Knives Out 3 Reviews And Rotten Tomatoes Score Crush Glass Onion
Critics just weighed in on Knives Out 3 and the verdict is setting the stage for a major upset.
Benoit Blanc is back, and the early buzz says the third one is sharper than Glass Onion. Critics walked out of the world premiere buzzing, and the scorecards are already reflecting it.
Rian Johnson’s latest, officially titled 'Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery', just premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and is getting the kind of reaction studios dream about. Yes, it’s the Daniel Craig-led whodunit series, and yes, Johnson is still finding new ways to play with the genre without breaking it.
- Rotten Tomatoes: 96% based on 25 reviews at the moment — ahead of Glass Onion’s 91%, just a shade under the first Knives Out at 97%.
- Release plan: limited theatrical run in select theaters starts November 26, 2025; hits Netflix on December 12, 2025.
- Premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this past weekend.
Variety’s Owen Gleiberman basically stamped it with the seal of approval, calling it a near-perfect slice of murder-mystery comfort food that still keeps the meta spark alive:
"Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is an enticingly clever and droll, nearly pitch-perfect piece of murder-mystery fun — a whodunit that lives up to the expectations set six years ago by Knives Out, which offered its own perfect revival of the Agatha Christie spirit, with a tasty frosting of meta cheekiness."
RogerEbert.com’s Brian Tallerico went big on the themes. He says it’s dense with ideas — the kind of mystery that plays even better on a second watch — and frames it as Johnson wrestling with faith vs. logic, the fake-news era, and why storytelling matters. He also calls it one of Johnson’s best scripts, which is not nothing.
TheWrap’s Chase Hutchinson pushes it even further: compared to the first two, this one is the most alive, the most elaborate as a puzzle, and the most emotional. That’s a tricky combo to land in a franchise where the twists are the main attraction.
And yes, Netflix is doing a limited theatrical window before the streaming drop again, which is always a little funny considering how big these movies play with a crowd. If you want to catch the gasps and giggles in a theater, you’ve got a short runway starting November 26. Otherwise, it’s on Netflix December 12, 2025.