British actor and filmmaker Sir Kenneth Branagh has been a Hollywood staple for years, between his variations of Shakespeare performs like 1993’s “A lot Ado About Nothing” and 1996’s “Hamlet” and blockbuster initiatives like “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and techniques,” in addition to the primary “Thor” film in 2021. He additionally received his first Academy Award in 2021 due to the autobiographical movie “Belfast,” which was based mostly on his personal childhood within the Northern Irish metropolis throughout the Troubles. Branagh is clearly a curiously-minded and bold filmmaker and performer who’s all the time on the lookout for a brand new problem, which could clarify why, in 2017, he began adapting Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot tales for the massive display screen.
Branagh kicked off this new challenge with “Homicide on the Orient Specific” that yr and adopted It up with two different Poirot tales, “Demise on the Nile” and “A Haunting in Venice,” which got here out in 2022 and 2023, respectively. So, what is the appropriate viewing order for Branagh’s Poirot motion pictures? Effectively, this will likely appear apparent, however I am right here to substantiate one easy truth: one of the best ways to observe Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot movies is only by their launch date, so begin with the earliest one first.
Homicide on the Orient Specific
For those who’re binging all of Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot motion pictures, go forward and begin the proceedings with the 2017 movie “Homicide on the Orient Specific.” That is, arguably, one of the vital well-known Agatha Christie works with the well-known fictional detective on the heart, so it does make sense that Branagh led with this adaptation. Based mostly on the legendary thriller creator’s 1934 e-book, the movie opens with Branagh’s Poirot on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. After fixing a thriller there, he boards the Orient Specific on its Simplon route, which ought to return him to London. On the practice, Poirot meets a businessman named Edward Ratchett (Johnny Depp) who claims that he is endured threats to his life. Poirot declines to analyze the matter, however then Ratchett turns up useless.
After Poirot does some digging on Ratchett and realizes that he was utilizing an alias and is really John Cassetti, a person who beforehand kidnapped and murdered an toddler lady named Daisy Armstrong. Cassetti was additionally not directly answerable for the deaths of Daisy’s father John and Susanne, the household’s nanny, who each died by suicide. Some suspects start to current themselves, together with the household’s different nursemaid, Pilar Estravados (Penélope Cruz), Susanne’s former lover, Cyrus Bethman Hardman (Willem Dafoe), Daisy’s godmother, Princess Natalia Dragomiroff (Dame Judi Dench), and a handful of others. I will not spoil the ending of “Homicide on the Orient Specific” right here if you have not learn or watched this well-known story earlier than, however Branagh does a wonderful job directing it, and the film turned a industrial success — which gave Branagh the inexperienced gentle to maintain making Poirot movies.
Demise on the Nile
On the very finish of “Homicide on the Orient Specific,” Kenneth Branagh units up the sequel as Hercule Poirot leaves the practice; after his journey ends, he encounters a British Military messenger who offers him a observe saying there’s been … a demise on the Nile. After a short flashback that recounts Poirot’s service in World Conflict I — which additionally options Poirot’s lover Katherine (Susannah Fielding) who perished within the battle — we meet up with Poirot in 1937 in London, the place “Demise on the Nile” begins correctly. Whereas he is within the British capital, Poirot attends a efficiency by the jazz singer Salome Otterbourne (Sophie Okonedo). Whereas he is there, he sees the socialite Jacqueline de Bellefort (Emma Mackey) along with her fiancé Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer) and her longtime good friend Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot).
Unusually, six weeks later, Poirot is touring in Egypt when he encounters Jacqueline, Simon, and Linnet once more, besides one thing’s very totally different: Linnet and Simon at the moment are engaged to be married. (Jacqueline is stalking them, considerably understandably.) After Simon, Linnet, Poirot, and their marriage ceremony friends board the S.S. Karnak to have a good time the nuptials, and after they briefly disembark to see some ruins, Jacqueline boards the ship. When Linnet turns up useless, it looks as if Jacqueline might be the plain wrongdoer, however in Poirot tales, nothing is as easy it appears. “Demise on the Nile” wasn’t fairly as financially profitable as its predecessor, however it nonetheless carried out decently on the field workplace, paving the way in which for a 3rd sequel.
A Haunting in Venice
A yr after “Demise on the Nile,” Branagh launched a 3rd Hercule Poirot movie, tailored from Agatha Christie’s 1969 novel “Hallowe’en Celebration” and titled “A Haunting in Venice.” Set years after the occasions of the earlier installment, we now discover Poirot attempting to peacefully retire in Venice, having misplaced religion in each the next energy and his line of labor through the years. All of the whereas he is accompanied by his bodyguard, former Italian police officer Vitale Portfoglio (Riccardo Scamarcio).
One night, Poirot’s good friend and well-liked crime novelist Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) convinces the detective to accompany her to a seance at a Venetian palazzo owned by Rowena Drake (“Yellowstone” star Keilly Reilly), carried out by famous medium Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), largely as a result of Ariadne desires to show as soon as and for all that Joyce is a fraud. (Additionally, the palazzo is a former orphanage and is rumored to be extraordinarily haunted, so it is a notably acceptable Halloween vacation spot.) When Joyce appears to summon the spirit of Rowena’s deceased daughter Alicia and claims the lady was murdered, Poirot is on the case.
A number of extra our bodies fall earlier than “A Haunting in Venice” is over, and the thriller reaches a satisfying conclusion … and contemplating that it had higher returns on the field workplace than “Demise of the Nile,” a fourth Poirot movie will in all probability arrive finally. For now, all three of Branagh’s Hercule Poirot motion pictures are streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
