If you loved ‘Wake Up Dead Man,’ watch ‘The Mastermind’ starring a very different but equally hilarious Josh O’Connor

If you loved Josh O’Connor’s performance in the new Knives Out film, Wake Up Dead Man—which began streaming on Netflix over the weekend, and quickly shot to the top of the streamer’s Top Trending Titles list—then you should run, not walk to stream The Mastermind on MUBI.

The Mastermind began streaming on MUBI on Friday— the same day Wake Up, Dead Man dropped on Netflix— starring Josh O’Connor in a very different kind of role. In Knives Out 3, written and directed by Rian Johnson, he’s a young, naive, but kind-hearted priest named Jud, determined to connect with his flock on a human level. Or, as Jud puts himself in the film: “Young, dumb, and full of Christ.” He’s the kind of character that makes you want to coo and pinch his cheeks. He’s just so darned cute!

In The Mastermind, written and directed by celebrated indie filmmaker Kelly Reichardt, Josh O’Connor is not kind nor sweet nor cute. He is certainly naive, but not in a way that makes you want to coo. He is, quite simply, a loser.

The film takes place in 1970 and stars O’Connor as as J.B. Mooney a middle-class American who’s lost his job, but still has plenty going for him, including well-off (if judgemental) parents who offer financial support, a loving wife (played by an underused Alana Haim), and two kids. Rather than try to find a new job so he can give back to his family, J.B. decides to blow up his life by living out his childish fantasy of masterminding an art heist.

Using money borrowed from his mother, J.B. hires three local idiots to help him rob the art museum in Framingham, Massachusetts. He explains breaks down his plan to them with glee, clearly seeing himself as the star of a crime film in this moment: Walk into the museum, take the paintings from the wall, exit the museum, and then get driven off in a stolen car. It’s simple. So simple, in fact, that it’s actually quite stupid. The plan almost immediately falls apart upon execution.

First, J.B. fails to plan for the fact that his children have a schedule day off school. Luckily, it’s 1970, so he simply gives them some money and sends them off to run around town on their own. Next, his driver bails on him, so it’s up to J.B. to drive the getaway car. The actual stealing of the art is perhaps the least-smoothly executed film heist I’ve ever witnessed. The thieves are clumsy and slow. At one point, the thief named Ronnie (Javion Allen)—a wildcard whom J.B. vouched for—pulls a gun on a school girl in pigtails. When they finally get the art of the door, it takes them an excruciatingly long time to roll down the car window. The entire sequence is absolutely hilarious.

Though J.B. does, technically, manage to pull of the heist, isn’t long before the authorities are on to him. (Ronnie, the guy J.B. said he “put a lot of thought into,” squealed.) In one brilliant, dialogue-less sequence, J.B. tries to stash the art in a safe place and finds himself stranded on a barn loft without a ladder. The only way down? Falling into a pile of hay and animal crap.

For J.B., The Mastermind is just one humiliation after another. It’s all tied together by a perfectly understated-but-hysterical Josh O’Connor performance, portraying a silly man in way over his head. In the end, J.B. loses the paintings, his wife, his kids, his friends, and any last shred of dignity. And he has no one to blame but himself. A mastermind, this man is not.

Though he couldn’t be more different from Jud, J.B. is an equally fun O’Connor character to watch, thanks to the British actor’s keen comedic timing and delivery. It’s been a banner year for O’Connor, who, earlier in 2025, also starred in the critically acclaimed Western drama Rebuilding and the queer period romance, The History of Sound. It’s his busiest year to date, and clearly, his hard work is paying off.