Sisters (1973), Chinatown (1974), The Unfaithful Wife (1968), Song of the Thin Man (1947), Cape Fear (1962), Gone Baby Gone (2007), Blood Simple (1984), The Long Goodbye (1973) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Private Investigator movies.
Storyline: Inquisitive journalist Grace Collier (Jennifer Salt) is horrified when she witnesses her neighbor, fashion model Danielle Breton (Margot Kidder), violently murder a man. Panicking, she calls the police. But when the detective arrives at the scene and finds nothing amiss, Grace is forced to take matters into her own hands. Her first move is to recruit private investigator Joseph Larch (Charles Durning), who helps her to uncover a secret about Danielle's past that has them both seeing double.
Plot Keywords: reporter, model, police officer, private investigator, man, sister, frightening ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1937 Los Angeles, private investigator Jake 'J.J.' Gittes specializes in cheating-spouse cases. His current target is Hollis Mulwray, high-profile chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, whose wife suspects him of infidelity. In following Mulwray, Gittes witnesses some usual business dealings, such as a public meeting for construction of a new dam to create additional water supply for Los Angeles, as fresh water is vital to the growing community during the chronic drought; Mulwray opposes the dam. Eventually Gittes sees Mulwray meeting with an unknown young woman who isn't his wife. Once news of the supposed tryst between Mulwray and this woman hits the media, additional information comes to light that makes Gittes believe that Mulwray is being framed for something and that he himself is being set up. In his investigation of the issue behind Mulwray's framing and his own setup, Gittes is assisted by Mulwray's wife Evelyn, but he thinks she isn't being ...
Plot Keywords: detective, widow, father, sister, private investigator, wife, disturbing ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Charles Desvallées (Michel Bouquet), a successful insurance broker, employs a private investigator on suspicion that his wife, Hélène (Stéphane Audran), is cheating on him. After acquiring evidence of his wife's infidelity, Charles confronts and murders Hélène's lover, Victor Pégala (Maurice Ronet). When the police question the married couple about their connection to the murdered man, both Hélène and Charles continue their perilous dance of deception.
Plot Keywords: insurance broker, wife, private investigator, adulterer, police officer, writer, brooding ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Tommy Drake (Philip Reed), a musician aboard a gambling ship, is shot and killed while trying to break into a safe. Later, amateur sleuths Nick (William Powell) and Norah (Myrna Loy) receive a visit from Phil Brant, Drake's former boss and the the main suspect in his murder. After they give Brant up to the authorities, they start digging around for clues. The pair question Brant's wife and one of Drake's musician colleagues until they start to piece together the intricate puzzle.
Plot Keywords: jazz musician, singer, ship owner, socialite, private investigator, gangster, hilarious ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Small-town lawyer Sam Bowden's life becomes torturous when Max Cady re-enters his life. Cady went to jail for 8 years after Bowden testified that Cady attacked a young woman. Now that Cady has been released, he begins to terrorize Bowden and his family, particularly targeting Bowden's daughter, Nancy. Initially, Cady uses his newfound knowledge of the law (learned in prison) to annoy the Bowdens, then poisons the family dog... Who's next ?
Plot Keywords: stalker, lawyer, father, convict, private investigator, daughter, creepy ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: When 4 year old Amanda McCready disappears from her home and the police make little headway in solving the case, the girl's aunt Beatrice McCready hires two private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. The detectives freely admit that they have little experience with this type of case, but the family wants them for two reasons - they're not cops and they know the tough Boston neighborhood in which they all live. As the case progresses, Kenzie and Gennaro face drug dealers, gangs and pedophiles. When they are about to solve their case, they are faced with a moral dilemma that could tear them apart.
Plot Keywords: private investigator, girlfriend, aunt, cop, drug dealer, mother, dark ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Texas bar owner Julian Marty, who is generally regarded as not a nice person, hires shady private detective Loren Visser, who is able to obtain what Marty requests evidence - in this instance, photographic - that his wife, Abby, and one of his bartenders, Ray, are having an affair. As Ray and Abby realize that Marty has found out about them, it allows them to plan for their future away from Marty, while be up front with Marty about the situation. Marty, in turn, decides to hire Visser once again, this time to kill Abby and Ray, and dispose of their bodies so that they won't be found. The out in the open affair and the contract hit lead to some actions based on self interest, and a standoff of sorts between the four players, which is compounded in complexity by some wrong assumptions of what has happened, with an innocent bystander, another of the Marty's bartenders, Meurice, potentially and unwittingly adding to the scenario.
Plot Keywords: private investigator, wealthy man, cheater, wife, lover, quirky, suspenseful ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In the middle of the night, private eye Philip Marlowe drives his friend Terry Lennox to the Mexican border. When Marlowe returns home police are waiting for him and learns that Terry's wife Sylvia has been killed. He's arrested as an accessory but released after a few days and is told the case is closed since Terry Lennox has seemingly committed suicide in Mexico. Marlowe is visited by mobster Marty Augustine who wants to know what happened to the $350,000 Lennox was supposed to deliver for him. Meanwhile, Marlowe is hired by Eileen Wade to find her husband Roger who has a habit of disappearing when he wants to dry out but she can't find him in any any of his usual haunts. He finds him at Dr. Veringer's clinic and brings him. It soon becomes obvious to Marlowe that Terry's death, the Wades and Augustine are all somehow interconnected. Figuring out just what those connections are however will be anything but easy.
