Netflix's The Thursday Murder Club confirmed who killed Tony Curran and Ian Ventham in the movie's final 20 minutes, and it's not who fans expected. At the center of the mystery of the Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren-led comedy thriller are the deaths of the co-owners of Coopers Chase, a retirement village where the titular murder club becomes unexpectedly entangled in solving this real case.
The deaths of these two individuals are tied to the fact that Ventham is hellbent on selling Coopers Chase to a developer, but Curran doesn't want to give up the property because he still cares for it. As a result, the amateur sleuths, who have a passion for solving cold cases, piece together evidence and clues to find out who really did it.
Based on Richard Osman's book series of the same name, The Thursday Murder Club is more of a MobLand reunion since it reunites Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, and Geoff Bell. Joining them in the film are Sir Ben Kingsley, Celia Imrie, Tom Ellis, and Richard E. Grant. The Thursday Murder Club premiered on Netflix on August 28, 2025.
Who Killed Tony Curran in Thursday Murder Club?
The Thursday Murder Club's final 20 minutes slowly pulled back the curtain on who killed Tony Curran, and the man behind his demise has been hiding in plain sight. While he was initially portrayed as the co-owner who would do anything to protect his fellow residents in Coopers Chase, there is something else nefarious going on behind his goody two-shoes image.
The movie revealed that Tony is not a saint after all because he worked alongside Bobby Tanner (another co-owner) to employ desperate foreigners to work for them in exchange for giving them their passports so they couldn't leave the country.
One of these workers was Bogdan (Henry Lloyd Hughes), a Polish groundskeeper for Coopers Chase who only wanted to go home to visit his sick mother in Poland. When he tried to retrieve his passport from Tony, it ultimately led to a heated confrontation between the pair, leading to Bogdan killing Tony by accident.
At the 1:34:21 mark of the movie, while playing chess, Bogdan confessed the crime to Stephen (Elizabeth's husband), noting that he "had no intention of killing Tony" and it was merely "an accident:"
"You have to understand, Stephen, it was an accident. I had no intention of killing Tony. I only want my passport. You have to understand that. You have to believe me, Stephen."
Although Stephen seemingly forgot his confession due to dementia, Elizabeth (Helen Mirren) later revealed that he always keeps a record of his chess sessions, meaning that the recording captured Bogdan's confession. Although he didn't mean to kill Tony, murder is still murder, and the police later arrested him.
Bogdan is still a good man since he would've killed Stephen and fled if he had the chance, but he didn't. Unfortunately, he was pushed over the edge due to an unfortunate situation.
Ian Ventham’s Killer Is Not Who We Expected
The fact that Ian Ventham (played by Jessica Jones star David Tennant) was hellbent on demolishing Coopers Chase meant that he had many enemies, and there were a plethora of suspects who wanted him dead.
While Bogdan was with Ventham moments before he died, The Thursday Murder Club confirmed that it was not him who orchestrated his death. Instead, it was not someone who viewers expected, since it was none other than John Grey.
Circling back, the titular murder club has been trying to solve the cold case involving the death of Angela Hughes in the 1970s, and one of the investigators assigned to the case was Penny Grey (a female police officer from the Kent Police who was also the co-founder of the club and helped with providing information about the case).
It turned out that Penny confirmed that Angela's boyfriend, Peter Mercer, killed her, but none of the officers believed her because she was a woman. As a result, Penny took matters into her own hands and killed Mercer, and only she and John knew about this shocking crime.
Penny and John buried Mercer's body on Coopers Chase, and Ian Ventham's proposed plan to develop the retirement village would mean that their decades-long secret would be unpacked. As a way to protect her wife's reputation and put a stop to the planned development, John, using his veterinarian expertise, injected Ventham with a "massive" dose of fentanyl, which tragically led to his death.
While John did what he had to do out of love for Penny, it was still murder. The movie ended with John choosing to end his and Penny's lives peacefully instead of going to prison.
The Thursday Murder Club's tragic ending involving John and Penny cemented the heartbreaking lesson that love and loyalty can drive someone to extreme actions. This lesson also applied to Bogdan, who accidentally killed Tony because he wanted to get back to his sick mom.
