The new adaptation of Agatha Christie’s “Death on the Nile” screened earlier this month starring Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot and the viewers’ response thus far has been quite positive.
In Death on the Nile, Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot’s Egyptian 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.
If you loved the new adaptation of “Death on the Nile” and are looking for similar mystery picks, you will enjoy these 12 films:
- Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
- Crooked House (2017)
- Murder Mystery (2019)
- Knives Out (2019)
- Clue (1985)
- The Good Liar (2019)
- Evil Under the Sun (1982)
- Gosford Park (2001)
- The Mirror Crack’d (1980)
- Motherless Brooklyn (2019)
- Death on the Nile (2004) – David Suchet version
- Miss Willoughby and the Haunted Bookshop (2021)
*****
Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
A lavish trip through Europe quickly unfolds into a race against time to solve a murder aboard a train. When an avalanche stops the Orient Express dead in its tracks, the world’s greatest detective — Hercule Poirot — arrives to interrogate all passengers and search for clues before the killer can strike again.
Crooked House (2017)
Young Sophia returns after the war to find her grandfather poisoned and a family filled with suspects. Luckily her fiancé, Charles, is the son of the assistant commissioner of Scotland Yard.
Murder Mystery (2019)
This one is a fun Netflix Original film to watch (starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston): A New York cop and his wife go on a European vacation to reinvigorate the spark in their marriage. A chance encounter leads to them being framed for the murder of an elderly billionaire.
Knives Out (2019)
The circumstances surrounding the death of crime novelist Harlan Thrombey are mysterious, but there’s one thing that renowned Detective Benoit Blanc knows for sure — everyone in the wildly dysfunctional Thrombey family is a suspect. Now, Blanc must sift through a web of lies and red herrings to uncover the truth.
Clue (1985)
Another comedy/mystery film that has become a cult classic: Six guests are anonymously invited to a strange mansion for dinner, but after their host is killed, they must cooperate with the staff to identify the murderer as the bodies pile up.
The Good Liar (2019)
Consummate con man Roy Courtnay has set his sights on his latest mark: the recently widowed Betty McLeish, worth millions. But this time, what should have been a simple swindle escalates into a cat-and-mouse game with the ultimate stakes.
Evil Under the Sun (1982)
Another classic starring Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot: Trying to find how a millionaire wound up with a phony diamond brings Hercule Poirot to an exclusive island resort frequented by the rich and famous. When a murder is committed, everyone has an alibi.
Gosford Park (2001)
Set in the 1930s, this movie brings a group of pretentious rich and famous together for a weekend of relaxation at a hunting resort. But when a murder occurs, each one of these interesting characters becomes a suspect.
The Mirror Crack’d (1980)
Another iconic film starring Angela Lansbury and Elizabeth Taylor: A local woman is poisoned and sleuth Jane Marple jumps on the case, but the investigation is compromised when she learns that the intended victim was, in fact, a visiting movie star.
Motherless Brooklyn (2019)
In 1950s New York, a lonely private detective afflicted with Tourette’s Syndrome ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend.
Death on the Nile (2004)
This is the David Suchet version (TV film): While on a holiday cruise in Egypt, the Belgian sleuth (David Suchet) investigates the murder of a rich heiress who had many enemies.
Miss Willoughby and the Haunted Bookshop (2021)
A University professor with an insatiable appetite for investigation is asked by some old family friends to investigate a series of hauntings at their antique bookstore.
*****
About Death on the Nile
The book features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The action takes place in Egypt, mostly on the River Nile. The novel is unrelated to Christie’s earlier short story of the same name, which featured Parker Pyne as the detective.
Plot [spoiler Warning]
While on holiday in Aswan to board the steamer Karnak, set to tour along the Nile River from Shellal to Wadi Halfa, Hercule Poirot is approached by successful socialite Linnet Doyle née Ridgeway. She wants to commission him to deter her former friend Jacqueline de Bellefort from hounding and stalking her: Linnet had recently married Jacqueline’s ex-fiancé, Simon Doyle, which has made Jacqueline bitterly resentful.
