The Thursday Murder Club premiered on 21 August in Leicester Square, London, ahead of its release on 22 August in 30 select cinemas, and its streaming debut by Netflix on 28 August 2025. It received generally positive reviews from critics.
Plot
At the Coopers Chase retirement village, psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif, former trade union leader Ron Ritchie, and mysterious Elizabeth Best are members of the Thursday Murder Club (TMC), which meets weekly to discuss old cold cases. They are soon joined by Joyce, a retired nurse and new resident, whose medical knowledge proves useful. The group is inspired by a case once handled by Detective Inspector Penny Gray in 1973, now comatose in hospice, involving the unsolved murder of Angela Hughes. Police Constable Donna De Freitas, recently transferred from London, visits the village and strikes up a friendship with the TMC. She confides that her work feels tedious, so the club eagerly draws her into their investigations.
Meanwhile, conflict brews over plans to redevelop Coopers Chase into luxury flats. One of the owners, Ian Ventham, pushes the project forward, while his partner Tony Curran opposes it, promising the residents that he will block the sale. Shortly afterwards, Tony is murdered in his own home, his house ransacked and the weapon missing.
The TMC resolve to investigate. With Donna's help, they learn that local crime boss Bobby Tanner is secretly involved in the business but has long been thought to be dead after disappearing a few years earlier, and that Ron's son Jason once worked with Tony. Suspicion briefly falls on Ian, but he is soon ruled out. During a residents' protest, Ian himself collapses and dies from a fentanyl overdose, leaving Tanner the sole owner. Jason is arrested, though the evidence against him proves weak.
Elizabeth develops a cautious friendship with Bogdan, a Polish handyman employed at the village. He discovers a hidden grave containing a skeleton, later identified as Peter Mercer, the man who witnessed Angela's death decades earlier. Elizabeth also begins receiving threats, warning her to leave the matter alone.
When Jason provides an alibi (an affair with Ian's estranged wife Gemma), the TMC turn their attention back to Tanner. Elizabeth and Donna discover that he has been trafficking migrants and seizing their passports, and, to their shock, Tony was his partner. Elizabeth confronts him and strikes a bargain: he is to keep Coopers Chase intact in return for her silence. She then realises that Bogdan was responsible for Tony's death. At the same time, Bogdan, while playing chess with Elizabeth's husband Stephen, confesses after pressed that he killed Tony under pressure but unintentionally. His confession is secretly, and accidentally, recorded by Stephen, and he is arrested. He reveals he merely wanted his passport back so he could return to Poland to his sick mother.
The truth about Angela's murder also emerges. The TMC deduce that Mercer killed her, but that Penny secretly took justice into her own hands by killing Mercer and concealing his body. As Ian's plans to redevelop Coopers Chase might have revealed Mercer's body, thereby implicating Penny, her husband John murdered him to protect her. Both Penny and John die soon after in hospice care (implied to be a murder–suicide from fentanyl overdosing).
At their funeral, Elizabeth presents Penny's club necklace to Joyce, formally welcoming her as a full member of the TMC. With Coopers Chase once more up for sale, Joyce's daughter Joanna considers buying it. Life in the village quietly resumes, with friendships renewed and the club ready for whatever mystery may come next.
Cast
Helen Mirren as Elizabeth Best, a retired MI6 officer
Pierce Brosnan as Ron Ritchie, a retired twice-divorced union leader
Ben Kingsley as Professor Ibrahim Arif, a retired psychiatrist
Celia Imrie as Joyce Meadowcroft, a retired trauma nurse
Naomi Ackie as Donna De Freitas, a local police constable
Daniel Mays as DCI Chris Hudson, the senior investigating officer and De Freitas's superior
Henry Lloyd-Hughes as Bogdan, a Polish handyman employed at Cooper’s Chase
Tom Ellis as Jason Ritchie, Ron's famous ex-boxer son
David Tennant as Ian Ventham, an ambitious businessman and co-owner of Cooper’s Chase
Jonathan Pryce as Stephen Best, Elizabeth's chess-playing husband
Paul Freeman as John Gray, a retired vet and husband of dying Thursday Murder Club member Penny
Richard E. Grant as Bobby Tanner, a criminal and, under the alias "Derek Ward", a florist
Production
Development
In March 2020, it was announced that Ol Parker would write and direct a film adaptation of Richard Osman's debut novel The Thursday Murder Club for Amblin Entertainment, after Amblin acquired the worldwide rights to the project, with Jennifer Todd serving as producer and Osman serving as executive producer.[2][3] In March 2023, Osman said filming was set to begin in September 2023 with Steven Spielberg as producer.[4] In November 2023, it was reported that filming was scheduled to begin in March 2024.[5] However, in February 2024 Osman said he was hopeful filming would commence in August 2024 after delays during the 2023 Hollywood labor disputes.[6] In April 2024, Chris Columbus was announced to replace Parker as writer, co-producer and director.[3] A few days later, it was announced that the project had been acquired by Netflix.[7]
The Thursday Murder Club was released in select cinemas on 22 August 2025, before its streaming debut by Netflix on 28 August 2025.[16][17]
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 78% of 134 critics' reviews are positive.The website's consensus reads: "Cozy as an undemanding beach reach and just as slight, this starry murder mystery leverages its terrific troupe of actors to nostalgic effect."[18]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 60 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[19]
Kat Halstead of Common Sense Media awarded the film with 4 stars out of 5 rating, and wrote, "It lags slightly in places, and at two hours is a little overlong, but this is a successful jump from page to screen that leaves a promising door open for future adaptations from the series."[20] Sheila O'Malley of RogerEbert.com wrote, "The Thursday Murder Club is engaging and often amusing. The plot contains enough surprises that the "whodunit" generates real suspense. The characters aren't particularly well-developed, but neither are they stereotypes. The film feels more like a television pilot than a stand-alone film, which may be exactly what Netflix is looking for.[21]
In a negative review, Laura Venning of Empire gave the film 2 stars out of 5 rating, while stating, "Maybe this would hit the spot for a Sunday-night sofa slump but it's more patronising than perceptive when it comes to portraying ageing. As disappointing as a stale scone."[22]
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