The run-up to Christopher Nolan‘s The Odyssey has many of us looking back at previous attempts to bring the Greek epic to the big screen — and most often, the film that comes to mind is 2000’s Oscar-nominated O Brother, Where Art Thou?. But a few years before the Coen Brothers first brought Homer to the U.S., author Charles Frazier took a similar idea for his 1997 novel, Cold Mountain. That historical tale mashed up The Odyssey with Civil War America — and director Anthony Minghella would adapt it into an Oscar-winning feature film for Miramax in 2003.

‘Cold Mountain’ Is a Civil War-Era Take on ‘The Odyssey’

Image via Miramax

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If you haven’t seen Cold Mountain, know that it’s not for the faint of heart: This violent, frightening, and explicit “hard R” take on the American Civil War — and those affected by the conflict off the battlefield — can admittedly be a bit much. But for those interested in how the film transplanted the story of Odysseus into the mid-19th century, the Academy Award-winning picture tells its story through the lens of Confederate soldier W.P. Inman (Jude Law). The parallels are striking here in Minghella’s film, as well as Frazier’s novel, though this is certainly not a 1:1 adaptation.

Like Homer’s epic protagonist, Inman deserts the war after surviving the famed and bloody Battle of the Crater to return home to his true love, Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman), after a prolonged absence. Along Inman’s journey, he is met with just about every form of temptation and resistance, though he remains focused on his goal.

Certain classical elements of Homer’s Odyssey are woven into and re-imagined in Cold Mountain. Odysseus’ temptation by the sirens, whose song lures the young men to their deaths, is echoed in the sequence in which Inman and the disgraced Reverend Solomon Veasey (Philip Seymour Hoffman) are swept up in the apparent kindness of a stranger and his family, only for the women in the family to make explicit sexual advances toward the men. Veasey succumbs to the temptations instantly, while Inman remains faithful to his love — but his strength doesn’t matter when the Confederate Home Guard, an almost Posieden-like force in the narrative that doubles as the “single-eyed” Cyclops, arrive and carry both men away. Similarly, much like Odysseus, Inman encounters a wise old blind man, a Circe figure in the form of a young widow (played by Natalie Portman), and an elderly hermit who embodies both Athena’s aid and Eurycleia’s recognition of Odysseus based on a scar.

The parallels don’t just run with Inman, however. Just as Penelope is forced to fight off suitors and would-be occupiers in Ithaca, Ada struggles to keep her home of Black Cove in Cold Mountain, North Carolina, from the local Home Guard and other potential threats who would seize control. It’s only with the aid of Ruby Thewes (Renée Zellweger, who would win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work), who takes on the role of Eumaeus (only for Ada rather than Inman), that she makes it through the harsh winter and the lonely time away from her beloved.

Although Inspired by Homer, ‘Cold Mountain’ Forges Its Own Path

Cold Mountain is a brutal, explicit, and uncompromising tale that has long been labeled an “American Odyssey,” but it ends quite differently than Homer’s original epic. For one thing, while Ada does get an almost divine sense of how she and Inman will be reunited in the form of dreams and omens, there are no supernatural beings, no petitions to the gods, and no overly mythological moments. Likewise, rather than returning to his wife and son, Inman returns to Ada just in time to conceive a child with her, only for the Home Guard to get the better of the deserter and kill him afterward. Thus, the film ends with a flash-forward to the next Easter, where it’s revealed that the pair had a daughter, Grace Inman.

With enough parallels to the text to intrigue fans and a plethora of differences to keep one guessing, Cold Mountain is a film take that pulls no punches. Though this uncompromising picture may not be for everyone, if you’re interested in an Americanized Odyssey that focuses on drama rather than O Brother, Where Art Thou?’s comedy, look no further.

Cold Mountain is available for streaming on Pluto TV.

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Cold Mountain

Release Date

December 24, 2003

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Runtime

153 minutes

Director

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Anthony Minghella

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By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 21 seconds ago

These days, it’s relatively rare to hear George Lucas comment on the modern state of Star Wars. There are a couple of major reasons for this. First, one of the reasons he sold this franchise was so he wouldn’t have to be the de facto authority on everything large and small in a galaxy far, far away. The second was that he has a tendency to stick his foot in his mouth when he talks about the franchise, like the time he infamously told Charlie Rose that the Star Wars movies were like his “kids” and he had sold them to “white slavers.”

