Murder mystery enthusiasts now have something new to watch thanks to Kenneth Branagh’s version of Agatha Christie’s Death On The Nile. However, it is a good time to check out some other crime stories to satisfy your whodunit craving. Following the viewing of Death On The Nile, here are some series and films to watch.
1. The Invisible Guest (2016)
Director- Oriol Paulo
Adrián Doria, a young, self-assured worldwide entrepreneur, appears to have it all. All fortune, celebrity, and, most importantly, a wonderful family and a caring wife. Doria’s idyllic existence, however, will come crashing down around him when he finds himself locked up in a hotel room next to a dead body, accused of first-degree murder. In those dire circumstances, Adrián enlists the services of Virginia Goodman. A renowned witness-preparation expert, as a last-minute eyewitness threatens to turn the case around. Also with less than three hours to come up with an impregnable defence. Now that time is running out, several interpretations of the same incident emerge as the night progresses. However, even though there are multiple sides to a tale, only one can be true.
2. And Then There Were None (BBC TV Mini Series, 2015)
Director- Craig Viveiros
The year is 1939, and Europe is on the verge of war. Soldier Island, an isolated island on the Devon coast in southern England, is inviting ten strangers. They are each accused of a horrific crime. So they are cut off from the mainland, with their compassionate hosts Mr. and Mrs. U.N. Owen suddenly vanished. As the party members begin to perish one by one, the survivors understand that one of them is a murderer and begin to turn on one another.
3. Knives Out (2019)
Director- Rain Johnson
Except for his unexpected and unexplainable death, nothing could mar the otherwise magnificent birthday dinner at the palatial mansion of famed crime/mystery novelist Harlan Thrombey. The sharp knife in the silver-haired deceased’s hand is now a dead giveaway that something, or someone, had been worrying Harlan; yet, Benoit Blanc, the cryptic investigator, is unsure. Indeed, more than one member of the successful author’s close family has been sparing with the truth thus far—and as Blanc tries to unravel a convoluted web of half-baked leads and white lies, all eyes are on the main prize: Harlan’s enormous legacy.
4. What Happened To Monday (2017)
Director- Tommy Wirkola
The year is 2073, and overpopulation, limited fossil fuels, and worldwide food scarcity have triggered the greatest humanitarian disaster in history, resulting in the implementation of a stringent one-child-per-family regulation known as the “Child Allocation Act.” In those conditions, cutthroat political activist Nicolette Cayman offers a bright future in a fresh new world, while Terrence Settman devises a scheme to circumvent the government’s edict in a desperate attempt to hide his septuplet grandchildren. As a result, the sisters named after each day of the week will unavoidably take turns as Karen Settman, named after their late mother, going out into the world only on the days of the week corresponding to their names, and sharing knowledge with the rest of the sisterhood every night. Then something occurs to Monday one day.
5. Sharp Objects (TV Mini Series, 2018)
Director- Jean- Marc Vallee
Reporter Camille Preaker, fresh from a brief spell in a psychiatric facility, has a difficult job ahead of her: she must return to her small community to chronicle the killings of two teenage girls. Camille hasn’t spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother in years, and she barely knows her half-sister, a stunning 13-year-old with an unsettling grip on the town. Camille finds herself relating with the young Victorians a little too strongly now that she is back in her old bedroom in her family’s Victorian mansion. She must solve the psychological jigsaw of her own history if she is to obtain the storey – and survive this homecoming – as she is plagued by her own demons.
6. Gone Girl (2014)
Director- David Fincher
Nick Dunne, a former New York City journalist, discovers that his home in Missouri has been broken into; his front door is half-open; shattered glass is everywhere; and his popular novelist wife, Amy, is mysteriously vanished. As the seasoned investigator, Rhonda Boney, probes more and deeper into the husband’s supposedly immaculate picture, Nick’s life inevitably emerges under the limelight amid an uncontrollable media feeding frenzy. As a result, half-truths and outright lies increasingly trap Nick in a hazy reality where nothing is as it seems.
7. Clue (1985)
Director- Jonathan Lynn
Seven unrelated guests gather in a Gothic New England estate on a drizzly night filled of mystery and intrigue. Miss Scarlet, Mrs Peacock, Professor Plum, Colonel Mustard, Mr Green, Mrs White, and Mr Boddy are the secret code names given to the eccentric, hand-picked invitees by Wadsworth, the cryptic butler, and Yvette, the well-endowed French maid, to protect their anonymity. After breaking the ice, it appears that this will be a normal dinner party; however, the lights abruptly go out, and warm, bright-red blood smears the manor’s thick carpets. Everyone is now a suspect, as each of the equally suspicious guests had a motive and the ability to murder.
8. The Flight Attendant (TV Series, 2020- )
Creator- Steve Yockey
Cassandra Bowden, a flight attendant, awakens in her Bangkok hotel room, inebriated from the night before and with a dead body next to her. She doesn’t call the cops because she’s afraid, so she goes about her morning as if nothing happened, joining the other flight attendants and pilots on their way to the airport. She is met by FBI investigators in New York, who interrogate her about her previous layover in Bangkok. Still unable to piece together the events of the night, she begins to suspect herself of being the murderer.
9. Murder On The Orient Express (2017)
Director- Kenneth Branagh
After solving a suspicious theft in Jerusalem, Hercule Poirot, the famous Belgian moustachioed detective, decides to take a little holiday in 1934 Istanbul to rebalance his life. Instead, the attentive detective will soon find himself aboard the opulent Orient Express on a voyage to Calais, sharing a carriage with a diverse group of first-class passengers and an unnoticed murderer. The grisly murder of a commuter in his cabin forces Poirot to solve a riddle in which everyone is a suspect after a major snowfall shuts the rails, trapping the passengers in the locomotive.
10. Murder, She Said (1961)
Director- George Pollock
Through the window of a passing train, Miss Jane Marple sees a guy strangle a woman. When the police are unable to find any evidence of the homicide, they dismiss the amateur detective as a clumsy old lady. Mr. Stringer, the village librarian and a kindred soul, assists her in tracing the exact location where the body was thrown from the train. She is able to smuggle herself into the manor house disguised as a maid when the location is pinpointed at Ackenthorpe Hall. Miss Marple suspects the body and the murderer are on the property, despite the Lord of the Manor being a parsimonious but charming curmudgeon.
