Knives Out

The family of wealthy mystery novelist Harlan Thrombey attends his birthday party at his estate. The next morning, Harlan's housekeeper Fran discovers him dead with a slit throat. Police detectives Lieutenant Elliot and Trooper Wagner believe Harlan died by suicide, but private detective Benoit Blanc is anonymously hired to investigate Harlan's death. Blanc learns Harlan had strained relationships with his family members, giving several of them plausible motives for murder. Unbeknownst to Blanc, Harlan's nurse Marta Cabrera believes she injected Harlan with a lethal dose of morphine after mixing up his bedtime medications the night of the party. To protect Marta from being blamed for his death, Harlan instructed Marta to create a false alibi before he slit his own throat: she was to be seen leaving the house, sneak back in through a window, and disguise herself as Harlan in order to make it appear that he was alive after she left for the night. Marta cannot lie without vomiting, so she gives accurate but incomplete answers when questioned. She agrees to assist Blanc's investigation and conceals evidence incriminating her. At the reading of Harlan's will, Marta is bequeathed his entire fortune and property, stunning the Thrombeys. Harlan's grandson Ransom Drysdale helps Marta flee but manipulates her into confessing to him. Ransom offers further assistance in exchange for a portion of Marta's inheritance. Meanwhile, the other Thrombeys unsuccessfully attempt to influence Marta to renounce the inheritance, even threatening to have her undocumented mother deported. Marta receives a blackmail note containing a partial photocopy of Harlan's toxicology report. She and Ransom drive to the medical examiner's office, only to find it burned down. Marta receives an email proposing a meeting with the blackmailer; Blanc and the police spot them, leading to Ransom being arrested. At the meeting, Marta finds that Fran, the blackmailer, has been drugged; she performs CPR on Fran and calls an ambulance. Marta confesses to Blanc, but discovers Ransom has already implicated her. Out of moral obligation, Marta believes she must confess to the Thrombeys, which would invalidate the bequest under the slayer rule. At the mansion, Marta finds Fran's copy of the full toxicology report, which shows Harlan had only trace amounts of morphine in his blood. Blanc reveals his deductions to the police, Marta, and Ransom. Blanc deduces Harlan told Ransom about his will, prompting Ransom to swap Harlan's medicines to cause Marta to kill him unknowingly. However, Marta actually gave Harlan the correct medication, recognizing it by viscosity without reading the label due to her experience as a nurse; she only believed she had poisoned Harlan after reading the label on the bottle with the switched content. When the death was reported as a suicide, Ransom anonymously hired Blanc to entrap Marta. Fran saw Ransom tampering with the crime scene to remove the switched medications, and sent him the blackmail note. After Ransom realized that Marta was not responsible for Harlan's death but believed she was, he forwarded the blackmail letter to Marta and burned down the medical examiner's office to destroy evidence of her innocence. Ransom then overdosed Fran with morphine, intending for Marta to be caught with Fran's corpse. The hospital calls; Marta relays that Fran has survived and will implicate Ransom. Ransom insists he will avoid criminal charges because his attempt to kill Fran failed. Marta then vomits on Ransom, revealing she lied: Fran is dead. Realizing he has confessed to the murder, and that the police officers recorded his confession, Ransom grabs a knife from Harlan's collection and attacks Marta, but the knife is a harmless retractable stage knife, and the police promptly arrest him. Blanc tells Marta he suspected early on that she played a part in Harlan's death, noting a drop of blood on her shoe. He tells Marta her innocence prevailed because she made ethical choices that obstructed Ransom's attempts to incriminate her. As Ransom is taken into custody and the rest of the family is gathered outside in defeat, Marta watches from the balcony of what is now her mansion, sipping from Harlan's coffee mug that reads "My House, My Rules, My Coffee!!". ==Cast==