Despite this, however, the Maker still occasionally offers comments on the beloved sci-fi franchise he brought to life. He did so in a recent interview, where he got surprisingly candid about Star Wars and his creative process. Lucas also did the last thing anyone was suspecting: he took what seemed to be a potshot at the Sequel Trilogy, offering his own diagnosis as to why movies like The Rise of Skywalker flopped so hard despite literally decades of box office momentum.

The Maker Speaks

Recently, George Lucas offered an interview to A Rabbit’s Foot. One of the things he discussed with the journal was the group of famous filmmaker friends who helped him turn Star Wars into a breakout pop culture success. “I had a group of friends I went to school with: Marty Scorsese, Francis [Ford Coppola], Steven [Spielberg]. We were all students at the same time, and we all know each other really well,” he said. “I know what their prejudices are. When I show them a movie, and they make comments, I know where they’re coming from.” He followed this up with a surprising statement: “I don’t like focus groups.”

Why is that? “The audience doesn’t know what they want to see. If they don’t like a character, that’s interesting, and as a filmmaker I want to find out why,” he said. “But when the studios hear that, they take the wrong message. They let the audience actually make the movie. Of course, now they go crazy with that. Now, it’s all about what the fans think.” Some fans might think this is a perfect situation, but Lucas disagrees. “That isn’t how you make the movie. You make a movie by finding someone that knows how to make movies, that has a story to tell, and is passionate about it.”

Star Wars Goes From Being Special To Being A Nobody

While Lucas doesn’t explicitly badmouth Disney or the Sequel Trilogy, I couldn’t get over how perfectly he seemed to be describing what happened with The Rise of Skywalker. While The Force Awakens was a crowd-pleasing soft reboot, The Last Jedi took several big, creative swings that didn’t connect with every fan. This included turning Luke Skywalker into a bitter hermit who throws away his lightsaber, turning Rey into an abandoned nobody, and adding side quest-loving new character Rose Tyco. When enough fans whined, Disney brought back The Force Awakens director to have Luke emphasize the importance of lightsabers, to almost entirely remove Rose, and to turn Rey into Emperor Palpatine’s granddaughter.

All of this was a transparent attempt to placate the fans who had complained the loudest about The Last Jedi. But that didn’t keep The Rise of Skywalker from being the worst Star Wars movie ever made, one that turned countless fans off. It’s fair to say that this final sequel convinced mainstream audiences that the franchise wasn’t special anymore. Once, new Star Wars content always felt like something special; now, it has been reduced to a mixed bag of movies and shows with more misses than hits. That’s why The Mandalorian and Grogu, the first new movie since TROS, became a critical and commercial flop.

The Truth Is Its Own Superweapon

In that same interview, George Lucas pointed out that he had resisted making changes fans demanded for decades. About the Ewoks, he claimed fans kept telling him, “Get rid of these teddy bears, we want to see an adult movie!” According to him, “Everyone said the same thing about R2-D2 and C-3PO,” endlessly claiming they wanted a more adult movie. His response is simple: that Star Wars is “a kid’s movie. It’s always been a kid’s movie.” 

Amusingly enough, Lucas was basically echoing Red Letter Media, the YouTube channel that became famous because of scathing reviews of the prequels. Last year, RLM member Mike Stoklassa, in his Plinkett persona, outlined in vivid detail how Star Wars fans don’t know what they want. Now, the actual creator of Star Wars is explicitly saying the same thing: that fans of the franchise don’t know what they really want and that trying to give it to them is the best way to doom your film. Disney caved in to the loudest whiners on the internet, and now everybody is moaning about different things, hoping their petulant demands will be met.

Disney: ‘That Is Why You Fail”

Star Wars succeeded because George Lucas had a vision that he wouldn’t deviate from no matter how many fans complained. Once he sold the franchise, Disney worried so much about focus groups and fan outrage that they drove the sequels into the ground. The Last Jedi took big swings that a talented director could have followed up on. Instead, the House of Mouse rehired a tired hack of a director to grovel to a fandom that has never understood what it wanted by caving to their every contradictory demand. Like Luke Skywalker when he thought it was impossible to lift his X-Wing, Disney thought it was impossible to create new ideas.

Now, here’s George Lucas himself to tell them the same thing Yoda famously told Luke: “That is why you fail.”

