SPOILER ALERT: this review will reveal
the endings of all three Knives Out films.
Wake Up Dead Man is a 2025 murder mystery written and
directed by Rian Johnson. Wake Up Dead Man opened in the US on November
26, 2025, and then began streaming on Netflix on December 12th. It is roughly
two and a half hours long. The film reportedly cost $151 million.
Wake Up Dead Man is the third entry in the Knives Out
franchise; the first was 2019's Knives Out; the second was 2022's Glass
Onion. The franchise stars celebrity detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig),
a gay Southerner with a Foghorn Leghorn accent. The films feature high
production values, witty, literate scripts, and all-star casts. They are mostly
family-friendly, with few f-bombs, and no nudity, earning PG-13 ratings. They have
been hailed as a return to Golden Age Hollywood glamor and storytelling, and
classic Agatha-Christie-style whodunits.
Johnson's politics saturate his plots. Knives
Out, the first film in the franchise, skewers white Americans with
inherited wealth and upholds vulnerable, victimized, and virtuous Hispanic
immigrant laborers. Glass Onion critiques tech bros. A rich white man
cheats a black woman and drives her to suicide; her heroic sister avenges her
death.
This review will offer a summary of Wake Up Dead Man's convoluted, implausible plot. It will then discuss the film's critical reception. This review will close with my own reaction.