The 2020s did not treat mystery as a locked-room costume party. A Korean phone call that jumped twenty years inside the same house, a French courtroom that put a marriage on trial, a Gotham detective who actually had to read the graffiti, and a priest who called Benoit Blanc after an impossible murder all arrived in the same decade. From Enola Holmes and The Call to Anatomy of a Fall, The Batman, and Wake Up Dead Man, 2020s mystery movies kept asking the same question: who do you trust when the clue is a child, a screen, or a story you already told yourself?
This list gathers thirteen essential mystery movies from the 2020s — teen Sherlock adventures, screenlife missing-person cases, literary marsh thrillers, Korean and Japanese puzzles, and two Benoit Blanc whodunits. Every pick uses TMDB-backed metadata and a short guide to why it belongs on a 2020s mystery watchlist.
1. Enola Holmes
- Movie Title: Enola Holmes
- Release Date: September 22, 2020
- Main Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, Sam Claflin
- Director: Harry Bradbeer
- TMDB Score: 7.2/10
Why We Included Enola Holmes on This List
Harry Bradbeer’s film is the 2020s mystery that opened the decade by handing the Holmes franchise to the sister everyone had been skipping. Millie Bobby Brown’s Enola, Henry Cavill’s Sherlock, and Sam Claflin’s runaway lord turn a missing-mother case into a coming-of-age detective story that still has to outthink the most famous detective in fiction. It belongs here because so many 2020s mysteries are about inherited systems — families, police departments, streaming-era brands — and this one lets a teenager rewrite the family business. On a 2020s watchlist it is the Netflix Holmes movie that treated deduction as something you can learn without waiting for your brothers to invite you in.
Quick Enola Holmes Summary
While searching for her missing mother, intrepid teen Enola Holmes uses her sleuthing skills to outsmart big brother Sherlock and help a runaway lord. Enola has been raised on ciphers and independence, then dumped into a world that would rather she sit still. The missing-person case and the political one keep colliding. The mystery is not only where her mother went. It is whether Enola can stay a detective once the Holmes name starts answering for her.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Enola Holmes
Bradbeer made this for Netflix from Nancy Springer’s young-adult novels about Sherlock Holmes’s younger sister, a corner of the Holmes universe that had mostly lived on the page. Brown plays Enola as a kid who breaks the fourth wall because nobody else in 19th-century England will listen, and Cavill plays Sherlock as a brother who is brilliant and still late to the point. The film did well enough that Bradbeer, Brown, and Cavill came back two years later for Enola Holmes 2. It is the 2020 mystery people still start with when they want a detective movie that a teenager can actually lead.
2. The Call
- Movie Title: The Call
- Release Date: November 23, 2020
- Main Cast: Park Shin-hye, Jeon Jong-seo, Kim Sung-ryung
- Director: Lee Chung-hyun
- TMDB Score: 7.5/10
Why We Included The Call on This List
Lee Chung-hyun’s film is the 2020s mystery that turned a landline into a time machine and then refused to treat that as a comfort. Park Shin-hye and Jeon Jong-seo, connected by phone in the same home twenty years apart, make a “help the woman in the past” hook feel like a trap that keeps tightening. It belongs here because the decade’s best mysteries often hide inside high concepts — a call, a laptop, a courtroom — and this one never lets the gimmick do the investigating for you. On a 2020s watchlist it is the Korean Netflix thriller that asked what you would change if the person on the other end could rewrite your life.
Quick The Call Summary
Connected by phone in the same home but 20 years apart, a caller puts a woman’s past — and life — on the line to change her own fate. The first conversations feel like a miracle: two women, one house, two calendars. Then the advice starts having consequences neither of them can see in time. The mystery is not whether the phone works. It is whose future is being edited, and who is holding the receiver.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About The Call
Lee Chung-hyun made this Korean-language Netflix film with Park Shin-hye as the woman in one decade and Jeon Jong-seo as the woman in the other, with Kim Sung-ryung in the household that connects them. The premise is simple enough to pitch in a sentence and nasty enough that the second half has to keep inventing new rules for the same phone. It arrived in November 2020, when a lot of viewers were already living on calls that felt like they came from another room. It is the 2020 mystery people recommend when they want a time-slip story that plays like a locked-room problem instead of a romance.