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 24 seconds ago

Given that The Mandalorian and Grogu ended up being a critical and commercial dud, it’s a bit hard for Star Wars fans to get excited about any upcoming movies. Nonetheless, Lucasfilm is trying to give us something new with Star Wars: Starfighter, a movie whose official plot has been largely kept under wraps. Unofficially, however, we’ve been getting dribs and drabs of what to expect from this upcoming film featuring both Ryan Gosling and Mia Goth. Recently, an alleged leak has spilled more of the beans about this movie’s plot and its colorful characters.

According to the leak, Gosling is playing a character named Cade, who is tasked with escorting Flynn Gray’s character to a planet named Adaria, which has a Jedi temple serving as a refuge for these persecuted space wizards. This lines up with other rumors about the younger character being a Force user who needs somewhere safe to develop his powers. Now, many Star Wars fans are convinced that one of the most hated characters in the franchise will be waiting on that planet: Daisy Ridley’s Rey!

Lose The Squadron, Keep The Rogue

There are plenty of interesting details about Star Wars: Starfighter, including confirmed details (like a lightsaber duel scene directed by Tom Cruise) and tantalizing rumors (like Mia Goth playing some type of evil Force user). But with the latest leaks from Bespin Bulletin, fans are mostly buzzing about this new Jedi planet, Adaria. Apparently, the planet is East Asian inspired, with a very green/brown color palette. The planet is apparently teeming with Padawan learners, all of them rocking the beige tunics that we last saw the younglings wearing in the prequels.

Based on this new leaked info, many Star Wars fans are convinced that our heroes will find Daisy Ridley’s Rey on this planet, likely at the very end of the movie. Why is that? For one thing, Disney keeps making plans to bring this character back and then scuttling them. Damon Lindelof was developing a movie that focused on an older Rey, who would be played by Helen Mirren, but that film was scrapped. More recently, there were plans for Rey to headline a New Jedi Order movie, with John Boyega’s Finn potentially appearing. While not officially canceled, there have been no major updates on this movie for years.

Somehow, Rey Returned

Now, the latest rumors are that Disney is going all in on this idea and making Rey and the next generation of Jedi a major focus for several Star Wars projects. If that is true, then Rey would be the most logical person to train these young Padawans on the planet Adaria. While Starfighter director Shawn Levy (the same man who brought us Deadpool & Wolverine) has long maintained that this would be a standalone film, it sounds more like a prelude to a new era of the franchise. Ridley’s Rey will appear at the end, setting the groundwork for her appearance in future films and TV shows.

While there are fans who really hate the character, the return of Rey is very logical. Ridley gave a great performance in the sequels; it’s not her fault they were poorly written pieces of trash. With better writers, she could really shine, and Star Wars could finally have a new focal point. Ever since The Rise of Skywalker, the franchise has floundered with meandering TV shows, most of which have nothing to do with each other. Done right, the reappearance of Rey will give the writers a major arc (the New Jedi Order) to work with, allowing them to create something better (hopefully lots better) than The Mandalorian and Grogu.

Right now, though, all of this is just rumor and speculation. The return of Daisy Ridley’s Rey has not been officially confirmed, but fans are clinging to this idea because it gives them hope. As Rogue One so memorably reminded us, rebellions are built on hope, and it’s (ahem) a new hope that is making us optimistic for the future. If you’re more of a pessimist, though, and are questioning whether the return of Rey will backfire, I’ll match your cynicism with a question of my own: how much worse can Star Wars get? 

Love it or hate it, this franchise has nowhere to go but up, and Ridley may be the only one who can get it there. 

The summer movie season is in full swing, and with it, an uptick in action. Although Christopher Nolan‘s epic The Odyssey is all but certain to break box office records, movies like Masters of the Universe and Supergirl have failed to really move the needle. The general appetite for action hasn’t waned, but perhaps viewers should turn their attention elsewhere for an adrenaline fix. Enter Prime Video and its latest action-comedy series, Ride or Die, which features Oscar winner Octavia Spencer and Emmy winner Hannah Waddingham dodging law enforcement, trained assassins, and well-connected criminals across Europe. Across its eight episodes, Ride or Die delivers on both action thrills and heartwarming friendship.

What Is ‘Ride or Die’ About?

