Movies Like
15 Movies Like Knives Out — Whodunnits With Teeth
If Knives Out scratched your mystery itch, these films will keep you guessing. Sharp writing, ensemble casts, and twists that earn the gasps.
15 FILMS·April 2026·By MoviesPack
Section 1
What Makes Knives Out Special
Rian Johnson did something clever: he told you who did it early, then spent the rest of the film making that certainty fall apart. Knives Out is a whodunnit where you always feel like you're one step ahead — until you're not. The ensemble is stacked, the dialogue is razor-sharp, and the class politics are baked into every exchange. The pleasure is watching smart people try to out-maneuver each other in a genre designed to reward paying attention. Benoit Blanc is the rare detective who's genuinely delightful to spend two hours with. When you want something "like Knives Out," you're after: **witty ensemble mysteries + satisfying twists + sharp social observation + someone who knows more than you think they do**. [Use our tool to explore more: Movies Like Knives Out](/similar/knives-out)
Section 2
The Essential Picks — Classic Whodunnits
01
Clue
1985
★7.3IMDb
Six strangers with embarrassing secrets are invited to a mansion for dinner. The host is murdered. Each of the guests had a motive. And then it happens twice more. The film had multiple theatrical endings shown simultaneously in different cinemas — different audiences got different solutions. It's funnier than it has any right to be and the pacing is relentless. The connection: Clue invented the comedic ensemble murder mystery — the house as a locked room, the suspects as archetypes with hidden depths, the solution multiplying instead of resolving. Knives Out inherits all of this directly and updates it with class consciousness.
02
Murder on the Orient Express
2017
★6.5IMDb
A famous detective boards a luxury train, a passenger is found stabbed in his locked compartment, and everyone on board had a reason to do it. The all-star cast is stuck in the snow together while Poirot works his way through them. The ending is morally thornier than a standard whodunnit usually allows — it challenges the genre's assumption that justice and the truth are the same thing. The connection: Both films end with a detective refusing to give justice to its most obvious form — and revealing that the detective is as morally implicated in the outcome as anyone on the suspect list.
03
Gosford Park
2001
★7.3IMDb
Aristocrats gather at a 1930s English country house for a shooting weekend. Their servants are gathered in the rooms below. Someone upstairs is murdered. The mystery is almost an excuse for what the film is really about: the class dynamics between the two floors, how everyone performs for an audience of their social equals, and what the people below can see that the people above cannot. The connection: The servants understand the household better than the wealthy do — and the mystery is really about what the wealthy are protecting. The solution matters less than what it reveals about everyone around it. Pure Knives Out DNA.
04
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
2022
★7.1IMDb
A tech billionaire invites his inner circle of friends and associates to his private Greek island for a murder mystery game — and then an actual murder happens. Blanc is also there, uninvited and not entirely sure why. If the first film was about old money trying to protect its inheritance, this one is about new money and the sycophants it manufactures. The villain is a pointed target and the film is completely aware of it.
Section 3
The Sharp Twist Merchants
05
The Usual Suspects
1995
★8.5IMDb
Five criminals are pulled into a police lineup with no apparent connection. One of them — a small-time con man with a limp — survives to tell a detective the story of how they ended up working for the mysterious Keyser Söze. Everything you've been shown is simultaneously true and false. The ending remains one of cinema's great gut-punches. Don't let anyone tell you how it ends. The connection: Both films are about a seemingly cooperative account of events that is, from its first line, a constructed performance. One narrator creates a story to escape detection; the other creates a story to reveal it.
06
Sleuth
1972
★7.8IMDb
A wealthy mystery writer invites his wife's lover to his country house for what he presents as a civilized discussion. What follows is a psychological war between two men across three acts, each one making you rethink everything that came before. The film has essentially two characters and nothing else — no room for anything except the game. Both actors were Oscar-nominated for the same film. The connection: Sleuth is the two-person version of what Knives Out does with a dozen — two men in a room trying to outmaneuver each other, where knowing the other person's psychology is the only weapon.
07
Knives Out
2019
★7.9IMDb
A famous crime novelist is found dead the morning after his family gathered to celebrate his birthday — ruled a suicide, but a private detective has been anonymously hired to investigate anyway. The film tells you who did it early, then spends the rest of its runtime making that certainty collapse. Ana de Armas carries the moral weight of the film; Daniel Craig is the most charming he's ever been. The donut-and-hole speech is the film's thesis delivered as a monologue.