3. Black Box
- Movie Title: Black Box
- Release Date: September 8, 2021
- Main Cast: Pierre Niney, Lou de Laâge, André Dussollier
- Director: Yann Gozlan
- TMDB Score: 7.3/10
Why We Included Black Box on This List
Yann Gozlan’s film is the 2020s mystery that treated a plane crash the way a detective treats a body: listen to the tape, then decide who is lying about what it says. Pierre Niney’s analyst, Lou de Laâge, and André Dussollier turn cockpit audio into a conspiracy that nobody at the agency wants scored the same way. It belongs here because so many 2020s mysteries are about evidence that arrives as a file — a recording, a feed, a drive — and this one makes you sit with the sound of a disaster. On a 2020s watchlist it is the French procedural that asked what happens when the black box disagrees with the official story.
Quick Black Box Summary
After being assigned to investigate the aftermath of a catastrophic plane crash, an NTSB-style black box analyst uncovers chilling audio anomalies that no one else seems willing to acknowledge. As he digs deeper for the truth, he provokes powerful forces determined to silence him before he exposes a shocking conspiracy. The job is to reconstruct the last minutes. The mystery is why the reconstruction keeps getting edited.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Black Box
Gozlan made this French thriller (released as Boîte noire at home) with Pierre Niney as the crash analyst who cannot stop hearing what the tape should not contain. Lou de Laâge and André Dussollier fill out the investigation as the people who either help him listen or tell him to stop. It is a mystery built out of workplaces and headphones instead of a detective’s apartment. It is the 2021 film people still mention when they want a conspiracy movie that starts with a professional assignment instead of a hunch.
4. The Batman
- Movie Title: The Batman
- Release Date: March 1, 2022
- Main Cast: Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright
- Director: Matt Reeves
- TMDB Score: 7.7/10
Why We Included The Batman on This List
Matt Reeves’s film is the 2020s mystery that remembered Batman is a detective before he is a tank. Robert Pattinson’s second-year vigilante, Zoë Kravitz’s Selina, and Jeffrey Wright’s Gordon spend more time on ciphers, crime-scene photos, and Gotham’s books than on skyline speeches. It belongs here because a superhero movie that actually follows a serial killer’s riddles is still a mystery movie, even when the detective wears a mask. On a 2020s watchlist it is the blockbuster that treated Gotham corruption like a case file instead of a origin-story backdrop.
Quick The Batman Summary
In his second year of fighting crime, Batman uncovers corruption in Gotham City that connects to his own family while facing a serial killer known as the Riddler. The murders come with messages. The messages point at people who have been running the city longer than Bruce has been putting on the suit. The mystery is not only who the Riddler is. It is how far the Wayne name already sits inside the crime he thinks he is solving from the outside.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About The Batman
Reeves came to this after the Planet of the Apes films and built a Batman story that plays closer to a David Fincher procedural than to a Justice League teaser. Pattinson’s Bruce is still early in the job; Wright’s Gordon is the cop who will actually work a scene with him; Kravitz’s Selina is investigating a parallel case that keeps colliding with his. The Riddler is a serial killer with a paper trail, not a green question mark looking for a punchline. It is the 2022 mystery people still cite when they want a comic-book movie that asks you to follow clues.
5. Decision to Leave
- Movie Title: Decision to Leave
- Release Date: June 29, 2022
- Main Cast: Tang Wei, Park Hae-il, Lee Jung-hyun
- Director: Park Chan-wook
- TMDB Score: 7.3/10
Why We Included Decision to Leave on This List
Park Chan-wook’s film is the 2020s mystery that made a detective fall for the widow he is supposed to clear or charge, then refused to make that a simple noir joke. Tang Wei’s Seo-rae, Park Hae-il’s Hae-joon, and Lee Jung-hyun turn a mountain-peak death into a case that keeps changing shape every time someone translates a sentence. It belongs here because the decade’s richest mysteries are often about desire as a form of bad evidence. On a 2020s watchlist it is the Korean film that treated an investigation as a love story you should not trust.
