When Rian Johnson released his latest original movie in 2019, it was a massive critical and commercial success. Knives Out brought back the classic locked-room mystery movie with an update for a new era. Daniel Craig was the detective on the case in a film with an all-star cast as he tried to figure out who killed the family patriarch in a locked room with everyone a suspect.
Locked room mysteries go back years, with several acclaimed works of Agatha Christie fiction featuring detectives like Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and Sherlock Holmes leading the way. Those detectives and more made their way to the big screen, along with some original sleuths, and here are the best locked room mysteries for fans who loved Knives Out.
Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)
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Bad Times at the El Royale wasn’t sold as a locked room mystery, but it shares a lot of traits with that genre. The movie is an ensemble crime thriller with a mystery at its heart, so it shares a lot in common with the Knives Out movies. With actors like Chris Hemsworth, Jeff Bridges, Jon Hamm, Dakota Johnson, and more, this is a movie that is full of familiar faces.
What separates it from Knives Out is that this movie is a lot more subversive. A group of strangers meets at a motel, each with dark secrets from their past. Through the night, their past comes to the surface and the bigger mystery unveils. When Hemsworth shows up as a cult leader, everything goes off the rails.
The Hateful Eight (2015)
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Quentin Tarantino made his own locked-room mystery in 2015 with The Hateful Eight. The movie is also his second western, taking place in 1877 when a bounty hunter and Union soldier were headed to Red Rock with three bounty corpses. However, they ended up stuck at an inn during a snowstorm.
While there with another bounty hunter and his live bounty, murders start to take place and everyone there suspects each other. This being a Tarantino movie, the journey there is almost more important than the identity of the killer. However, like Knives Out, Tarantino played it smart and fair with the reveal and created his best mystery movie.
Sleuth (1972)
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While there was a second movie that arrived in 2007 with Jude Law and Michael Caine, the original Sleuth from 1972 is one that fans of Knives Out should seek out. Caine also starred in that version, but as the younger man opposite Laurence Olivier’s veteran mystery writer.
Olivier is a mystery writer who tricks his wife’s lover into a robbery attempt so he can kill him. However, this was all just a ruse to humiliate the adulterer, and this then leads to the two men playing a game of one-upmanship, all using the themes of a locked room mystery until the darkly comic ending. For fans of Knives Out who like the game-playing aspects of Detective Benoit, this movie pays it off in spades.
The Last of Sheila (1973)
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One of the lesser-known locked room mysteries, The Last of Sheila picked up a lot more attention when Last Night in Soho director Edgar Wright chose it as one of his favorites for his TCM guest programming slot. The movie was released in 1973 with Ian McShane, Raquel Welch, James Mason, James Coburn, and more as the leads.
It was almost like a 70s version of Knives Out with an all-star cast and a wickedly smart mystery at hand. The movie takes place on a cruise where the guests take part in a game of secrets. However, when the secrets lead to a murder, everyone onboard is a suspect. It is as close as it gets to what Rian Johnson accomplished with Knives Out and its sequel.
Clue (1985)
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Based on the classic locked-room mystery board game that originated in 1949, the movie Clue came out in 1985 and has since become a beloved cult classic. The film starred Tim Curry, 10 years removed from his groundbreaking performance in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, as the butler Wadsworth.
The film brought in strangers, given the pseudonyms from the game, and a seventh man shows up and blackmails the guests, telling them that he will expose their secrets if they don’t kill Wadsworth. After Wadsworth ends up dead, the mystery is on, and the film has three alternate endings – all of which are equally hilarious.
Gosford Park (2001)
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When it comes to locked room mysteries, one that truly lives in the world of the classics is the 2001 film Gosford Park. In an English country house, a murder takes place, and everyone is under suspicion. This includes the Above stairs suspects, the wealthy, and the Below stairs suspects, their servants.
That is where this movie excels — a study of class separation and how people are looked at differently. The fact that some of the U.K.’s most celebrated actors were Below stairs servants, including Clive Owen, Richard E. Grant, and Helen Mirren, makes it even more striking. The film picked up seven Oscar nominations.
