By George Bate
Are you in the mood for more murder mysteries after watching Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery? You may want to check out some of these other murder mysteries to evoke your inner detective Benoit Blanc.
The Last of Sheila
From a screenplay by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim, this 1973 mystery follows a movie producer who invites suspects aboard his Mediterranean yacht with the hope of solving the mystery surrounding his wife’s death.
Death on the Nile
There are a number of adaptations of Agatha Christie’s classic, but the 1978 and 2022 are probably the best. Both films follow famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot as he solves the murder of a woman aboard a glamorous river steamer in Egypt.
Clue
The 1985 classic takes the premise of the iconic board game and turned it into one of the best murder mysteries of all time. Tim Curry leads an ensemble cast as the butler of a man named Mr. Boddy, whose murder becomes the focus of a gathering at his spooky estate.
Murder on the Orient Express
Another Agatha Christie adaptation, this Hercule Poirot mystery has been adapted from book to film or television event seemingly countless times, the most recent of which is Kenneth Branagh’s murder mystery.
Identity
When a deadly storm breaks out in the Nevada desert, 10 people seek refuge in a spooky, isolated motel. Soon the storm-stranded travelers realize they are being killed off one by one and limo driver Ed Dakota (John Cusack) tries to reveal the murderer’s identity.
Murder by Death
Certainly a little dated, Murder by Death makes the list as another classic of the murder mystery genre. The film follows five infamous private eyes, including Sam Diamond (Peter Falk), Sidney Wang (Peter Sellers) and Jessica Marbles (Elsa Lanchester), who are invited to the mysterious Lionel Twain’s castle for a dinner party. At the party, they are told that Twain plans an unsolvable murder in the house at midnight and will pay $1 million to the sleuth who unmasks the killer.
Prisoners
The dark and brooding 2013 mystery follows Hugh Jackman as a desperate father who seeks to find his kidnapped daughter with Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) also investigating the case.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
David Fincher adapted Stieg Larsson’s mystery novel with Benoit Blanc himself Daniel Craig in the starring role. Craig plays journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who is hired by a wealthy patriarch to investigate the 40 year old murder of his niece.
The Kid Detective
Adam Brody plays Abe Applebaum, a once-celebrated kid detective and now a down on his luck 31 year old solving trivial mysteries. The trivial turns to be more sinister, however, when a naive client brings him his first ‘adult’ case, to find out who murdered her boyfriend.