We can’t stand it any longer! We’ve been keeping the ending of Knives Out a secret for weeks, but now that Rian Johnson’s new movie is in theaters, it’s finally time to reveal the killer. Don’t worry, we won’t drag it out like Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), but before we explain the ending, we have to warn you that there are major Knives Out spoilers ahead.
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- Knives Out was filmed in and around Boston, Massachusetts. The house is the key location of the film, becoming a full-scale clue board game. The movie is a brilliant comedy thriller, a classic whodunit story inspired by the original Sleuth film from 1972.
- After murder-mystery Knives Out took the box office by storm in late 2019, Lionsgate officially announced last week that the hit film would be getting a sequel.And despite the original movie's all-star cast—which included seasoned vets like Daniel Craig and rising stars like Ana de Armas—director and screenwriter Rian Johnson revealed at the Oscars on Sunday that he was on the hunt to.
- Knives Out is just a really well told movie. For 2 hr., 10 min., this is finely paced and edited. Johnson really knows how to steer the story, especially the beginning and introduction to the facts of the case.
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So consider yourself warned, as soon as you scroll past this photo of the movie’s impressive cast, you’re in danger of ruining the ending for yourself, assuming you haven’t seen Knives Out already. Ready to find out who killed Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer)? Let’s dive in.
Ok, let’s get it out of the way. The killer in Knives Out is … Ransom Drysdale (Chris Evans), the spoiled adult grandson of Harlan Thrombey. Of course, the real joy of any whodunnit isn’t in who did it but how they did it. So let’s talk specifics.
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Knives Out spoilers: The motive
Knives Out Movie Trailer
Ransom’s reason for killing his grandfather is pretty straightforward. After mooching for years, he learns at his pappy’s 85th birthday party that Harlan’s changed his will to give the family fortune to his nurse, Marta (Ana de Armas).
Of course, Ransom’s not the only character in Knives Out with a motive. Almost everyone in the Thrombey family is living off Harlan’s money, and at his birthday party, the family patriarch puts them all on notice. He fires his son (Michael Shannon), who’s been running the publishing business that prints Harlan’s successful series of mystery books. He also cuts off his daughter-in-law (Toni Collette) and threatens to expose his son-in-law (Don Johnson) for cheating on his daughter (Jamie Lee Curtis).
But, at the end of the day, the only member of the Thrombey family actually capable of murder is Ransom, though the way he goes about it is particularly devious…
Knives Out spoilers: The plot
Ransom doesn’t kill his grandfather outright. Instead, he decides to pin the blame on Marta, switching the labels on two bottles of medicine in her bag so she’ll inject Harlan with a lethal dose of morphine by mistake. He also swipes the antidote so there’s no way to undo the damage once it’s been done. He’s also aware of a law that killing someone invalidates you from inheriting their money, which means the fortune would revert back to the family.
Sounds foolproof right? Unfortunately for Ransom, things quickly go wrong.
First, Marta accidentally gives Harlan the right medicine (with the wrong label on it) after they both fall on the floor and get switched. After reading the label, she assumes she accidentally killed him and explains that he has minutes to live. Thinking quickly, Harlan uses his last moments of life to hatch an alibi for Marta and then cuts his own throat so the entire thing looks like a suicide.
Things hit a boiling point once the family learns that Harlan left everything to Marta. She ends up fleeing with Ransom, of all people, who pretends to help her while subtly pushing her towards confessing. (One moment where he emails Marta from an anonymous account and then casually asks if she’s checked her email is particularly blatant.)
Marta falls for it and confesses, but everything works out when Detective Blanc retrieves Harlan’s toxicology report and deduces that Ransom switched the labels. It’s a bittersweet ending, though, as Marta realizes that Harlan wasn’t actually poisoned and would have been just fine if she just called for an ambulance.
But, hey, at least Ransom gets arrested and Marta ends up with all the money. In a movie full of deplorable, rich white people, she’s the only one who deserves a happy ending.
Knives Out is in theaters now.
Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is a wildly successful mystery writer and he’s dead. His housekeeper Fran (Edi Patterson) finds him with a slit throat and the knife still in his hand. It looks like suicide, but there are some questions. After all, who really slits their own throat? A couple of cops (the wonderful pair of LaKeith Stanfield and Noah Segan) come to the Thrombey estate do a small investigation, just to make sure they’re not missing anything, and the film opens with their conversations with each of the Thrombey family members. Daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis) is a successful businesswoman with a shit husband named Richard (Don Johnson) and an awful son named Ransom (Chris Evans). Son Walt (Michael Shannon) runs the publishing side, but he’s been fighting a lot with dear old dad. Daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette) is deep into self-help but has been helping herself by ripping off the old man. Finally, there’s Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), the real heroine of “Knives Out” and Harlan’s most trusted confidante. Can she help solve the case?
The case may have just been closed if not for the arrival of the famous detective Benoit Blanc, played by Daniel Craig, who spins a southern drawl and oversized ego into something instantly memorable. Blanc was delivered a news story about the suicide and envelope of money. So someone thinks this is fishy. Why? And who? The question of who brought in Blanc drives the narrative as much as who killed Harlan. Johnson is constantly presenting viewers with the familiar, especially fans of the mystery movie—the single palatial setting, the family of monsters, the exaggerated detective—but then he subverts them every so slightly, and it feels fresh. So while Blanc feels like a Poirot riff, Johnson and Craig avoid turning it into a caricature of something we’ve seen before.
Craig is delightful—I love the excitement in his voice when he figures things out late in the film—but some of the cast gets lost. It’s inevitable with one this big, but if you’re going to “Knives Out” for a specific actor or actress, be aware that it’s a large ensemble piece and your fave may get short shrift. Unless your favorite is Ana de Armas, who is really the heart of the movie, allowing Johnson to imbue “Knives Out” with some wonderful political commentary. The Thrombeys claim to love Marta, even if they can’t remember which South American country she comes from, and Don Johnson gets a few razor sharp scenes as the kind of guy who rants about immigration before quoting “Hamilton.” It’s not embedded in the entire piece as much as “Get Out,” but this “Out” is similar in the way it uses genre structure to say something about wealth and social inequality. And in terms of performance, the often-promising de Armas has never been handed a role this big, and she totally delivers.