{{multiple image ==Production==

Development Director Rian Johnson first conceived of Knives Out after the completion of the low-budget thriller Brick (2005), his first feature film. His idea was influenced by film adaptations of books by detective fiction writer Agatha Christie that he enjoyed as a child. Once he had determined the story's goal, Johnson began conceiving ideas for the plot structure, mainly a framework of tonal shifts he devised to incite tension in the story. His experience witnessing the intense culture war backlash to The Last Jedi became another source of inspiration for the Knives Out story. Johnson began scriptwriting by January 2018, immediately after finishing his press tour for The Last Jedi, in a process lasting between six and seven months, depending on the source. He took the name Harlan Thrombey from a 1981 Choose Your Own Adventure whodunit, Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey? Media coverage of Knives Out gives conflicting accounts of the film's funding. One report circulated by Deadline said MRC secured the script in an auction hosted by Creative Artists Agency and FilmNation to investors at the 43rd Toronto International Film Festival. For Knives Out commercial distribution, MRC partnered with Lionsgate, which was trying to recover from a year of mediocre box office showings and purchased a partial share of the distribution rights. Casting Employing an ensemble cast of established stars was one of Johnson's initial demands. He drew upon the Agatha Christie films—chiefly Peter Ustinov-starred projects à la Death on the Nile (1978) and Evil Under the Sun (1982)—for his casting choices because he felt they have a sense of spectacle that was worth replicating. The filmmakers focused on actors who were available in the six week period before filming for Knives Out began. Actors were chosen for their ability to stand out in bit speaking parts and master an exaggerated, but not caricatured, comic performance. Most of the Knives Out ensemble were signed in October and November 2018. Johnson named each of the characters after musicians whose works he enjoyed because it was a simple practice to remember—for example, Joni Mitchell, Richard Thompson, and Steely Dan's Donald Fagen. Daniel Craig came to Johnson's attention for his stage work and non-James Bond film roles. Johnson regarded Craig as a versatile actor who wanted to challenge his abilities in a playful comedy role. Once Craig read his copy of the script, he agreed to join because the writing's tone and humor captivated him. The treatment of Blanc was initially a fruitless task for Johnson; his first concept had been a Hercule Poirot clone "that was just a bunch of crazy quirks". To distinguish the character, Johnson outlined Blanc as a slightly pompous man with a flamboyant Southern accent, turning to Craig's ongoing feedback for a unique characterization. Casting director Mary Vernieu was responsible for casting Marta Cabrera. Vernieu and the filmmakers did not favor a particular person for the part, unlike the other Knives Out characters, and based their search on Johnson's preference for a relatively unknown actor that could exhibit an underdog-like quality. Johnson liked de Armas' acting but believed she was too beautiful to convincingly portray Cabrera. Cabrera's immigrant backstory also resonated with de Armas. For the self-indulgent Ransom Drysdale, Johnson envisioned Chris Evans after seeing him in the 2018 Broadway revival of Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero, having been impressed with his performance as a contemptible villain. Evans was mainly known for his live-action role as Steve Rogers / Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and Johnson aimed to use Evans' everyman persona to create tension between moviegoers and Drysdale, saying: "You've got to see it not as baggage, but as ammunition. If there was someone in that part who the audience inherently wanted to like, that would help the arc overall". Christopher Plummer, in one of his final film appearances before his death in 2021, described Harlan as a "stern, bright and rough-hewn" father with a crass sense of humor. Michael Shannon did not audition for the role of Walt and was contracted following an arranged lunch with Johnson. Filming Bergman was assembling the filmmaking crew while Johnson revised the script in early 2018. Bergman scouted several homes with his team before centering the film's production on two sprawling mansions in suburban Boston: a privately owned nineteenth-century Gothic Revival manor that was used for exterior shots, and Ames Mansion, a 20-room historic landmark in Borderland State Park in Easton. Most of the interior shots, including intense, confrontational scenes with Harlan and his relatives and conversational scenes of Blanc's investigation, took place in Ames Mansion. The filmmakers converted vacant retail space into a laundromat in preparation for the first shoot. Elsewhere in Greater Boston, scenes were filmed near an MBTA passenger rail station in downtown Natick; a private, mid-century modern estate in Lincoln, Canton, Wellesley, Waltham, Medfield; and an unoccupied, state-owned facility in Marlborough that was chosen for its round shape. The Marlborough location was used for exterior scenes at the burned-down medical examiner's office; the scene involved pyrotechnics and a group of local firefighters were used as extras portraying a firefighting operation. Filming for the project took approximately 38 days and ended on December 20, 2018. Cinematography Knives Out was director of photography Steve Yedlin's fifth project with Rian Johnson. Yedlin and Johnson storyboarded their visual composition ideas before principal photography, which did not describe the onscreen universe in depth. A double-camera setup was used with two operators, one a longstanding collaborator of Yedlin. Yedlin described the on-set environment as experimental and visually creative. They also used Panavision's PCZ Primo 19–90 and PZW 15–40 zoom lenses because zooming is customary in Johnson's oeuvre. The design team were drawn to Ames Mansion because the original architectural elements had been preserved, endowing the sets with an aged quality. They located the film's decorative items from a range of businesses, souvenir collectors, and ordinary people in Boston and New York City. Their first conversation concerned the context of music in the opening scenes, and they sought a score that reflected the film's key events and drama with an abrasive classical sound. Nathan recorded the Knives Out score with an orchestra at Abbey Road Studios in London, UK. To prepare, Nathan Johnson engaged the production while principal photography was ongoing; he visited the set to gain a premise for melodic cues and motifs. This was an uncommon experience as the standard industry practice for composers is to work in post-production after filming has finished. Nathan and Rian were inspired for Knives Out musical direction by their favorite symphonic film scores, such as Death on the Nile (1978), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and the compositions of Bernard Herrmann. ==Themes==