Debbie Claybourne (Spencer) and Judith Burton (Waddingham) have been best friends for over two decades. Despite years of book clubs, vacations, and antique shopping, Judith has been hiding a few secrets from Debbie — mainly, her job as a highly skilled assassin. However, when one of Judith’s targets overlaps with an event where Debbie and her husband, David (Jamie Parker), are in attendance, Judith can no longer hide the truth from her closest friend.

Series executive producer Ant-Man‘s Peyton Reed, who also directs the first two episodes, immediately sets the tone with high-octane action that keeps the pace moving. Car chases, kinetic fight scenes, and inventive fight choreography — it’s all there — and Waddingham is who makes many of those thrills work. Having already been lauded for her comedic chops, here, she transforms into an action star, bringing both intensity and brutality to every person who stands in her way.

‘Ride or Die’ Does Lose a Little Momentum With Too Many Subplots

Judith’s line of work introduces a distinct worldbuilding to Prime Video’s new action series. The shadow agency she works for is run by an enigmatic man known only as The Director (Bill Nighy), with more information about him slowly spooled out over time regarding who he looks for in recruits, the secrets he keeps from his employees, and the reason for his cold demeanor. Alongside this mysterious organization, there’s also both Interpol law enforcement and the Albanian mob for the characters to contend with. Apart from the Albanians, which come off as more one-note than noteworthy, the characters who fill out the corners of this world are richer than you’d expect, with their own unique backstories that intersect in interesting ways.

Unfortunately, this also results in one subplot too many for the show, and the problem becomes increasingly glaring past the midway point. Although all of these storylines ultimately converge, the result is more overstuffed than satisfying. Should Ride or Die continue beyond these initial episodes, some story threads are worth expanding, particularly involving Queenie (Savannah Steyn) and Sam (Calam Lynch). Still, shaving at least one plotline — or even cutting down to seven episodes — could have made this a more focused season from start to finish.

Octavia Spencer and Hannah Waddingham’s Team-Up Makes ‘Ride or Die’ Worth Watching

Image via Prime Video

Buddy duos are a celebrated fixture of the action comedy — Bad Boys, Lethal Weapon, Men in Black, the list goes on. There are far fewer female duos in the genre, but they do exist, thanks to more recent efforts like The Heat and The Spy Who Dumped Me. As far as Ride or Die is concerned, Waddingham and Spencer are a winning combination. The two have incredible synchronicity and a flow to their rapport that really sells you on a friendship that has lasted over 20 years. There’s also plenty of romance mixed in with the adventure — Judith’s chemistry with Ed Skrein’s Billy Donovan, in particular, is electric, while Debbie catches the eye of several men, especially Interpol officer Jacques (Jacky Ido). However, the real love story of Ride or Die belongs to the platonic soulmates at its center, which creator Tessa Coates smartly makes the emotional crux of the series.

The overall success of Ride or Die lives and “dies” by its two leads (pun intended), and Debbie and Judith’s friendship is ultimately why it sticks the landing. It’s an exhilarating ride with plenty of action thrills, but it’s primarily about the rare people in your life who will stick with you through thick and thin, have your back when life throws you for a loop, and even jump off a moving train with you while evading assassins. If the journey ends with this season, it culminates in a satisfying place, but between the story threads it leaves dangling and the cast’s fun rapport, a Ride or Die sequel adventure would be more than welcome.

Ride or Die premieres July 15 on Prime Video.

By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated 15 seconds ago

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a new chapter for everyone’s favorite web-head. In addition to a plot that teams him up with everyone from Bruce Banner to the Punisher, Tom Holland’s Spidey finally has a new director calling the shots. While his previous three films were directed by Jon Watts, this latest adventure is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. He’s a known quantity, having previously directed Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Still, it’s a big leap from Shang-Chi to Marvel’s most popular hero, and many fans are understandably nervous about whether Cretton can stick the landing.

If you’re similarly skeptical, you might be reassured by the latest update from the director. In a recent interview with Time Magazine, he discussed that one of his biggest goals with Brand New Day was to capture as much of the action on-camera via practical stunts rather than adding things later via special effects. Honestly, it’s a great approach to capturing the sheer physicality of Spider-Man, which can be downright hypnotic if done right. Even more importantly, it’s an approach that can fix Marvel’s biggest problem: ruining cool moments with some of the worst CGI known to man.

