Certificate: 12A

Running Time: 118 mins

UK Distributor: Netflix

UK Release Date: 28 August 2025

WHO’S IN THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB?

Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, Celia Imrie, David Tennant, Jonathan Pryce, Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Richard E. Grant, Tom Ellis, Geoff Bell, Paul Freeman, Sarah Niles, Ingrid Oliver

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Chris Columbus (director, producer), Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote (writers), Jennifer Todd (producer), Thomas Newman (composer), Don Burgess (cinematographer), Dan Zimmerman (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A group of retired pensioners set out to solve a local murder-mystery…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB?

Between its multi-million-dollar acquisition of Rian Johnson’s Knives Out sequels and the immense popularity of shows and miniseries like Wednesday, The Perfect Couple and Bodies, Netflix really has built its own monopoly of murder-mysteries, to where not one but two of its original movies literally bear the title Murder Mystery. Even still, the streamer appears to be no closer to slowing down, with Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man and the Keira Knightley-starring The Woman in Cabin 10 due out later this year, and we now have The Thursday Murder Club, director Chris Columbus’s adaptation of Richard Osman’s best-selling novel that, for better or worse, solidifies Netflix’s grasp on murder-mystery content.

While the film itself doesn’t reach the heights of previous Netflix investigations, it offers a likeable bit of fluff that audiences, especially those of a certain age, can easily enjoy without having to worry too much about indigestion.

It takes place at a luxurious retirement home known as Cooper’s Chase, where the titular club meets once a week not to knit or play boules, or even to care for the llamas that are inexplicably on the property, but to investigate unsolved murders. Its members – Elizabeth Best (Helen Mirren), a former spy; Ron Ritchie (Pierce Brosnan), a former trade unionist; Ibrahim Arif (Ben Kingsley), a former psychologist; and new addition Joyce Meadowcroft (Celia Imrie), a former nurse – all put their expertise to amateur sleuthing that’s nothing more than a bit of harmless fun, but things soon become serious when an actual murder, one that puts the future of Cooper’s Chase into question, takes place within their community. Now, with the help of local police officer Donna De Freitas (Naomi Ackie), the Thursday Murder Club set out to crack the case and bring down those who may be responsible.

Columbus, working from a script by Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote, has made a film that is strangely busy and idle at the same time. It goes at a somewhat lethargic pace, cramming in exposition about certain characters’ backstories to make sure that each of the main quartet has their own little quirk, yet not really taking the time to flesh out their relationships with one another or even, quite crucially, the mystery they’re trying to solve. Said mystery more or less goes through the typical motions, with red herrings and climactic reveals aplenty, and although screenwriters Brand and Heathcote do at least make you interested enough in the characters to be curious about where it’s all going, there’s not as much narrative meat to chew on as it thinks. I should point out that I have not read Osman’s original book, so I do not know if this is a faithful adaptation or they just went in a slightly different direction, but if the mystery is as bare-bones in the novel as it is in the movie, then I can only assume it became a bestseller in the first place because of the wealthy combination of its characters and its initial set-up.

That is ultimately where the charm of The Thursday Murder Club lies, as it not only makes good use of its veteran actors, especially Pierce Brosnan who’s having perhaps the most fun he’s had in a movie since painfully crooning ABBA’s “SOS” in the Mamma Mia! films, but also has a rather neat hook that plays into middle-aged lifestyles and mannerisms without being overly condescending. These characters are very easy to like, and the actors do well to bring out their little eccentricities as well as their more vulnerable aspects which, when the going gets tough (but not too tough, for the sake of its audience), makes things a bit more thrilling later down the line. There’s also some fun supporting turns from the likes of Daniel Mays, Jonathan Pryce, Richard E. Grant, and most memorably David Tennant as an antagonist so devious he often enters to boos from the crowd like he’s a pantomime villain.

The film also gets some enjoyment out of this impossibly utopian retirement village where archery, nude modelling and making cakes good enough to be featured on The Great British Bake-Off are just some of the activities its elderly residents can partake in, to where solving cold cases seems like one of the more normal ones. More importantly, it treats them with dignity and often like actual characters instead of walking punchlines, a nice change of pace from numerous other elderly-centric films like Going in Style, Last Vegas, 80 for Brady and Book Club which largely reduce some of our most iconic actors to easy bodily function routines and other demeaning gags where the joke is simply: “they’re old.” That’s really not the case here, as the filmmakers and the actors give plenty of respect to these people who, despite their age, have plenty of attributes to offer beyond that, and therefore feel much more worthy of the A-listers playing them than, say, getting Robert De Niro to do a bunch of erection jokes in Dirty Grandpa.

If this does indeed become Netflix’s latest murder-mystery franchise – and it very well could, given that Osman has penned several sequels – then it’s a fine enough starting point that, while not quite as deep or twist-heavy as some of the best of its kind tend to be, offers a comfortable introduction to a fun set of characters within a unique environment that sets itself apart just enough. It’s safe, harmless entertainment that you can easily put on for your own elderly parents to stop them asking about your own lack of prospects, leaving them too distracted by Helen Mirren solving murders to query why you’ve not yet found a partner to settle down with. (I’m working on it, Mum!)

SO, TO SUM UP…

The Thursday Murder Club is a likable murder-mystery for the older crowd that offers characters and environments which are fun and respectful enough without being condescending, even if the mystery itself is rather flimsy.

Click here or check below to find where you can stream The Thursday Murder Club now, thanks to JustWatch!