Quick Decision to Leave Summary
From a mountain peak in South Korea, a man plummets to his death. Did he jump, or was he pushed? When detective Hae-joon arrives on the scene, he begins to suspect the dead man’s wife Seo-rae. But as he digs deeper into the investigation, he finds himself trapped in a web of deception and desire. The mystery is the fall. The problem is that the detective wants the answer to keep him in the room.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Decision to Leave
Park Chan-wook — the director of Oldboy and The Handmaiden — made this as a police procedural that is also a romance conducted in two languages and a lot of late-night phone looking. Tang Wei and Park Hae-il play the widow and the detective as people who keep studying each other the way a case file studies a suspect. Lee Jung-hyun rounds out the household the investigation cannot leave alone. It is the 2022 mystery people recommend when they want a whodunit that is also about whether the detective should have taken the case at all.
6. Where the Crawdads Sing
- Movie Title: Where the Crawdads Sing
- Release Date: July 14, 2022
- Main Cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Taylor John Smith, Harris Dickinson
- Director: Olivia Newman
- TMDB Score: 7.5/10
Why We Included Where the Crawdads Sing on This List
Olivia Newman’s film is the 2020s mystery that took a bestseller about a marsh girl and remembered it is also a murder trial. Daisy Edgar-Jones’s Kya, Taylor John Smith, and Harris Dickinson turn a small-town death into a story about who a community has already decided is guilty. It belongs here because a lot of 2020s mysteries are courtroom-adjacent even when they start as romances, and this one never lets the marsh pretty the accusation away. On a 2020s watchlist it is the literary adaptation people actually watched as a whodunit.
Quick Where the Crawdads Sing Summary
Abandoned by her family, Kya raises herself all alone in the marshes outside of her small town. When her former boyfriend is found dead, Kya is instantly branded by the local townspeople and law enforcement as the prime suspect for his murder. The girl they called a marsh mystery is now a defendant. The film has to hold both the life that got her there and the case that wants to end it.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Where the Crawdads Sing
Newman adapted Delia Owens’s bestselling novel, with Daisy Edgar-Jones as Kya after the book had already spent years on nightstands. Taylor John Smith and Harris Dickinson play the two men whose relationships with Kya become the evidence the town thinks it understands. The movie arrived in July 2022 as a studio literary mystery rather than an awards-circuit procedural. It is the 2020s film people still argue about as a book club case: was the marsh the setting, or was it the alibi?
7. Enola Holmes 2
- Movie Title: Enola Holmes 2
- Release Date: November 3, 2022
- Main Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, David Thewlis
- Director: Harry Bradbeer
- TMDB Score: 7.4/10
Why We Included Enola Holmes 2 on This List
Harry Bradbeer’s sequel is the 2020s mystery that let Enola take a paying case and then made the case bigger than a missing-girl poster. Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, and David Thewlis turn a first official investigation into a Victorian labor puzzle that still needs Sherlock in the room. It belongs here because sequels in this decade often inflate; this one deepens the job description. On a 2020s watchlist it is the Holmes movie that treats “opening a detective agency” as the start of the mystery, not the victory lap.
Quick Enola Holmes 2 Summary
Enola takes on her first official case as a detective, but to solve the mystery of a missing girl, she’ll need help from friends — and brother Sherlock. The client is real this time. The missing person is not a family member. The London that looked like a playground in the first film starts looking like a system with factories, match girls, and people who disappear because someone needed them quiet.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Enola Holmes 2
Bradbeer, Brown, and Cavill returned for Netflix two years after the first film, with David Thewlis joining the case this time. The sequel keeps the asides and the costumes and then aims Enola at a mystery that is less about finding her own mother and more about whether a young detective can work without the family name doing half the interviews. It is a rare 2020s detective sequel that is actually about the second case. It is the November 2022 mystery people put on after the first Enola film when they want the agency to open for real.
8. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
- Movie Title: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
- Release Date: November 23, 2022
- Main Cast: Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe
- Director: Rian Johnson
- TMDB Score: 7.0/10
Why We Included Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery on This List
Rian Johnson’s film is the 2020s mystery that took Benoit Blanc out of a New England house and dropped him on a billionaire’s island where every friend is also a brand. Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, and Janelle Monáe peel a tech-bro gathering that is designed to look like a game. It belongs here because the decade’s most watched whodunit franchise made disruption itself the crime scene. On a 2020s watchlist it is the Knives Out movie that treated a glass mansion as a puzzle box with a very expensive lock.
