100 Best Crime Detective Movies of All Time – A Streaming Guide
The crime detective genre puts thrilling criminal investigations on the big screen. These movies follow a detective – who could be a hired private investigator, a member of law enforcement, or a complete amateur – as they attempt to uncover the mysteries of a crime. The genre includes plenty of incredible noir (The Lady from Shanghai, The Maltese Falcon) and neo-noir (Memories of Murder, Brick) movies, as well as light-hearted parodies (The Pink Panther) and action comedies (Rush Hour). Whether you’re looking for cinema’s bleakest noir movies or something for the whole family, you’ll find something for you with our list of the 100 best crime detective movies of all time.
Many of the best crime detective movies are adaptations of famous novels. Among the most famous detectives successfully adapted for the big screen include Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe (The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, The Long Goodbye), Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes (The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) and Agatha Christie's Poirot (Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile). These characters have inspired many other movies on this top 100 list, so their movies are a great starting point for anybody who is new to the genre.
There are also plenty of options if you’re looking for unconventional detective crime stories that also belong to another genre. Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner: The Final Cut is a neo-noir science fiction movie starring Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, who is tasked with hunting down a group of criminal replicants (androids). Another example is Matt Reeve’s The Batman, a superhero movie which tells the story of Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattison) as he searches for a dangerous criminal in Gotham City.
Below you can find our complete list of the 100 best crime detective movies of all time. We’ll show you where you can watch every movie online on popular streaming services in the United States. We’ll also let you know if you can watch any of these movies online for free, or if they are available to watch for free with ads.
