Where there’s a crime, there’s (hopefully) someone to solve it.
(Not all podcasters are journalists.)
(Also, this is a list of TV and movie detectives, not books!)
Paul Newman in ‘Harper’.Everett Collection
Okay, now that you have all the clues, unravel the mystery below!
Lew Harper
Give a character toPaul Newmanand he will make the guy impossibly cool.
In Newman’s hands, Harper is a figure of the counterculture.
Steve Martin, Selena Gomez, and Martin Short on ‘Only Murders in the Building’.Craig Blankenhorn/Hulu
He’s no Joe Friday, and that’s the point.
Darren Franich
Skill level:
48.
His vibe, though?
Roger Rabbit and Bob Hoskins in ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'.Everett Collection
More like Ace… Ventura.
Heck, he once deduced that a murderer and a murderee had switcherooed.
The amazing detective/genius Jake Peralta on the case?
Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas on ‘Miami Vice’.Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank
Dan Snierson
47.
However, theCSIidea owes its longevity to the cerebral whimsy William Petersen brought the mothership series.
(“There isalwaysa clue,” Grissom declares in the pilot.)
Jill Scott on ‘The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’.HBO
Him in Las Vegas was a clever contrast: Witness science in the den of sin.
Petersen departedCSIin 2009 but never totally left, recently reprising the part for theCSI: Vegasreboot.D.F.
Skill level:
46.
Archie Panjabi on ‘The Good Wife’.David Giesbrecht/CBS
But Castle’s outlandish exuberance paired with Beckett’s meticulous instincts make for an iconic duo.
Maureen Lee Lenker
45.
(Okay, it’s mostly Oliver stumbling while the other two fix his mistakes.)
Gillian Anderson on ‘The Fall’.Steffan Hill/BBC
But man are they entertaining.
Sydney Bucksbaum
Skill level:
44.
Lauren Morgan
43.
‘Scooby-Doo’.Everett Collection
The result is one of the most delightful duos in years.Devan Coggan
42.
Nick is reluctantly pulled into cases, egged on by Nora who delights in the thrill of the chase.
If only solving crime was always this stylish.
Andre Braugher on ‘Homicide: Life on the Street’.James Sorensen/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
Eddie Valiant (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?)
As a man among cartoons, Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) is a fish out of water.
Eddie Valiant is cut from the same cloth as many iconic hardboiled detectives, cynical and world-weary.
Peter Sellers in ‘A Shot in the Dark’.Everett Collection
But hey, he’s not bad, he’s just drawn that way.
The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew
Is your lighthouse haunted?
Did you recently find a priceless jade statue while scuba diving?
Kyle MacLachlan on ‘Twin Peaks’.Everett Collection
Is your quaint seaside town being terrorized by a malevolent spirit or a spooky talisman called The Eye?
Then you better call the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew!
Kristen Baldwin
39.
Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger in ‘In the Heat of the Night’.Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images
While he first cut his teeth as U.S. And no one in the ’70s had more style than Theodopolis “Theo” Kojak.
Velour fedora on the chrome dome?
Tootsie Pop dangling out of the mouth?
David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson on ‘The X-Files’.Everett Collection
Randomly asking “Who loves ya, baby?”
to relative strangers in a completely rhetorical manner?
“Dalton Ross
37.
Angela Lansbury on ‘Murder, She Wrote’.Everett Collection
NBC’sHannibalwalked so that BBC’sKilling Evecould run.
But we’re supposed to talk about Will as a detective.
So he’s notthatgood.
Nicholas Romano
36.
Mike Hammer (Kiss Me Deadly)
35.
Together, they can solve any mystery short of the legitimately supernatural.
Christian Holub
33.
From the get, the young FBI trainee defies expectations.
Lauren Huff
32.
While their inevitable hook-up broke not only glass tables but the show itself in some ways.
Precious Ramstowe (The No.
Alamin Yohannes
30.