Knives Out has been read as work that investigates class warfare, wealth inequality, immigration, and race in contemporary American society. In interviews organized for the press junket, Bergman, Johnson, and some of the actors expressed candid views of the central themes in Knives Out, allowing multiple interpretations of the film. Johnson stated the central story neither condemns nor subscribes to a single ideology; rather, it was designed to provoke all moviegoers to contemplate. Knives Out makes literal class struggle by framing Harlan's death as an explicit tale of good versus evil, and Cabrera emerges as the hero because of her humanity. Professor Eugene Nulman interprets the characters' adversarial relationships as expressions of an allegorical critique of capitalism. Race Race was also examined in thematic studies of the film. Knives Out concentrates on a critique of white supremacy and liberal paternalism, comically depicting the Thrombey–Cabrera relationship through condescending affection and running gags about Cabrera's country of origin. Narrative structure In Knives Out, Johnson experiments with narrative structure to generate suspense. The film begins in a traditional whodunit format that is subverted by two tonal shifts. ==Release==

Marketing Knives Out premiered at the 44th Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2019, as part of the festival's special presentations line-up. In Europe, Knives Out debuted at the 63rd BFI London Film Festival, which was held from October 2 to 13, 2019, as one of the event's gala entries. Lionsgate supervised the film's advertising campaign; it opened the promotional cycle in April 2019 with a showcasing preview at CinemaCon, where the film's first teaser trailer of the film was revealed. This was followed by another trade-show exhibit at CineEurope that June. Aggressive social media engagement was a critical part of the marketing campaign. Early tactics focused on feel-good messaging, the film's campy humor, and Thrombey family enterprises—the latter-most featuring Shannon, Collette, and Curtis in character—through video parodies and mock advertisements that were developed using website-building platforms. The campaign resumed in the weeks following Knives Out late November release, when Ransom's off-white, knitted Aran sweater went viral, prompting a brief renaming of the film's official Twitter account to "Chris Evans' Sweater Stan Account"; there was also a merchandise giveaway to maximize publicity. Advertisements for the film mostly intrigued men but showed strong appeal from women of all ages. Johnson also recorded an interactive audio commentary to entice repeated business. Knives Out opened in theaters in North America and the United Kingdom on November 27, 2019. The film's global release expanded to China, France, Australia, Russia, and 49 other territories in the second week. Its final release was in Japan on January 31, 2020. Physical copies include deleted scenes; a behind-the-scenes featurette; audio commentary from Johnson, Yedlin, and Noah Segan; an eight-part documentary; advertisements; and previously unaired press interviews. By January 2023, the film had sold 1.47 million copies. Knives Out is also available to authenticated Amazon subscribers via the company's Prime Video streaming service. ==Reception==