Poirot refuses the commission but unsuccessfully attempts to dissuade Jacqueline from pursuing her plans. Simon and Linnet secretly follow Poirot to escape Jacqueline but find she had learned of their plans and boarded ahead of them. The other Karnak passengers include Linnet’s maid Louise Bourget and trustee Andrew Pennington, romance novelist Salome Otterbourne (a thinly disguised portrayal of Elinor Glyn) and her daughter Rosalie, Tim Allerton and his mother, American socialite Marie Van Schuyler, her cousin Cornelia Robson and her nurse Miss Bowers, outspoken communist Mr Ferguson, Italian archaeologist Guido Richetti, solicitor Jim Fanthorp, and Austrian physician Dr Bessner.
While visiting Abu Simbel when the Karnak stops there, Linnet narrowly avoids being crushed to death by a large boulder that falls from a cliff. Jacqueline is suspected of pushing the boulder off the cliff, but she is found to have been aboard the steamer at the time of the incident.
At Wadi Halfa, Poirot’s friend Colonel Race boards the steamer for the return trip. Race tells Poirot that he seeks a murderer among the passengers. The following night in the steamer’s lounge, Jacqueline expresses her bitterness toward Simon. She shoots him in the leg with a pistol but immediately breaks down with remorse and kicks her pistol away. She is taken to her cabin by the two other people present, Fanthorp and Cornelia.
Simon is shortly brought to Dr Bessner’s cabin for treatment for his injury. Fanthorp looks for Jacqueline’s pistol but reports that it has disappeared. The following morning, Linnet is found dead, shot in the head, while her valuable string of pearls has disappeared (the pearls are worth roughly £1,000,000 in today’s pounds). Jacqueline’s pistol is recovered from the Nile; it was wrapped in a velvet stole belonging to Miss Van Schuyler, which she says was stolen the previous day. Two shots had been fired from the pistol.
When interviewing Louise in the cabin in which Simon is resting, Poirot notes oddness in the words she uses. Miss Bowers returns Linnet’s pearl necklace, which was stolen by Miss Van Schuyler, a kleptomaniac. However, Poirot realizes it is merely an imitation of Linnet’s genuine necklace. He notes two bottles of nail polish in the victim’s room, one of which intrigues him. Louise is then found stabbed to death in her cabin.
Mrs Otterbourne later meets with Poirot and Race in Simon’s cabin, claiming she saw who killed the maid, to which Simon loudly declares his surprise. Before revealing who it is, she is shot dead from outside the cabin. Poirot soon confronts Pennington over his attempted murder of Linnet by pushing the boulder off the cliff – Pennington had speculated unsuccessfully with her inheritance and came to Egypt upon learning of her marriage to Simon to trick her into signing documents that would exonerate him.
However, he claims he did not murder anyone, despite his revolver having been used in Mrs Otterbourne’s murder. Poirot recovers Linnet’s genuine pearls from Tim, who had substituted an imitation string of pearls for the genuine necklace. Race realizes Richetti is the man he is looking for.
Poirot reveals to Race, Bessner, and Cornelia that Simon killed Linnet. The murder was planned by Jacqueline; the pair are still lovers. Simon married Linnet as part of their scheme to get Linnet’s money. On the night of the murder, Jacqueline deliberately missed Simon, who faked his leg injury with red ink. While Fanthorp and Cornelia were distracted by Jacqueline, Simon took her pistol that she had deliberately discarded, went to Linnet’s cabin, and shot her.
He placed the nail polish bottle that had contained the red ink on Linnet’s washstand, then returned to the lounge and shot his own leg. Simon used the stole to silence the pistol, loaded a spare cartridge to make it seem that only two shots were fired, and threw the pistol overboard. Louise and Mrs Otterbourne were murdered by Jacqueline, who was warned by Simon when the plan was going awry – Louise witnessed Simon entering Linnet’s cabin that night and hinted at this to Simon when Poirot was interviewing her in an attempt at blackmail; Mrs Otterbourne saw Jacqueline entering Louise’s cabin before stabbing her. Poirot confronts Simon, who confesses.
He is arrested, as are Jacqueline and Richetti. As the steamer arrives back in Shellal and the passengers disembark, Jacqueline shoots Simon and herself with another pistol she possessed so that they may escape the gallows. When pressed, Poirot reveals he had known she had a second pistol but had sympathetically chosen to allow her to take her own life.
*****
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