Making Everything Feel More Real

In a recent interview with Time, Destin Daniel Cretton opened up about his creative approach to Spider-Man: Brand New Day. This included frequently asking Tom Holland to do things that “seemed impossible” and “felt almost ridiculous” to ask for. Without complaint, the Spider-Man actor would always pull off the stunt. This pleasantly surprised Cretton, who had made his own moves to ensure the film had killer onscreen action. “We brought a lot of our stunt team from Shang-Chi onto the project,” he said. “The goal was to try to get as much in camera as we possibly could.”

Why was this approach so important to Cretton, though? “One of the draws to doing this Spider-Man movie was that we are seeing Spider-Man go back to basics. We’re seeing a street-level Spider-Man, and we wanted that to be across the board,” he said. “We kept talking about this idea of a ‘grounded movie.’ We were taking that mentality into the stunts, into the action design, to see Spider-Man doing things that feel almost possible and not to rely as heavily on VFX.”

Bad CGI? Marvel Can Do This All Day

This is an excellent way to handle Spider-Man, a character who historically protects a single city rather than the entire world. Grounded stunts play into the idea that Brand New Day will have the hero fighting without the benefit of any fancy technology from Tony Stark. Capturing Tom Holland doing killer stunts on his own instead of sprucing everything up with special effects is a great way to emphasize the physicality of the role and of Spider-Man. It’s also an awesome way of fixing Marvel’s biggest mistake: namely, ruining otherwise great movies with crappy effects!

The most infamous example of this is Bruce Banner in the Hulkbuster armor from Avengers: Infinity War. It’s a nearly perfect Marvel movie (exceeded only by Endgame), but it’s impossible to think about this film without remembering Mark Ruffalo’s head just floating above that armor like something out of a bad video game cutscene. Similarly, the first Black Panther (which is an absolute masterpiece of worldbuilding) is marred by a fight between BP and Killmonger that transforms the movie into a fighting game with crappy CGI. Thor: Love and Thunder featured a floating head effect that was so bad it had to be fixed before the Disney+ release.

The list goes on, including a bad cartoon-looking version of Hulk in Thor: Ragnarok and some genuinely WTF transformation sequences in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. With Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Destin Daniel Cretton is addressing this issue head-on by embracing practical stunts and eschewing fancy VFX or crappy CGI whenever possible. Considering that this movie might earn closer to $2 billion than $1 billion, future franchise films are likely to follow the director’s lead in search of their own success. In this way, Cretton may do something even Spider-Man couldn’t do: save Marvel from ruining its own films with effects as cheap as they are ugly! 

Mystery might just be the greatest book genre, like, ever. But whoever thinks it’s easy to just sit down, write a book, and make it thrilling, entertaining, and totally make sense from start to finish hasn’t tried writing at all. Mystery writers are some of the most ingenious (if not a tad eccentric) artists out there because there’s something truly brilliant about a mystery novel that can hook us from sentence one and never let go.

The mystery novels where every chapter hides a clue, where every clue matters, and where the payoff is so good that you immediately want to flip back to page one and find all the hidden elements of the puzzle are rare, but they exist. They especially hide among the classics, and these eight don’t just belong on a shelf; they should be in your hands right about now, preferably with a drink of choice and a free afternoon. Here are the classic mystery books that are perfect from the first page to the last.

‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ (1841)

Image via Vintage Classics

Edgar Allan Poe is often considered the pioneer of the horror/mystery genre; if not the inventor, he’s definitely one of the earliest examples of writers who had the ability to transport readers and give them the absolute creeps while setting up a clever, somewhat tragic whodunit. Even when it comes to fictional detectives, before The Murders in the Rue Morgue, there weren’t any, really; there definitely was no Sherlock Holmes, no Hercule Poirot, and no Sam Spade. Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin was the prototype for every brilliant, eccentric sleuth who followed.

In The Murders in the Rue Morgue, two women are found brutally murdered in a locked room in Paris, and the police are baffled. However, Detective Dupin, using nothing but his formidable powers of observation and deduction, pieces together a solution that is as shocking as it is logical. Rue Morgue is a short story, so you can read it in a single sitting, but its influence is massive: the locked-room mystery, the armchair detective, and the final reveal presented before the reasoning that leads to it. The prose may be a bit dense by modern standards, and Poe did love his lengthy philosophical digressions, but if you want to understand where every mystery novel you’ve ever loved came from, Rue Morgue is where you start.

