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Director:  Rian Johnson

Box Office: $311.4 million

Starring: Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Lakeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell, Christopher Plummer

Awards:

• Golden Globe Awards Nomination For Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Best Actor, and Best Actress

Synopsis:

Harlan Thrombey, a successful author and owner of a publishing company, is found dead in his attic study by Fran, one of the housekeepers, with a knife in his hand the morning after his 85th birthday party, which was held at his Norfolk County mansion with his dysfunctional family of his mother, his living children, their spouses, and their children in attendance. Harlan Thrombey was self-made in his wealth. The Brazilian nurse caring for him, Marta Cabrera, is the daughter of an illegal immigrant, and she may have been the last person to see him alive. She started her evening routine of playing a game of Go with him and giving him his medication.

The local police are questioning the family members at the mansion a week after the funeral to see what might have transpired that night that would have contributed to his death. They are doing this because they think Harlan killed himself. All interviewees concur with the chronology of events proving the suicide belief. Famous private investigator Benoit Blanc, who the family will learn has been hired as a consultant, will be present with one other individual at each interview. However, he does not disclose that he was paid in advance and hired undercover.

All interviewees fall for Blanc’s bait, disparaging other family members while refusing to disclose anything that Blanc already appears to know about them. Each family member is only concerned with themselves. Thus this technique works well. The crucial interview—one that comes as a surprise—might be with Marta, whom Blanc believes to have been Harlan’s confidante and who is unable, to tell the truth, given that every time she vomits, she physically reacts.

One of Harlan’s grandchildren, the privileged Ransom Drysdale, who left the party early after having a private conversation with his grandfather, was not interviewed because he was not present. However, the fact that Ransom was not present at the mansion when Harlan passed away makes his absence from the interview somewhat irrelevant. When the will is read aloud a week later, the focus of the investigation shifts. Everyone but a few people who were previously aware of the alterations made the week before Harlan’s death will learn about them. Who is the real killer? Is it suicide, or is the person behind it