Rian Johnson reveals the five movies that inspired ‘Knives Out’
The whodunnit genre was extremely popular in the early days of Hollywood, enticing audiences with plots laden with twists and turns and plenty of mystery. Inspired by whodunnit novels, these movies often featured ensemble casts of quirky characters battling it out to be proven innocent. Naturally, however, the predictability and familiarity of the narrative structure meant that the genre started to die out.
It wasn’t until the late 2010s that the genre began to experience a revival, with Rian Johnson’s Knives Out becoming a prime example of a creative reimagining of the whodunnit. Focusing on the theme of class disparity through the wide range of characters, some being considerably more wealthy and greedy than others, Johnson’s movie was heralded for being a complex take on a murder mystery tale.
The movie sees Daniel Craig star as Benoit Blanc, a detective who must investigate a murder, soon discovering that the victim, Harlan Thrombey, had several family members who might have had good reason for trying to get rid of him. Actors such as Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ana de Armas and Michael Shannon also star, forming a list of potential suspects.
Knives Out experiments with genre and tone, tricking the audience into siding with certain characters. It blends comedy and mystery seamlessly, leaving us to question where our allegiances lie. To create the movie, which has since spawned a sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Johnson looked back to several classic whodunnits and murder mystery movies, such as those inspired by Agatha Christie novels. Talking to Variety, Johnson once explained his love for the writer’s work, stating, “They felt like the most entertaining thing in the world. And we make these movies as entertainment first and foremost.”
Unsurprisingly, he cites (according to A.frame) the 1974 adaptation of Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express as an inspiration, which was directed by Sidney Lumet. The movie features a stacked cast of some of Hollywood’s finest stars – from Lauren Bacall to Sean Connery – as we follow Hercule Poirot’s investigation into the murder of a man onboard a train.
He also cites Death on the Nile as an inspiration, a movie adapted from Christie’s novel of the same name, also featuring Poirot as he investigates another murder, this time taking place on a boat in Egypt. Both Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile are golden examples of stellar murder mystery stories – perhaps the most popular whodunnits ever made – so it is unsurprising that Johnson looked at these stories for inspiration. Ensuring that his movie didn’t become predictable, these films undoubtedly gave Johnson a good guideline on what tropes to use – and which to subvert.
Johnson also looked to Clue, directed by Jonathan Lynn, which played with the audience by featuring three different endings, and the conclusion you got depended on the theatre you went to watch it in. Taking inspiration from the board game Clue, the movie wasn’t as successful as producers hoped, but it has since gained a reputation as a fantastic whodunnit movie.
He also cited Robert Altman’s Gosford Park, released in 2001, as inspiration. The movie is set at a grandiose country house where some rather posh guests are enjoying a shooting weekend, only for one of them to turn up dead. Inspired by Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game, the movie is both funny and thrilling, surely inspiring Johnson’s use of comedy in Knives Out.
Finally, a more rogue pick – Pokémon Detective Pikachu – which was released just a few months before Knives Out. It was highly popular, and the lighthearted element must’ve inspired Johnson’s approach to tone. It’s a surprising influence, but this concoction of cinematic inspiration allowed Knives Out to become such a success.
The movies that inspired Knives Out:
- Murder on the Orient Express (Sidney Lumet, 1974)
- Death on the Nile (John Guillermin, 1978)
- Clue (Jonathan Lynn, 1985)
- Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001)
- Pokémon Detective Pikachu (Rob Letterman, 2019)