Box office Knives Out endured at the box office as an adult-targeted film in a theatrical season dominated by family blockbusters such as Frozen 2. Of this amount, $82million was estimated to have been yielded by the MRC–Lionsgate partnership in net profit, factoring in marketing, equipment, royalties, interest, and miscellaneous costs. China was the most lucrative overseas market, and positive press improved the film's performance in that country. In the US, after securing $2 million from advanced screenings, Knives Out received a wide release in 3,391 theaters. The film benefited from a five-day tracking period due to the US Thanksgiving holiday Thursday. This increased the first week sum to $41.7 million, ahead of the three-week old Ford v Ferrari and second to Frozen II, which was in its second weekend. In the fourth weekend, the film slipped to number five with a gross of $6.5 million, its theater count reduced to slightly above 2,500, though box office figures grew by 50% for the Christmas holiday week (seventh, with $9.7 million). Knives Out remained one of the top ten highest-grossing films for ten weeks, and the theater count stayed above 2,000 at the end of the year. Overseas, Knives Out overall November 27 week rank was second to that of Frozen II at $28.3 million. The Christmas period saw reinvigorated ticket sales in France, Australia, and the UK, and in Russia, the New Year holiday increased the film's box office take by 152% over the previous week. On its inaugural weekend elsewhere, the film took $2.7 million in Germany and $665,000 in Austria. Within a month, Knives Out international gross exceeded $100 million. Critical response Knives Out opened to widely positive reviews; by the end of 2019, it was considered one of the year's best films by the American Film Institute, National Board of Review, and the mainstream press in ranked lists. A routinely discussed aspect in the media was the scriptwriting. Knives Out received notice for its unusual plot structure; reviewers said the film defied expectations by using numerous narrative twists and by satirizing murder-mystery tropes. Film critics had high regard for director Johnson's comic treatment of a traditional detective story; it was described as "enjoyably, wackily serpentine", noted by The New Yorker for its sardonic humor and "sheen of smugness". Although comparisons to source material based on tenor, humor, craftmanship, and faithfulness varied among professional opinions, the story's play on perspective among the characters produced favorable responses. According to Stephanie Zacharek for Time, the squabbling between characters who were avaricious, untrustworthy, and ostensibly driven by the same interest provides the film's most entertaining moments. although the handling of ideas received occasional disapproval from others, such as The New York Times Manohla Dargis, and Uproxx, for being perceived as too vapid to resonate. In December 2021, Knives Out screenplay was ranked at number forty-nine on the Writers Guild of America's list of "101 Greatest Screenplays of the 21st Century (So Far)". In 2025, the film ranked number 91 on the "Readers' Choice" edition of The New York Times list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century." The actors' performances was another major subject of critiques. The Knives Out ensemble was warmly received, their work was praised as "outstanding" and "wildly charismatic", with a rapport Vanity Fair ascribed to a shared conviction of the material. drew similarly strong assessments of her character work from the likes of San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle and The Atlantic, among others, in what was considered a breakout performance. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 82 out of 100 based on reviews from 52 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Accolades ==Sequels==

Johnson was considering a sequel to Knives Out while the original film was still in theaters in 2019. Lionsgate announced plans to develop the sequel in February 2020, but in March 2021, Netflix acquired the rights for two sequels for $469 million. Although the terms of Lionsgate's distribution agreement gave the company bargaining leverage, Johnson and Bergman owned the film's intellectual property and pursued a new distribution deal following the COVID-19 pandemic, which severely hampered the immediate profitmaking viability of theaters. Knives Out was followed by Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, which was released on Netflix on December 23, 2022, after a controversial one week platform theatrical rollout the previous November. In Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Blanc journeys to tech magnate Miles Bron's (Edward Norton) murder-mystery-themed retreat to mingle with his circle of friends but the event goes awry when two partygoers die in suspicious circumstances. Glass Onion fared well in media reviews. A third film, Wake Up Dead Man, began development in 2023, which was briefly postponed as a result of that year's industry-wide labor strike by the Writers Guild of America. The film depicts Blanc uncovering a conspiracy behind the murder of an Upstate New York monsignor (Josh Brolin), whose death is erroneously blamed on a new priest in his parish (Josh O'Connor). After its November 2025 release in select theaters, Wake Up Dead Man premiered on Netflix on December 12. Further sequel development is pending as of 2025. ==Notes==