‘The Turn of the Screw’ (1898)

Image via Penguin Random House

When we talk about The Turn of the Screw, questions arise: Is it a ghost story? Is it a psychological thriller? Is it a fever dream about a woman slowly losing her grip on reality? Is it a mystery about a family lineage? The answers, though, are simple—Henry James‘ gothic novella is all of the above, and this ambiguity and all-encompassing nature are exactly what makes it so gripping. The Turn of the Screw is probably one of the most adapted mystery novels, including film, theater, and television, with the most acclaimed version being The Haunting of Bly Manor by Mike Flanagan.

The Turn of the Screw follows a young governess who is hired to care for two orphaned children at a remote English estate called Bly. She soon becomes convinced that the grounds are haunted by the ghosts of two former servants, but here’s the thing: you never quite know if the ghosts are real or if the governess is an unreliable narrator projecting her own anxieties onto innocent children. What makes The Turn of the Screw a perfect book is precisely that—it doesn’t give a straight answer at all. It’s a mystery that invites you to become the detective, parsing every sentence for clues about what’s actually happening. It’s unsettling, beautifully written, and unforgettable. And if you read it once and think you’ve figured it out, read it again; you probably haven’t.

‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ (1902)

Image via George Newnes Ltd

The Hound of the Baskervilles is a Sherlock Holmes novel that pretty much everyone knows about, even if they’ve never read it. There is, of course, a perfectly good reason for that: the book is a masterpiece. Arthur Conan Doyle masterfully balances supernatural dread with Holmes’ insistence on logic and evidence. Watson, who narrates most of the story, is at his most competent and engaging, and Holmes’s eventual solution is as satisfying as they come. It’s the book that brought Holmes back from the dead (literally—Doyle had killed him off in a previous story), and thank goodness for that. Some detectives just can’t be killed.

Set on the fog-shrouded moors of Dartmoor, The Hound of the Baskervilles follows Holmes and Watson as they investigate the death of Sir Charles Baskerville, who apparently died of a heart attack while fleeing from a gigantic, supernatural hound. The legend says a demonic dog has haunted the Baskerville family since the English Civil War, and now Sir Charles’ heir, Sir Henry, may be next. The novel is a perfect blend of gothic atmosphere and classic puzzle-box detective work, but its strength is almost always in the rapport between Holmes and Watson, including the moments of deduction that would impress anyone. There are many Sherlock Holmes stories out there, but The Hound of the Baskervilles is universally beloved.

‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ (1955)

Image via Coward-McCann

Patricia Highsmith‘s The Talented Mr. Ripley is the rare mystery that doesn’t care who committed the crime—because, well, you not only already know who the culprit is, but you’re also rooting for him. Highsmith skillfully takes us into the mind of a man utterly indifferent to evil, and somehow, impossibly, we can’t look away. The Talented Mr. Ripley is a novel about envy, identity, and the terrifying lengths we’ll go to become someone else—to live the life of another, at any cost. With this novel, Highsmith introduced one of literature’s greatest antiheroes, later writing four sequels with Tom Ripley as the protagonist (known as the Ripliad). People nowadays know this story because of the same-name film adaptation starring Matt Damon.

Tom Ripley is a young man scraping by in New York through small-time cons. When a wealthy shipping magnate, Herbert Greenleaf, hires him to travel to Italy and convince his wayward son, Dickie Greenleaf, to return home, Ripley sees an opportunity. He befriends Dickie and grows obsessed with his lavish lifestyle, so much so that his obsession takes a final extreme (let’s try without spoilers, unless you’ve seen the adaptations). Though less of a mystery and more of a psychological thriller, Talented Mr. Ripley turns the mystery genre inside out, presenting it as a setup for understanding Ripley’s psyche (the true mystery). If you’ve only seen the Matt Damon film (or the Netflix miniseries Ripley, starring Andrew Scott), do yourself a favor and read the book, too. It’s mind-blowing.

‘The Maltese Falcon’ (1930)

Image via Alfred A. Knopf

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Dashiell Hammett‘s most famous novel, The Maltese Falcon, is the godfather of hard-boiled detective fiction—it’s what we call a lean, mean, well-oiled machine; it’s also utterly devoid of sentimentality, and yet it provokes sentiment in the reader with every line of beautifully crafted dialogue. Hammett essentially invented the noir detective mystery genre, and his influence can still be found everywhere, from the first noir films starring Humphrey Bogart (who also starred in the film version of the novel) to the most recent Nicolas Cage-led Spider-Noir. Hammett’s style and influence can be found in every cynical private eye, double-cross, and femme fatale.

