Netflix’s New Crime Mystery Movie Debuts to Rave Reviews and Almost Perfect Score
Netflix’s The Thursday Murder Club has premiered on 21 August in Leicester Square, London, ahead of its release on 22 August in 30 selected cinemas and its streaming debut by Netflix on 28 August 2025.
The movie premiered to strong early praise, earning a 90% score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 21 reviews. Directed by Chris Columbus, known for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the movie adapts Richard Osman’s bestselling novel about a group of elderly friends who enjoy solving crimes and suddenly find themselves in the middle of a real murder mystery.
The film features an impressive cast including Oscar winners Helen Mirren and Ben Kingsley, Oscar nominees Jonathan Pryce and Richard E. Grant, James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan, Celia Imrie from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, David Tennant from Doctor Who, Naomi Ackie, and Tom Ellis from Luther.
Critics have noted that the ensemble brings charm and energy to the story, making it a pleasure to watch the characters interact and solve the mystery together.
Screenwriters Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote adapted the novel, and Columbus delivers a solid, mainstream-friendly experience. Critics generally liked how the film treated its elderly characters with respect and dignity, avoiding cheap jokes or stereotypes.
The production values and performances, especially from the veteran cast, were widely praised, adding weight and charm to the otherwise lighthearted story.
A rare film with dignity for its elderly characters and not out to make them walking punchlines, it is a joy watching this charming ensemble solve a mystery while having fun
Robert Kojder
Screenwriters Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote adapt the novel and director Chris Columbus robustly delivers the C-major chords of mainstream entertainment. The result is some undemanding enjoyment.
Peter Bradshaw
The Thursday Murder Club, despite the best efforts of its truly superlative cast, is pretty much a Sunday night detective drama — albeit one with spectacular production values.
Yvonne Zipp
If you can get past some illogical plot choices, then The Thursday Murder Club will be an enjoyable, albeit goofy, adventure, elevated immensely by the film’s incredibly talented cast.
Emma Vine
Columbus doesn’t introduce much suspense or tension. And the cast’s talent is barely made use of. But, overall, it’s a loving salute to an old-fashioned kind of storytelling — and a book that I’ll never read.
Deborah Ross
On the other hand, some critics felt the movie was a bit predictable, with familiar plot beats and occasional illogical story choices.
A few noted that certain performances leaned toward broad or theatrical, making parts of the film feel slightly staged or performative. Overall, while not groundbreaking, The Thursday Murder Club is an enjoyable, well-acted mystery that balances humor and suspense.
The cast have been seemingly told to play their scenes so broadly and turned out towards the audience that you half-expect Kingsley to ask us to kindly move Colonel Mustard to the library.
Clarisse Loughrey
Perhaps due to these books’ extraordinary popularity,…such an adaptation was inevitable. Except no one could have foreseen that the result would be quite so thin and perfunctory; so nefariously lazy; so fiendishly pleased with itself.
Robbie Collin
The film premiered on August 21 at Leicester Square in London and opened in 30 selected cinemas on August 22. It then made its streaming debut on Netflix on August 28, 2025.
Four pensioners. Countless cold cases. And now an actual murder on their own patch!
— Netflix UK & Ireland (@NetflixUK) August 7, 2025
THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB is on the case. Coming to Netflix 28 August. pic.twitter.com/NltGD7KhxL
The story follows four retired friends, a spy, a nurse, a trade union official, and a psychiatrist, who team up to solve a murder, combining wit, cleverness, and camaraderie in a light yet satisfying mystery adventure.
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