Best Bumbling Detective Mystery Movies & TV Shows

Three strangers share an obsession with true crime and suddenly find themselves wrapped up in one.

Columbo is a friendly, verbose, disheveled-looking police detective who is consistently underestimated by his suspects. Despite his unprepossessing appearance and apparent absentmindedness, he shrewdly solves all of his cases and secures all evidence needed for indictment. His formidable eye for detail and meticulously dedicated approach often become clear to the killer only late in the storyline.

After a serial killer imitates the plots of his novels, successful mystery novelist Richard "Rick" Castle receives permission from the Mayor of New York City to tag along with an NYPD homicide investigation team for research purposes.

Adrian Monk was once a rising star with the San Francisco Police Department, legendary for using unconventional means to solve the department's most baffling cases. But after the tragic (and still unsolved) murder of his wife Trudy, he developed an extreme case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Now working as a private consultant, Monk continues to investigate cases in the most unconventional ways.

Thanks to his police officer father's efforts, Shawn Spencer spent his childhood developing a keen eye for detail (and a lasting dislike of his dad). Years later, Shawn's frequent tips to the police lead to him being falsely accused of a crime he solved. Now, Shawn has no choice but to use his abilities to perpetuate his cover story: psychic crime-solving powers, all the while dragging his best friend, his dad, and the police along for the ride.

Two detectives, DCI McDonald and DS Dodds, who seemingly have nothing in common, are thrown together and forge a rumbustious friendship and entertaining partnership.

Father Brown is based on G. K. Chesterton's detective stories about a Catholic priest who doubles as an amateur detective in order to try and solve mysteries.

When a high school reunion’s afterparty ends in a stunning death, everyone is a suspect. A detective grills the former classmates one by one, uncovering potential motives as each tells their version of the story—culminating in the shocking truth.

Get Smart is a short-lived American comedy television series that aired in 1995 on FOX. The series was a sequel to the original Get Smart television series that ran from 1965 to 1970. The series premiered on January 8, 1995 and ended its original run on February 19, 1995.

A sharp detective with a messy life, DCI Vera Stanhope patrols her “patch” of northeast England, pursuing the truth in cases of murder, kidnapping, and blackmail. Vera is obsessive about her work and faces the world with caustic wit, guile and courage.

When rich Mr. Benjamin Ballon’s Spanish driver is found shot dead, Inspector Jacques Clouseau is the first official on the scene. All evidence suggests Maria Gambrelli, the maid, to be the murderer. But Clouseau, being attracted to the beautiful girl, is convinced that she is hiding something. So, he has her released from jail and secretly tries to follow her. Things do not work out the way the inspector wants and people keep ending up murdered, and every time, innocent Maria seems to be the killer. But with someone important wanting Clouseau and nobody else to cover this case, his tolerance-challenged boss Charles Dreyfus is close to losing his mind when casualties keep turning up. And Clouseau keeps on causing trouble without knowing it…

Certified public accountant Andy Barker reluctantly becomes a private investigator after he is mistaken for the former office tenant, who was a private eye.

Lionel Twain invites the world's five greatest detectives to a 'dinner and murder'. Included are a blind butler, a deaf-mute maid, screams, spinning rooms, secret passages, false identities and more plot turns and twists than are decently allowed.

Matilda Stone is a perennially single female detective whose three aunts are well-known crime writers that help her solve whodunit style murders as well as set her up on blind dates.

Detective Dirk Gently operates based on the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.

Vacationing in a small town, a frantic Daniel Corban shows up at the local police station, declaring that his wife has disappeared. Corban imperiously demands that the easygoing police inspector drop everything and find his missing spouse. Within a few days, a woman claiming to be his wife shows up, but Corban insists that he's never met the woman before.

A darkly comic swamp noir story of two best friends set in the late 1980s. Based on the novels by Joe R. Lansdale, the series follows Hap Collins, an East Texas white boy with a weakness for Southern women, and Leonard Pine, a gay, black Vietnam vet with a hot temper.

