Sightlines · reception
How Murder on the Orient Express was received
2017 · Kenneth Branagh · Murder on the Orient Express on Sightlines
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.
Did you know? It was shot on genuine 65mm film — a rarity in 2017, when only a handful of directors (Nolan, Tarantino) were still using the format — giving a talky train-bound whodunit an unexpectedly epic canvas.