Another Thin Man (1939), The Thin Man (1934), The Big Sleep (1946), Gone Baby Gone (2007), The Long Goodbye (1973), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), The Nice Guys (2016) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Private Investigator movies.
Storyline: Baby photographer Ronnie Jackson, on death row in San Quentin, tells reporters how he got there: taking care of his private-eye neighbor's office, Ronnie is asked by the irresistible Baroness Montay to find the missing Baron. There follow confusing but sinister doings in a gloomy mansion and a private sanatorium, with every plot twist a parody of thriller cliches. What are the villains really after? Can Ronnie beat a framed murder rap?—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: comedy, film noir, detective, parody, bob hope, mystery, crime ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Lila Green is an insecure and aging showgirl for Madame Olga's stage shows. When her boyfriend, Rick, runs off with the show's money, Madame Olga and Ronny let Lila go. Lila goes to stay with her old neighbors, Helen Bard and her teenage son, Kenny. Lila decides to go out and get a regular job and try and live a normal life. All seems well, until Lila and Kenny stop fighting their attraction for one another.—Kelly
Plot Keywords: film noir, drama, crime, mystery, detective, murder, nightclub ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: When a murder occurs on an ocean liner docked in New York, the trail leads to Coney Island and a spy ring.
Plot Keywords: classic, 1940s, crime, detective, mystery, film noir, action ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: It is 1948 in LA and Ezikeal "Easy" Rawlins, an African-American World War II veteran, is looking for work. At his friend's bar, he is introduced to a white man, DeWitt Albright, who is looking for someone to help him find a missing white woman assumed to be hiding somewhere in LA's Black community. This woman, Daphne Monet, happens to be the fiancée of a wealthy "blue blood," Todd Carter, who is currently the favorite in the city's mayoralty race. Daphne Monet is known to frequent the Black jazz clubs in LA. Easy, innocently, accepts Albright's offer; however, he quickly finds himself amidst murder, crooked cops, ruthless politicians, and brutalizing hoodlums. This is a Chandler-esque "who-done-it" with an African-American theme.
Plot Keywords: film noir, crime, mystery, drama, detective, los angeles, 1940s ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The camera shows Phillip Marlowe's view from the first-person in this adaptation of Raymond Chandler's book. The detective is hired to find a publisher's wife, who is supposed to have run off to Mexico. But the case soon becomes much more complicated as people are murdered.—Ken Yousten <kyousten@bev.net>
Plot Keywords: film noir, detective story, murder mystery, novel adaptation, 1940s, crime thriller, complex plot ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The Saint plays a "modern-day Robin Hood" in order to clear his friend, Henry Fernack, who was framed by mobsters. They run into a series of murders.—SM <smortens@ix.netcom.com>
Plot Keywords: detective, crime, mystery, film noir, 1940s, adaptation, murder ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Ex-cop turned private eye, Tony Rome lives and works in Miami. For $200, he returns a young woman to her father's house after she passes out in a seedy hotel, and he keeps the hotel's name out of it. Trouble is, she's missing a diamond pin, When the pin does turn up, it's fake. The girl's wealthy father hires Tony to find out what happened to the real stones. Bodies pile up,—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
Plot Keywords: crime, detective, film noir, mystery, thriller, action, hardboiled ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Ginley (Albert Finney) is a nightclub bingo caller eager for a career change. On his thirty-first birthday, he advertises himself as a private eye in the newspaper. He dons a trench coat, and begins engaging others in rapid-fire dialogue as if he were Humphrey Bogart, or some Dashiell Hammett creation. Soon after, Ginley is phoned by a fat man, who gives him a package containing a gun, a photograph, and a large sum of money. Eventually Ginley is investigating a case involving smuggling of weapons as well as drugs. Ginley also finds himself at odds with his unsupportive brother, who offers Ginley payment to break off his investigations. Eventually Ginley learns of his brother-in-law's involvement in the crimes at hand. Ginley faces a series of daunting tasks: solving the crimes, bringing justice to the smugglers (and a murderer), as well as maintaining his safety and sanity in the process.—veloc <velo_00@yahoo.com>
Plot Keywords: film noir, detective, comedy, crime, mystery, british film, 1970s ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: One night in New York, beefy escaped convict Moose Malloy goes hunting for his ex-girlfriend Velma, leaving a trail of mayhem behind him. Velma seems to be well-hidden, and adventurer The Falcon, intrigued, investigates on his own, approaching the heart of the mystery via a varied sequence of shady characters and attractive women.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: detective, film noir, crime, mystery, murder, adaptation, classic ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Matt Scudder is a former cop now a private eye. He is asked by a drug dealer to find the men who kidnapped his wife. It seems like they killed her even after he paid them. Scudder refuses. But the man later goes to see him and tells him how his wife was killed. Scudder takes the job. He does some research and thinks the men he is looking for have done this more than once. And that everyone they grabbed is connected to a drug dealer. He was about to give up when they grab another girl and Scudder tries make sure she's returned alive.
