Best Murder mystery Movies
Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of murder mystery cinema — measured across 1,320 indexed frames from 18 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.
Murder mystery films over-index on mustache, smartphone and earrings — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.
- 1
Drop (2025)
Christopher LandonDP Marc SpicerIMDb 6.1TMDB 6.3See in full on FrameThrower →
Violet, a widowed mother on her first date in years, arrives at an upscale restaurant where she is relieved that her date, Henry, is more charming and handsome than she expected. But their chemistry begins to curdle as Violet begins being irritated and then terrorized by a series of anonymous drops to her phone.
- 2
Death on the Nile (2022)
Kenneth BranaghDP Haris ZambarloukosIMDb 6.3TMDB 6.4See in full on FrameThrower →
Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot's vacation aboard a glamorous river steamer turns into a terrifying search for a murderer when a picture-perfect couple's idyllic honeymoon is tragically cut short. Set against an epic landscape of sweeping Egyptian desert vistas and the majestic Giza pyramids, this tale of unbridled passion and incapacitating jealousy features a cosmopolitan group of impeccably dressed travelers, and enough wicked twists and turns to leave audiences guessing until the final, shocking denouement.
- 3
Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)
Halina ReijnDP Jasper WolfIMDb 6.2TMDB 6.1See in full on FrameThrower →
In an isolated family mansion, a group of rich 20-somethings decides to play Bodies Bodies Bodies, a game where one of them is secretly a "killer" while the rest tries to "escape". Things take a turn for the worse when real bodies start turning up, setting off a paranoid and dangerous chain of events.
- 4
Knives Out (2019)
Rian JohnsonDP Steve YedlinIMDb 7.9TMDB 7.8See in full on FrameThrower →
When renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday, the inquisitive and debonair Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is mysteriously enlisted to investigate. From Harlan's disfunctional family to his devoted staff, Blanc sifts through a web of red herrings and self-serving lies to uncover the truth behind Harlan's untimely death.
- 5
Glass Onion (2022)
Rian JohnsonDP Steve YedlinIMDb 7.1TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →
Five long-time friends are invited to the Greek island home of billionaire Miles Bron. All five know Bron from way back and owe their current wealth, fame, and careers to him. The main event is a murder-weekend game with Bron to be the victim. In reality, they all have reasons to kill him. Also invited is Benoit Blanc, the world's greatest detective.
- 6
Decision To Leave (2022)
Park Chan-wookDP Kim Ji-yongIMDb 7.3TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →
From a mountain peak in South Korea, a man plummets to his death. Did he jump, or was he pushed? When detective Hae-joon arrives on the scene, he begins to suspect the dead man’s wife Seo-rae. But as he digs deeper into the investigation, he finds himself trapped in a web of deception and desire.
- 7
A Haunting In Venice (2023)
Kenneth BranaghDP Haris ZambarloukosIMDb 6.5TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →
Celebrated sleuth Hercule Poirot, now retired and living in self-imposed exile in Venice, reluctantly attends a Halloween séance at a decaying, haunted palazzo. When one of the guests is murdered, the detective is thrust into a sinister world of shadows and secrets.
- 8
Wake Up Dead Man (2025)
Rian JohnsonDP Steve YedlinIMDb 7.3TMDB 7.2See in full on FrameThrower →
Temptation, greed, and death under suspicious circumstances have crept into Monsignor Jefferson Wicks' unpopular parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude. And now, someone who claims innocence is about to suffer for the sins of others. But they swear to God that their conscience is clear. To separate the wheat from the chaff, private detective Benoit Blanc steps in, believing he has all the answers to the knotty mystery. Instead, for the first time in a long while, the esteemed investigator second-guesses himself. After all, everyone in town is convinced that they have the culprit. However, they are all lying, including Wicks' flock of devotees; in this den of vipers, they all know how to cover their tracks. Still, an impossible crime demands a solution. Will Blanc uncover the truth and set them free?
- 9
MaXXXine (2024)
Ti WestDP Eliot RockettIMDb 6.2TMDB 6.3See in full on FrameThrower →
In 1980s Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break. But as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past.
- 10
Malignant (2021)
James WanDP Michael BurgessIMDb 6.2TMDB 6.7See in full on FrameThrower →
Twenty-seven long years after the brutal Simion Research Hospital incident, abused Madison wakes up in a hospital in present-day Seattle. But with numbing visions of murder getting in the way of a normal life, more and more, Madison's obscure past emerges, baffling both herself and the local detectives. Are these explicitly violent killings figments of Madison's troubled imagination? Either way, someone, or better yet, something, links the past to the present, demanding closure and blood. Is the bogeyman real?
What murder mystery films are made of
How much more often each element appears in a murder mystery frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — mustache is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.
- mustache2.9×
- smartphone2.7×
- earrings2.4×
- table lamp2.1×
- blood1.9×
- blazer1.7×
- stone wall1.6×
How murder mystery films are shot
Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate murder mystery from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.
- 32%naturalvs 43% baseline
- 52%low keyvs 40% baseline
- 53%nightvs 43% baseline
- 24%widevs 20% baseline
What breaks the pattern
The Trouble With Harry (1955) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.
Method
Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 1,320 frames from 18 films carrying the murder mystery label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.
Machine-readable: /api/list/murder-mystery
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