Section 4
The Comedic Mysteries
08
The Nice Guys (1977 — set in)
★7.4IMDb
A bumbling private detective and a hired enforcer accidentally become partners while investigating a missing girl and a dead porn actress in 1970s LA. The case leads somewhere much larger and much more dangerous than either of them expected, and neither of them is well-equipped for what it becomes. The funniest film on this list, with the same pleasure in watching an unlikely investigator outperform expectations.
09
Death at a Funeral
2007
★7.5IMDb
A family gathers to bury their patriarch, and everything immediately goes wrong: someone took the wrong pills, a mystery guest arrives with a secret that could destroy the family's reputation, and the disasters keep stacking on each other until everything is on fire at once. Broader comedy than Knives Out but shares the same "dysfunctional family forced to cooperate in a crisis" energy. The 2010 American remake is good too, but the original is sharper.
10
Deathtrap
1982
★7.2IMDb
A once-famous playwright whose career has stalled receives a script from a student — and it's brilliant. So brilliant that he starts entertaining the idea of how to get his hands on it permanently. What follows is a film that keeps reversing who is manipulating whom, and it knows it's a stage thriller translated to screen and leans into the theatrical artifice with glee.
Section 5
The Modern Ensemble Thrillers
11
Parasite
2019
★8.5IMDb
A poor Korean family living in a semi-basement apartment gradually, cleverly infiltrates the household of a wealthy family — each member inserting themselves through a different scheme. The plan works beautifully until they discover something in the rich family's house that nobody knew was there. Palme d'Or and Best Picture winner. The connection: Both use genre mechanics to conduct a pointed class audit of the wealthy. The Kims infiltrating the Parks and the Thrombeys fighting over Harlan's inheritance both end the same way: with the people at the bottom suffering most for a crisis the rich created.
12
Ready or Not
2019
★7.1IMDb
A woman marries into a wealthy family with a tradition: on the wedding night, the new spouse draws a card and the whole family plays that game until dawn. She draws Hide and Seek. The rule she isn't told until it's too late: if the family finds her before midnight, she dies. She has to survive the night. Terrified, resourceful, and increasingly furious as the film goes on. The connection: Both films let the wealthy reveal exactly who they are when something they want is at stake — and in both cases, what they're protecting says everything about them.
13
The Grand Budapest Hotel
2014
★8.1IMDb
A legendary hotel concierge is suspected of murdering a wealthy older woman who left him a priceless painting in her will — and her family wants it back. He goes on the run with his loyal lobby boy, the war closes in around them, and the mystery keeps deepening. More pastiche than puzzle, but the plot mechanics are genuinely clever and the film is so visually alive it barely matters whether you're tracking the mystery.
14
Andhadhun
2018
★8.2IMDb
A pianist who pretends to be blind witnesses what might be a murder — and then has to decide what to do with that knowledge while pretending he saw nothing. Every twenty minutes the film reveals something that recontextualizes everything before it. If you think you know where it's going, you don't. The connection: Knives Out's pleasure in narrative misdirection, the unreliable perspective, the dark wit — all present in abundance.
15
See How They Run
2022
★6.7IMDb
Someone is murdered during the 100th performance of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap in the West End — while a Hollywood producer is planning to adapt it into a film. A bored veteran detective and his overeager constable are assigned the case. The film is knowingly meta about the whodunnit form, it's funny, and it clearly loves the genre it's playing with. Not as tight as Knives Out but made by people who share its sensibility.
Section 6
Quick Comparison
| Movie | Vibe | Best For | |-------|------|----------| | Clue | Comedic, farcical | The best ensemble laughs | | Gosford Park | Slow burn, class-conscious | The Knives Out DNA in full | | The Usual Suspects | Tense, masterful twist | Being genuinely outsmarted | | The Nice Guys | Funny, buddy-cop | Knives Out's wit without the manor house | | Parasite | Dark, brilliant | Class war as thriller | | Ready or Not | Horror-comedy | The rich getting what they deserve | | Andhadhun | Unpredictable, Indian | The best pure mystery plot on this list | | Glass Onion | Direct sequel | More Blanc, more fun |
Section 7
Want More?
- [Full list: Movies Like Knives Out](/similar/knives-out) — our algorithm finds 20+ matches - [Mystery movies](/mood/thought-provoking) — films designed to keep you guessing - [Best thriller movies](/best/thriller) — top-rated thrillers of all time - [Whodunnit hidden gems](/hidden-gems/mystery) — underrated mysteries you've probably missed
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