Murder on the Orient Express · reception & legacy
2017 · Kenneth Branagh
How Murder on the Orient Express has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
Critics shrugged in 2017 (mixed reviews, lots of '1974 did it better'), but audiences turned it into a $350M+ hit — big enough to launch a whole Branagh-Poirot trilogy. It's since settled into 'cozy Sunday whodunit' status, and gets partial credit for warming the seat for the star-studded murder-mystery revival that Knives Out cashed in two years later.
What's debated
The eternal fight: does Branagh's flamboyant movie-star Poirot hold a candle to David Suchet's definitive TV version (or Albert Finney in Lumet's 1974 film) — or is the remake pure gloss?
Its footprint
The mustache. Branagh's absurdly magnificent double-decker mustache became the film's de facto main character and an instant meme — as did the first trailer's baffling use of Imagine Dragons' 'Believer,' which film Twitter has never let go.
Where it stands
Not canon and not cult — it lives on Letterboxd as the amiable, much-memed opener of the Branagh-Poirot trilogy, the one people half-defend as a comfort watch.