And Then There Were None (1945)
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And Then There Were None is an adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel, with the more familiar title of Ten Little Indians. The best cinematic rendition of this classic locked room mystery is the 1945 version. Eight strangers are invited to an isolated island where they are all then accused of murder.
Along with the two servants, newly hired and also suspects, no one can leave the island until the end of the week. The ten then scramble to figure out who is responsible for the murder, and when people start to die, no one knows who they can trust.
Murder On the Orient Express (1974)
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Released in 1974, Murder of the Orient Express was also based on an Agatha Christie novel, this one featuring her legendary detective Hercule Poirot, portrayed here by Albert Finney. The movie, directed by award-winning director Sidney Lumet, involved murder on a train with several suspects.
The cast was top-notch, with luminaries such as Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, Lauren Bacall, Anthony Perkins, and more. The film was recently remade in 2017, with Kenneth Branagh both directing the movie and starring as the brilliant Hercule Poirot and another all-star cast, including Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Penélope Cruz, and more. While decent in more ways than one, the remake has nothing on the original.
Identity (2003)
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Released in 2003 by director James Mangold of Logan fame, the thriller Identity is a movie with an all-star cast and a twisting and turning story that played out as brilliant until the end, which was polarizing the say the least. John Cusack, Ray Liotta, and Alfred Molina were part of the cast in this murder mystery.
The film, drawing inspiration from the Agatha Christie novel And Then There Were None, has several strangers all hiding something in their past, all suspecting the others are murderers. However, when the end comes, and the entire story happened in the mind of one man with multiple personalities, some viewers tuned out completely.
Source Code (2011)
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Source Code is an interesting addition since some might not consider it a true locked room mystery. However, that is exactly what the movie is, albeit laid out in the form of a science fiction film. Directed by Duncan Jones (Moon), Jake Gyllenhaal is a U.S. Army pilot who has to find a bomb on a train before it explodes and kills everyone.
The twist is that he is actually in a pod, forced to relive the explosion over and over until he can figure out where the bomb was and who put it there to help the military stop future terrorist attacks. He has to relive the explosion and death over and over until he solves the mystery.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009)
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There have been two versions of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The first one came out in 2009, with the Swedish film starring Michael Nvqvist and Noomi Rapace, while its 2011 American remake was directed by David Fincher, starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara. Both films are based on the novel by Stieg Larsson about a disgraced journalist who works with a young hacker named Lisbeth Salander to solve the mystery of who killed a girl 40 years in the past.
The two movies are top-notch, but the original Swedish film gets the upper hand by having two sequels (The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest) that fans can enjoy as well. The American remake had a sequel in The Girl in the Spider’s Web, but it failed to live up to expectations.
Shutter Island (2010)
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Similar to the movie Identity, the locked room mystery Shutter Island has a twist ending that no one saw coming. However, the difference is that Shutter Island had Martin Scorsese directing the film, and his version was something critics and audiences took joy in watching unfold.
Leonard DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo are two detectives sent into the psychiatric prison at Shutter Island to investigate a murder. As the two start to find more clues, things never seem right, and both detectives realize that nothing is as it seems. That is because DiCaprio is a patient, and this is part of his therapy.
Murder By Death (1976)
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While Clue is partially an adaptation of a board game and a partial satire of a locked room mystery, the 1976 film Murder By Death is a full-blown spoof. It’s a comedy murder mystery film with a fantastic cast that serves as a broad parody of And Then There Were None and its ilk.
The cast includes luminaries such as Maggie Smith, Truman Capote, Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, and David Niven. The best part was that they all played well-known parodies of classical detectives, including both Agatha Christie sleuths, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, as well as Charlie Chan, Nick and Nora Charles, and Sam Spade.
Death on the Nile (1978)
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In 1978, the Agatha Christie novel Death on the Nile came to the big screen. This was the follow-up to the original Murder on the Orient Express, but this time around, Albert Finney was unable to return as Hercule Poirot. Instead, the film re-cast the role with Peter Ustinov.
Maggie Smith, Bette Davis, Angela Lansbury, David Niven, Mia Farrow, and Jack Warden were among the all-star cast in this locked-room mystery — aboard a boat this time instead of a train. The film will also be remade in 2020 with Kenneth Branagh once again in the role of Hercule Poirot.