Quick Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery Summary
World-famous detective Benoit Blanc heads to Greece to peel back the layers of a mystery surrounding a tech billionaire and his eclectic crew of friends. The invitation looks like a vacation with a murder-mystery party attached. Then the party stops being a game. Blanc has to decide which layer is the joke and which layer is the body.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Johnson followed 2019’s Knives Out with this Netflix sequel, keeping Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc and rebuilding the ensemble around Edward Norton’s host and Janelle Monáe’s guest who is not there to play along. The title is the method: each scene is a layer you think you have already seen through. It is the 2022 mystery that proved a theatrical-then-streaming whodunit could still feel like an event. It is the Blanc film people rewatch when they want the 2020s version of a country-house murder — except the country house is an island and the country is a group chat.
9. The Pale Blue Eye
- Movie Title: The Pale Blue Eye
- Release Date: December 22, 2022
- Main Cast: Christian Bale, Harry Melling, Lucy Boynton
- Director: Scott Cooper
- TMDB Score: 6.8/10
Why We Included The Pale Blue Eye on This List
Scott Cooper’s film is the 2020s mystery that hired a retired constable and then gave him Edgar Allan Poe as a cadet assistant. Christian Bale’s Landor, Harry Melling’s Poe, and Lucy Boynton turn a West Point hanging into a winter case that feels older than the academy. It belongs here because period detective stories in this decade often hide inside streaming catalogs, and this one is a genuine Gothic police procedural. On a 2020s watchlist it is the Netflix mystery that asked what a poet was doing at a military school when the hearts started going missing.
Quick The Pale Blue Eye Summary
West Point, New York, 1830. When a cadet at the burgeoning military academy is found hanged with his heart cut out, the top brass summons former New York City constable Augustus Landor to investigate. While attempting to solve this grisly mystery, the reluctant detective engages the help of one of the cadets: a strange but brilliant young fellow by the name of Edgar Allan Poe. The academy wants the scandal contained. Landor wants the pattern. Poe wants the language for what they are looking at.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About The Pale Blue Eye
Cooper made this Netflix film with Christian Bale as the constable who does not want the job and Harry Melling as a young Poe who cannot leave the job alone. Lucy Boynton is part of the West Point world the investigation has to walk through without a modern badge. The movie is a fictional case that uses the real poet’s time at the academy as its door. It is the Christmas 2022 mystery people put on when they want candlelight, a detective, and a literary cameo that is actually in the room taking notes.
10. Missing
- Movie Title: Missing
- Release Date: January 19, 2023
- Main Cast: Storm Reid, Joaquim de Almeida, Ken Leung
- Director: Nicholas D. Johnson
- TMDB Score: 7.4/10
Why We Included Missing on This List
Nicholas D. Johnson’s film is the 2020s mystery that turned a laptop into a detective’s desk and a daughter into the only person willing to keep clicking. Storm Reid’s June, stuck in Los Angeles while her mother vanishes in Colombia, has to investigate through tabs, logins, and international hold music. It belongs here because this is the decade when a missing-person case realistically lives in a browser. On a 2020s watchlist it is the screenlife sequel energy that made digital sleuthing feel like a race instead of a gimmick.
Quick Missing Summary
When her mother disappears while on vacation in Colombia with her new boyfriend, June’s search for answers is hindered by international red tape. Stuck thousands of miles away in Los Angeles, June creatively uses all the latest technology at her fingertips to try and find her before it’s too late. But as she digs deeper, her digital sleuthing raises more questions than answers. The mystery is not only where her mother is. It is how little June knew about the woman she is trying to find.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Missing
Johnson made this as a continuation of the screenlife style popularized by Searching — the 2018 missing-person film told entirely through computers and phones — with Storm Reid as the daughter doing the searching this time. Joaquim de Almeida and Ken Leung are among the adults on the other end of the calls and the footage. The movie arrived in January 2023 as a studio mystery that assumes you already know how to open an incognito window. It is the 2020s film people recommend when they want a detective story that looks like the desktop they already live on.
11. Monster
- Movie Title: Monster
- Release Date: June 2, 2023
- Main Cast: Sakura Ando, Soya Kurokawa, Hinata Hiiragi
- Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
- TMDB Score: 7.9/10
Why We Included Monster on This List
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s film is the 2020s mystery that starts with a school outburst and a mother’s demand for answers, then keeps handing you a new version of the same week. Sakura Ando, Soya Kurokawa, and Hinata Hiiragi make suspicion feel like something a family and a school can manufacture together. It belongs here because the best mysteries of the decade are not always about a corpse; sometimes they are about who gets called a monster first. On a 2020s watchlist it is the Japanese film that treats point of view as the clue.