Plot Keywords: private investigator, gangster, police chief, author, wife, thief, cool ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Despite not knowing him, the world's most famous detectives can't pass up the offer of a "dinner and murder" invitation from wealthy Lionel Twain (Truman Capote). Each has no idea until their arrival at Two Two Twain who else will be in attendance. Those detectives are: amateur sleuths and New York City socialites Dick (David Niven) and Dora Charleston (Dame Maggie Smith), accompanied by their pet terrier, Myron; Belgian detective Monsieur Milo Perrier (James Coco), accompanied by his chauffeur, Marcel (James Cromwell); Shanghainese Inspector Sidney Wang (Peter Sellers), accompanied by his Japanese adopted son, Willie Wang (Richard Narita); frumpish Brit Miss Jessica Marbles (Elsa Lanchester), accompanied by her invalid nurse, Miss Withers (Estelle Winwood); and San Francisco gumshoe Sam Diamond (Peter Falk), accompanied by his femme fatale sidekick, Tess Skeffington (Eileen Brennan). The dinner part of the invitation runs into problems due to the non-communication between Twain's ...
Plot Keywords: private investigator, wealthy man, butler, maid, cook, nurse, hysterical ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Miss Jane Marple's (Dame Margaret Rutherford's) on-board a train when she sees what appears to to be, a murder - a woman being strangled - in a passing train. When the Police refuse to believe her story, she decides to do some investigating of her own. In this, Rutherford's first appearance (as well as her first on-screen appearance) as Dame Agatha Christie's beloved sleuth. Though fans of the stories can see instantly see that Dame Margaret Rutherford does not fit Dame Agatha Christie's physical description of her, and Dame Agatha was not a fan with the casting decision - at first. But, when the two women met, they became big admirers of each other (Christie even dedicated one of her books; "The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side" - to her "friend, Margaret Rutherford".—Mattias Thuresson
Plot Keywords: detective, conductor, wealthy man, police detective, private investigator, miss marple, charming ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Harry Angel has a new case, to find a man called Johnny Favourite. Except things aren't quite that simple and Johnny doesn't want to be found. Let's just say that amongst the period detail and beautiful scenery, it all gets really really nasty.
Plot Keywords: private investigator, singer, daughter, satan, magician, dark, gripping ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte)is a small-town corporate attorney/"Leave It to Beaver" type family-man. Max Cady (Robert De Niro) is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, bible-quoting, rapist. What do they have in common? Fourteen years, ago Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape trial, and he made a serious error: he hid a document from his illiterate client that could have gotten him acquitted. Now, the cagey, bibliophile Cady has been released, and he intends to teach Sam Bowden and his family a thing or two about loss.
Plot Keywords: attorney, stalker, father, private investigator, wife, daughter, creepy ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Burt Lancaster plays a pirate with a taste for intrigue and acrobatics who involves himself in the goings on of a revolution in the Caribbean in the late 1700s. A light hearted adventure involving prison breaks, an oddball Scientist, sailing ships, naval fights, and tons of swordplay.—John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>
Plot Keywords: pirate, resistance leader, daughter, lieutenant, crew member, love interest, airy ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Walking down twenty-seven flights of stairs after the power goes out in the New York City office building he is in, David Stillwell emerges outside on the ground level to find that a man he didn't know either jumped or was pushed out a window to his death. That man was Charles Calvin, the head of Unidyne, a humanitarian organization that works toward world peace. David notices other unusual goings-on. What he considers his normal routine that others he knows should recognize, don't. People that he doesn't know seem to know him, such as the beautiful young woman with who he walked down the stairs but who ran off when they got to the bottom. And things that he thought he saw or thought he knew end up not being the case, such as the multiple sub-basement levels he thought were in that office building which don't seem to exist in the clear light of day. When he finally thinks about it, he believes he has some form of amnesia. As an example, he knows that he works as a cost accountant, but he has no idea what a cost accountant is or does. He soon learns that some people are following him and are after something that he has, he not knowing what it is, and that they will shoot to kill if they don't get it. Conversely, the young woman, who he learns is named Shela and was once a love of his, is trying to convince him to cooperate with the people after him if only to save his life. Every direction David turns for official assistance, he comes up not trusting anyone, with the exception of a novice private detective he hires named Ted Caselle. Shela and the people after David all refer to "the major" as the person at the top who wants what David has. David may have to look deep into his troubled psyche to come out of his amnesia to learn who the major is, what he wants, whether David is willing to give it up if he indeed does have it, and that the death of Charles Calvin had some part to play. But David may be dead before he can even make an informed decision to cooperate or not.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: accountant, philanthropist, private investigator, amnesiac, hit man, engaging, gripping ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: One night on a lonely highway, a man in a speeding car tosses a satchel of money meant for somebody else into Jane and Alan Palmer's convertible as they are heading down a mountain road to a party. When they open the satchel and see what's inside, Alan wants to turn it over to the police, but Jane, with a life of luxury now within reach, persuades him to hang onto it "for a while." Soon afterward, the Palmers are tracked down by one Danny Fuller, a sleazy character who claims the money is his. To hang on to the cash, Jane will need to exercise all her feminine wiles, even if it leads her to dangerous circumstances and criminal behavior.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: wife, husband, brother, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, private investigator, creepy ...
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