Josh O’Connor in one of the year’s best performances. He’s a former boxer who found his calling in Christ after killing a man in the ring, and O’Connor sensitively portrays both his internalized anger and his desire to deliver grace.

The rest of the cast is stacked. Josh Brolin plays Wicks, while Jeremy Renner, Andrew Scott, Cailey Spaeny, Kerry Washington, and Daryl McCormack play the parishioners. Close, doing her best work in years, plays Wicks’ devoted assistant. If I have one nitpick, it’s that the supporting cast doesn’t get a ton to do, but you could say the same for any of these films. It’s baked into the format.

In addition to delivering big laughs, a clever mystery, and some beautiful cinematography, Wake Up Dead Man distinguishes itself by meaningfully exploring the role of faith and forgiveness.

In the film’s best scene, Father Jud is chasing down a lead, growing impatient with a woman he has reached on the phone. As he tries to hurry her along, she stops him in his tracks by asking him to pray for her ill mother. He pauses the investigation (and Johnson pauses the movie’s crackerjack momentum) to sit down and quietly reassure a woman in pain. It’s a remarkable portrait of what it means to minister to another human being.

The film has a similarly impactful scene at its climax, portraying an act of forgiveness that interrupts and transcends Blanc’s fiery case-closing monologue. It’s a bold, touching move in a bold, touching movie.