Quick Monster Summary
After an outburst at school involving her son, a concerned single mother demands answers, triggering a sequence of deepening suspicion and turmoil. Each new vantage point rearranges who looks dangerous and who looks scared. The investigation is informal — parents, teachers, children — and that is what makes it cruel. The mystery is not a hidden weapon. It is the story each adult thinks they have already finished.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Monster
Kore-eda — the director of Shoplifters — made this Japanese film with Sakura Ando as the mother who will not accept the first explanation and Soya Kurokawa and Hinata Hiiragi as the boys the school cannot stop narrating. The structure is the method: the same events return until the title starts attaching to different people. It premiered as a 2023 festival film and then reached audiences as a mystery that refuses a detective. It is the 2020s movie people recommend when they want a puzzle that is really about how a community writes a child down.
12. Anatomy of a Fall
- Movie Title: Anatomy of a Fall
- Release Date: August 23, 2023
- Main Cast: Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado-Graner
- Director: Justine Triet
- TMDB Score: 7.5/10
Why We Included Anatomy of a Fall on This List
Justine Triet’s film is the 2020s mystery that put a marriage on the stand and then asked a blind child to choose which version of his parents he can live with. Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, and Milo Machado-Graner turn a chalet death into a courtroom that is also a character study. It belongs here because this is the decade’s definitive “did she or didn’t she” movie, and it never cheats by handing you a monologue that settles it. On a 2020s watchlist it is the French film that made a fall from a window feel like an entire life being cross-examined.
Quick Anatomy of a Fall Summary
A woman is suspected of her husband’s murder, and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the sole witness. The house is isolated. The marriage was already a debate. The trial has to reconstruct a fight from recordings, testimony, and a child’s incomplete view of the stairs. The mystery is the death. The damage is what the court does to the family that has to keep living with the answer.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Anatomy of a Fall
Triet won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for this film, and it later won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Sandra Hüller plays the writer-wife who has to defend not only a timeline but a personality; Swann Arlaud is the lawyer who has to turn a household into a case; Milo Machado-Graner is the son who heard more than he saw. It is a mystery that takes the courtroom seriously as a storytelling machine. It is the 2023 film people still mean when they say the 2020s produced a great adult whodunit that is also about language, translation, and who gets to narrate a marriage.
13. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
- Movie Title: Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
- Release Date: November 26, 2025
- Main Cast: Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close
- Director: Rian Johnson
- TMDB Score: 7.2/10
Why We Included Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery on This List
Rian Johnson’s third Benoit Blanc film is the mid-2020s mystery that moved the franchise from an island party into a church that cannot explain a death. Daniel Craig’s Blanc, Josh O’Connor’s young priest, and Glenn Close turn a parish scandal into a case that is supposed to be impossible. It belongs here because a decade of Knives Out movies is now a 2020s mystery tradition, and this one is the one that asks faith and police work to share a pew. On a 2020s watchlist it is the latest Blanc case — a locked-room problem with a collar and a congregation.
Quick Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery Summary
When young priest Jud Duplenticy is sent to assist charismatic firebrand Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, it’s clear that all is not well in the pews. After a sudden and seemingly impossible murder rocks the town, the lack of an obvious suspect prompts local police chief Geraldine Scott to join forces with renowned detective Benoit Blanc to unravel a mystery that defies all logic. The parish wanted a helper. It got a detective instead.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Johnson and Craig returned for a third Knives Out mystery, this time with Josh O’Connor as the priest who walks into the trouble and Glenn Close among the parish power that has to be interviewed. The film arrived on Netflix in November 2025, late enough in the decade to feel like a franchise that grew up with the 2020s. The setting is a church instead of a mansion or an island, which is a new box for the same Blanc method. It is the 2025 mystery people put at the end of a 2020s list because it is the latest time a detective in a nice coat had to explain an impossible room.
If this 2020s mystery stack has you in the mood for adjacent rabbit holes, the site already has full lists for the decade’s crime movies, thrillers, and horror — the three genres that keep stealing mystery’s clues and sometimes solving them better. Start with those, then come back when you want another locked room, another laptop, or another Blanc.