Plot Keywords: crime, thriller, action, mystery, detective, dark, violent ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Ford "Mr. Rock n' Roll Detective" Fairlane is experiencing problems, and it's not with the opposite sex. One of them is that all the rock stars pay him with drum sticks, koala bears, food processors and bicycle shorts. Another one of them is that all his employers that want him to find a girl named Zuzu Petals get killed. Why didn't he become a fisherman's detective instead? A must-see for Andrew Dice Clay fans.
Plot Keywords: action, comedy, crime, music, detective, dark comedy, rock ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A mysterious client of private eye Don Strachey pays him cash to tail a woman who turns out to be an undercover officer; an older lesbian couple are victims of threats and vandalism; an old flame of his lover Tim shows up to support the older couple; neighbors are angry at the couple for refusing to sell out to a developer; and, parents are angry at one of the couple, Dorothy, for being a good guidance counselor to gay teens. Her partner, Edith, wants to move away; Dorothy is adamant about staying. When someone dies in a fire in their barn, the stakes get higher. Don, who does not believe in coincidence, gives the police enough information to stay on their good side as he pursues the truth.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
Plot Keywords: mystery, crime, thriller, detective, murder, investigation, whodunit ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Tim Callahan, aide to New York Senator Lauren Platt, is disappointed that all of the $3 million funding has been pulled from his latest pet project, a safe zone for children and youth. His personal partner, private investigator Donald Strachey, believes Tim's passion for the project stems from the fact of his own sister's troubled youth, she who has been missing since age seventeen. Tim believes his prayers have been answered when a man, identifying himself as a lawyer, tells him that he represents someone who wants to make a $3 million anonymous donation to the project. Those prayers turn into a nightmare when that lawyer is later found murdered, the dead body in Donald's car. The murdered man is Jake Lenigan, a third generation lawyer in a powerful family law firm. Jake's father was murdered twelve years earlier, the perceived suspect in that case being his wife Joan, who has since disappeared. Tim and Donald's situation becomes even more nightmarish when Tim anonymously receives that $3 million in untraceable Euro bonds. The murderer will do whatever is necessary to get that money back from Tim and Donald, the latter who is working with the police to find Lenigan's purpose in wanting to donate the money to Tim's cause, find if Jake's father's murder has anything to do with this case, discover the owner of the money and thus the probable murderer, and most importantly protect himself and his boyfriend from being possible murder victims.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: mystery, crime, detective, lgbt, murder, investigation, independent film ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Quiet young Orfamay Quest from Kansas has hired private detective Philip Marlowe to find her brother. After two leads turn up with ice picks stuck in them, he discovers blackmail photos concerning TV star Mavis Wald. She rejects Marlowe's help, and this is forcibly underlined by her gangster boyfriend. So, wonders Marlowe, is there a link between Orfamay and Mavis?—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
Plot Keywords: film noir, detective, crime, mystery, 1960s, los angeles, novel adaptation ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In Los Angeles, Moses Wine, who was part of the counter-culture of the late 1960s at UC-Berkeley, still has those radical feelings but no longer does anything about them. His wife Suzanne, who has transformed from a 1960s hippie to a 1970s new-ageist, divorced him when his law school background didn't materialize into the upper middle class liberal life she was expecting, she having sole custody of their two young sons, with Moses having visitation rights. Moses fell into work as a private investigator of the gumshoe variety, which usually doesn't cover his monthly child support payments. After not seeing her for ten years, Moses is contacted by Lila Shea, an old girlfriend from Berkeley, to do some investigative work on behalf of her boss, Sam Sebastian, the Southern California coordinator for the gubernatorial campaign of Congressman Miles Hawthorne. Lila felt Moses would be well suited to the job because of running within "the" crowd at Berkeley, even if only knowing the main players by name and reputation. Flyers have been circulating with a doctored photo of Hawthorne and Howard Eppis in a friendly embrace, Eppis who in the late 1960s was part of the California 4 - the other three being Michael and Wendy Linker, and Luis Vasquez - an anti-establishment group convicted of several counts related to their work against the government. While the Linkers are behind bars probably for the rest of their lives, Luis Vasquez is a free man working for the rights of Mexican laborers, while Eppis has been a fugitive ever since, the authorities who are still looking for him. The flyers, which contain extreme socialist rhetoric and an implication of Hawthorne welcoming Eppis' endorsement, have the potential to derail Hawthorne's campaign. Moses is tasked with finding out who is behind the flyers - the most obvious being the campaign of Hawthorne's competitor, Senator Dillworthy - and if it is indeed not Eppis, why they would have specifically used Eppis' name. Moses accepts the job despite not endorsing Hawthorne - or Dillworthy for that matter - he equating Hawthorne's excitement factor to watching paint dry. The further Moses and Lila get into the investigation, the number of unanswered questions they have grows, and the more people who were associated with Eppis at the time cannot be located, including Oscar Procari, Jr., who funded the California 4's defense probably to spite his industrialist father. With the many trails, Moses and Lila still believe finding Eppis would answer many questions. All the while, Moses tries to rekindle a relationship with Lila. The investigation ends up having a change of focus with the potential for deadly violence on multiple levels and when incidents makes it personal to Moses.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: mystery, crime, detective, political, conspiracy, noir, 1970s ...
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