Adrian Monk (Monk)
Adrian Monk’s preternatural crime-solving capabilities are both a gift and a curse.
Skill level:
29.
“It’s not gonna work out.”
Hey, we said he was a detective, not a psychic.
Onscreen they always got their man, and off-screen they always got their trophies.
Why was she so good?
Because she simply wouldn’t accept anything else.
Kalinda knew she was the best, and she was never going to be beaten.
He’s dry, a snappy dresser (seersucker bathing suits anyone?
), deeply kind to those he trusts, and inadvertently hilarious in his more bumbling aspects.
M.L.L
25.
(Insert GIF of Frank announcing to a crowd of on-lookers, “Nothing to see here!”
as a fireworks factory exploded behind him.)
), Frank Drebin was always oblivious to the era and trouble that he was in.
Maybe not as much as jumping on a bicycle with the seat missing, but it hurts.")
He may not have been the sharpest lightbulb in the toolbox, but Frank Drebin was pureSquadgoals.
In short, he’s the stuff that dreams are made of.M.L.L
23.
She’s dogged, determined, and like most good detectives, completely obsessed with getting her suspect.
Hercule Poirot
Choose your fighter, Hercule Poirot edition.
Is it Austin Trevor, the very first actor to play the debonaire Belgian sleuth in 1931’sAlibi?
Is it Albert Finney, the mustachioed fancy man from 1971’sMurder on the Orient Express?
The guy is like the Hamlet of whodunnits.
Just as many old white European gentlemen want to play him.
Whatever form he takes, Hercule is royalty of the genre.
Marge Gunderson (Fargo)
Some detectives have problems.
The Chief of Police of Brainerd, Minnesota has morning sickness.
That won’t stop Marge (Frances McDormand) from untangling criminal webs of midwestern malevolence.
Nicholson also vividly portrays Jake’s expanding conscience, which the movie utterly demolishes.
There was no one better at interrogation and many a criminal cracked under his penetrating stare.
Easy might be financially desperate, but he’s uniquely adept at navigating the racial borderlands of Los Angeles.
Jane has to fight to get cases before doing the actual job of solving the crimes.
Inspector Jacques Clouseau (ThePink Panthermovies)
Is Clouseau good at his job?
Is he a delight to watch?
(God help you if you have a priceless Steinway.)
He has a legendary reputation on the police force for a reason, after all.
Thomas Magnum (Magnum P.I.)
Jim Rockford (The Rockford Files)
Poor Jim Rockford.
For $200 a day (plus expenses), there’s no better P.I.
Also, his theme song is a banger.D.C.
Beginning in 1999 (and running for nearly 300 episodes), Benson and Stabler created a mesmerizing partnership.
She led with heart and compassion.
He led with anger and a hunger for justice.
It ultimately cost Lester his job, but what a job he did.
She’s the skeptic, the tough-as-nails pragmatist with a medical degree and zero tolerance for nonsense.
Philip Marlowe
If Sam Spade invented the hardboiled detective, Philip Marlowe perfected it.
Perhaps because he possesses a greater sense of moral rectitude than many other fictional private investigators.
Sherlock and Watson
No list of pop culture detectives would be complete without the boys of Baker Street.
But it’s his friendship with the loyal Dr. John Watson that elevates the pair from good to great.
Now in the public domain, the two havepopped up in countless adaptationsacross film and television.
There also plenty of unorthodox adaptations, too likeThe Great Mouse Detective(Sherlock’s a mouse!
),Sherlock Gnomes(Sherlock’s a garden gnome!
), andHouse(Sherlock’s a grumpy doctor played by Hugh Laurie!).
But whatever form these Baker Street BFFs take, they’re always better together.
That’s just elementary.D.C.
Columbo
He could be anybody or nobody.
The killers barely notice the unkempt LAPD detective.
Murder onColumbois usually a premeditated diorama of down-to-the-second alibis.