Inspector Gadget is a clumsy, dim-witted human cyborg detective with various bionic gadgets built into his body. Gadget stumbles around working the cases while his niece and dog do most of the investigating. Gadget's arch-nemesis is Dr. Claw, the leader of an evil organisation, known as "M.A.D."

Charles Dreyfus, who has finally cracked over inspector Clouseau's antics, escapes from a mental institution and launches an elaborate plan to get rid of Clouseau once and for all.

Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau is dead. At least that is what the world—and Charles Dreyfus—believe when a dead body is discovered in Clouseau's car after being shot off the road. Naturally, Clouseau knows differently and, taking advantage of not being alive, sets out to discover why an attempt was made on his life.

Eccentric detective Terry Seattle teams up with clueless celebrity guest stars to investigate a series of murders in this improvisational crime comedy.

A group of former Encyclopedia Brown-style child-detectives struggle to solve an adult mystery.

The lord and lady of a capacious manor are killed, and the lord's ghost seems to have returned to knock off the staff one by one, causing Inspector Winship and Dr. Tart to investigate the wacky house and its inhabitants.

The Falcon is called to a young woman's school to investigate a murder. When he arrives, another victim is discovered.

Each week Successville's loveable detective, D.I Sleet, enlists the help of a celebrity sidekick to solve the latest high-profile murder in this improvised comedy murder mystery series.

A hilarious whodunnit featuring Abigail Mapleworth, a mystery writer who solves crimes in her quaint hometown of New Woodstream, along with a “who’s who” of guest suspects and victims. It all leads to a bigger question: why the hell are there so many murderers in one town?

New York schoolmarm Hildegarde Withers assists a detective when a body of unscrupulous stockbroker Gerald Parker suddenly appears in the penguin tank at the aquarium.

Conniving Broadway starlet Mida King has plenty of enemies, so when she's found murdered at Grand Central Station, Inspector Gunther calls together a slew of suspects for questioning. Mida's shady ex-flame, Turk, seems the most likely culprit, but when smart-mouthed private eye Rocky Custer -- also a suspect himself -- begins to piece together the crime, a few clues that Gunther has overlooked come to light.

When the coach of the France soccer team is killed by a poisoned dart in the stadium in the end of a game, and his expensive and huge ring with the diamond Pink Panther disappears, the ambitious Chief Inspector Dreyfus assigns the worst police inspector Jacques Clouseau to the case.

Love with a clerk and a robbery by gangsters preoccupy a department store's new owner.

Torchy, Steve, and Gahagan are on the trail of a bank robber aboard an ocean liner traveling from New York to L.A. via the Panama Canal.

Detective Inspector Jacques Clouseau is borrowed from the Surete on special assignment for Scotland Yard in hopes that a fresh outlook will help the government recover the loot from the Great Train Robbery, which is being used to underwrite a new crime wave. What they don't count on, however, is having more than one Clouseau on the job.

When a beautiful and mysterious woman bursts into the office of Leo Falloon, desperate to find her missing brother, it's just another day in the life of a hard-boiled detective. The problem is, Leo's not a detective. He sells novelty advertising across the hall from the detective, but how hard can it be?

A rich man dead, a town full of suspects, narratives filled with lies and an innocent convict. How will Charlie navigate through the mystery when every face hides a secret?

While making his nightly rounds in the neighborhood, Patti's pet cat D.C. finds himself the carrier of a call for help from a kidnap victim. Patti enlists skeptical law enforcement help to find the victim before it's too late.

John Brown is a bumbling but well-intentioned security guard who is badly injured in an explosion planned by an evil mastermind. He is taken to a laboratory, where Brenda, a leading robotics surgeon, replaces his damaged limbs with state-of-the-art gadgets and tools. Named "Inspector Gadget" by the press, John -- along with his niece, Penny, and her trusty dog, Brain -- uses his new powers to discover who was behind the explosion.

Charles Rowland and Edwin Payne — who decided not to enter the afterlife in order to stay on earth — investigate crimes involving the supernatural.