Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)

Number 2 left me cold, but this third Knives Out mystery is a return to form with another star-studded cast populating a twisty-turny mystery full of surprises as a priest is murdered in his church and suspicion falls on the newest assistant pastor, the fantastically likeable and wonderfully emotive (and really, I think, a big reason why this is so good even though the plot is a bit overcooked) Josh O'Connor.

★★★★☆

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God's Own Country (2017)

It is easy to see what attracts Johnny Saxby, a farmer's son working his father's struggling farm in The Pennines, to Gheorghe, a handsome Romanian immigrant farmhand who has arrived to help, but not so much the other way round given Johnny's boozing, drinking milk from the carton, and general all-over disaffectedness, so when first lust erupts then romance blossoms between the two, it is quite hard to believe, as is the pair's readiness to strip each other down in the freezing pre-dawn country air that otherwise dictates their need for gloves and coats while they are birthing lambs and building boundary fences together after sun up, but if you are prepared to wait out their chemistry- and drama-free couplings, there is a nice pay-off at the movie's very end when Johnny Saxby finally softens, music finally plays, and warmth finally arrives.

★★☆☆☆

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