The Maltese Falcon follows private detective Sam Spade, who is hired by a beautiful woman to follow a man named Floyd Thursby. His agency partner takes the first shift and ends up dead, and soon Spade is caught in a web of murder, betrayal, and a desperate search for a gilded statuette of a falcon that everyone seems willing to kill for. The novel is told entirely in external third-person; there are no internal thoughts and no feelings on display, just what characters say and do, making The Maltese Falcon a sharp mystery that forces you to pay attention to every gesture and word. It’s a quick but incredibly entertaining read that (re)set the standard in the hard-boiled detective genre.

‘Rebecca’ (1938)

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Daphne du Maurier‘s gothic mystery masterpiece, Rebecca, begins with one of the most famous opening lines in literature: “Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” While it’s easy to claim you’ll be hooked from the first line, it’s actually true with Rebecca. Du Maurier’s most famous novel is a true page-turner because of how she sets up the story, where her writing takes us, and how she incorporates her own life into the mystery. Rebecca has never gone out of print, selling millions of copies. Of course, film fans remember that Alfred Hitchcock famously adapted Rebecca into an Oscar-winning film in 1940, but the book is where the true magic lives, and it’s as gripping today as it was in 1938.

Rebecca follows an unnamed young woman (and narrator) who marries the wealthy widower Maxim de Winter and moves to his grand estate, Manderley. But she soon discovers that the memory of his first wife, Rebecca, haunts every corner of the house and most notably the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, who seems determined to remind the narrator of it. She leaves an entire wing of the estate intact in Rebecca’s honor and makes sure to undermine the narrator at every step, making her unreliable and isolated. The story is a slow-burning psychological mystery/thriller that builds to an interesting, emotional revelation; it’s a story about identity and jealousy, and it’s, by du Maurier’s own admittance, somewhat inspired by her own life and relationship.

‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’ (1926)

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While Murder on the Orient Express may be Agatha Christie‘s most famous novel, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is her greatest achievement and quite possibly the greatest mystery novel ever written. It’s so perfectly constructed that the British Crime Writers’ Association voted it the best crime novel of all time in 2013, when they celebrated their 60th anniversary. It’s another novel Christie herself sorted among her personal favorites. It’s quite the typical setup for a Poirot mystery, but it’s still, even a century later, the gold standard of the genre.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is set in a quiet English village, where a wealthy widower named Roger Ackroyd is stabbed to death in his study. The local doctor, as well as the story’s narrator, James Sheppard, assists the now-retired detective Hercule Poirot in finding Ackroyd’s killer. The suspects are numerous, the motives are plentiful, and the clues are persistent, but the solution is so audacious and brilliant that it changed the genre forever. I know what you might be wondering, and no, knowing the ending doesn’t ruin the book; in fact, it makes it even better, because you can observe just how precisely Christie plants every clue and red herring. If you must read only one mystery book in your life, make it The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

‘Murder on the Orient Express’ (1934)

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Half of the novels on this list were written by women (two by the same author), which is a source of pride for many female mystery fans. Highsmith, du Maurier, and Agatha Christie in particular influenced the psychological mystery/thriller genre in literature in numerous ways. If you believe that women can only write romances, romantic fantasy, or smut, you’re mistaken. The true monarch of mystery and detective novels is, in fact, a queen, and her name is Agatha Christie. Murder on the Orient Express is a masterpiece of detective fiction, but it’s much more than just a whodunit. It is a meditation on justice, revenge, and the limits of the law that shows how vengeance consumes a person. Christie herself rated this novel as one of her favorites.

Murder on the Orient Express follows Hercule Poirot, the world’s greatest detective, as he is traveling on the luxurious Orient Express when a passenger is found stabbed to death in his compartment. The train is stranded in a snowdrift, and the killer is still on board. Poirot has a finite number of suspects and a finite amount of time to solve the mystery, and the solution is one of the most shocking and morally complex in crime fiction. The plotting is immaculate, the characters are vivid, and Poirot is at his most brilliant; Orient Express is the kind of book that makes you want to flip back to the beginning as soon as you finish.