10 great whodunnit mysteries

Created by Igor_Brynner.

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Rian Johnson’s Knives Out joins the devilishly entertaining tradition of suspect-filled murder mysteries in which the audience plays sleuth.

Rian Johnson’s riotously enjoyable movie Knives Out has all the ingredients of a classic whodunnit: a dead body in a country house, a variety of plausible suspects, an eccentric investigator and a plot with more twists than a coiled rattlesnake.

Daniel Craig plays Benoit Blanc, a southern-fried sleuth called in to solve the murder of novelist and patriarch Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer). Naturally, suspicion falls on every member of his family, and Blanc must eliminate them one by one.

From the procedural cop shows on TV to big-screen thrillers, the murder mystery is perennially popular, but the classic whodunnit makes more sporadic appearances. Part intellectual puzzle, part comedy, the whodunnit is at its most enjoyable when it is witty and light on its feet. It’s not about doling out justice, but tickling the audience with the pleasures of plot and character. That’s partly why Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap remains the longest-running show in the West End – although she famously asked the audience not to reveal the ending to their friends.

In a perfect whodunnit the identity of the murderer should not be easily guessed at the outset, although looking back there will have been unmistakable clues. The plot should be garlanded with so many red herrings and dead ends that the audience’s heads are spinning by the end anyway. The detective may be an amateur, but he or she must be brilliantly clever, utterly idiosyncratic and dogged in their pursuit of the one person who had the means, the motive and the opportunity to commit the murder. For the most satisfying possible finale, the culprit’s true identity should be unveiled with a flourish, in front of all the suspects who have been gathered for the coup de théâtre.

While Knives Out is self-consciously a throwback to the classic form, packed with allusions to its predecessors, this is a sub-genre that has taken a few enjoyable detours of its own. So let the games begin…