Best movies like The Detective

An adult look at a police detective

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Detective Starring Frank Sinatra, Lee Remick, Ralph Meeker, Jack Klugman, and more. If you liked The Detective then you may also like: The Wedding, Who'll Stop the Rain, Wild Horses, Narc, The New Centurions and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

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The Wedding

A young Muslim man, Rami, who is engaged to a young woman named Sara. We soon discover that Sam is also involved on the side with a young male artist named Lee.

Who'll Stop the Rain

John, a disillusioned Vietnam War journalist, turns to heroin smuggling. He cons Ray, an equally burnt out veteran into delivering the drugs stateside to his wife. Everything soon falls apart and Ray ends up on the run with John's wife trying to evade crooked narcotics agents.

Wild Horses

Texas Ranger Samantha Payne reopens a 15-year-old missing person case, and uncovers evidence that suggests that the boy was likely murdered on a ranch belonging to wealthy family man, Scott Briggs. When Scott’s estranged son unexpectedly returns home during the investigation, Samantha becomes even more convinced that the Briggs family was involved, and will stop at nothing to discover the truth about the boy’s death - even putting her own life in jeopardy.

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Narc

When the trail goes cold on a murder investigation of a policeman, an undercover narcotics officer is lured back to the force to help solve the case.

The New Centurions

An idealistic rookie cop joins the LAPD to make ends meet while finishing law school, and is indoctrinated by a seasoned veteran. As time goes on, he loses his ambitions and family as police work becomes his entire life.

Night Falls on Manhattan

A newly elected District attorney finds himself in the middle of a police corruption investigation that may involve his father and his partner.

The Onion Field

An LA police officer is murdered in the onion fields outside of Bakersfield. However, legal loopholes could keep his kidnappers from receiving justice, and his partner is haunted by overwhelming survivor's guilt.

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Q & A

A young district attorney seeking to prove a case against a corrupt police detective encounters a former lover and her new protector, a crime boss who refuses to help him.

5.5 / 10 2011 Crime Drama
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Rampart

The story follows veteran police officer Dave Brown, the last of the renegade cops, as he struggles to take care of his family, and fights for his own survival.

Report to the Commissioner

Police officer Patty Butler, alias "Chicklet," is the live-in girlfriend of Thomas 'Stick' Henderson to gather evidence. Detective Bo Lockley is instructed to try to find her, not knowing she's also a cop.

Rush

Undercover cop Jim Raynor (Jason Patric) is a seasoned veteran. His partner, Kristen Cates (Jennifer Jason Leigh), is lacking in experience, but he thinks she's tough enough to work his next case with him: a deep cover assignment to bring down the notoriously hard-to-capture drug lord Gaines (Gregg Allman). While their relationship turns romantic during the assignment, they also turn into junkies, and will have to battle their own addictions if they want to bring down Gaines once and for all.

Klute

A high-priced call girl is forced to depend on a reluctant private eye when she is stalked by a psychopath.

Across 110th Street

In a daring robbery, some $300,000 is taken from the Italian mob. Several mafiosi are killed, as are two policemen. Lt. Pope and Capt. Mattelli are two New York City cops trying to break the case. Three small-time criminals are on the run with the money. Will the mafia catch them first, or will the police?

Bad Lieutenant

While investigating a young nun's rape, a corrupt New York City police detective, with a serious drug and gambling addiction, tries to change his ways and find forgiveness.

Bending The Rules

Detective Nick Blades is a New Orleans cop on trial for corruption. Assistant District Attorney Theo Gold is the man in charge of putting him behind bars. When these two unlikely partners from opposite sides of the law stumble onto a criminal plot, they’ll need to rely on luck – and patience – to take down a dangerous killer without killing each other first.

The Big Easy

Remy McSwain is a New Orleans police lieutenant who investigates the murder of a local mobster. His investigation leads him to suspect that fellow members of the police force may be involved.

Blitz

A tough cop is dispatched to take down a serial killer who has been targeting police officers.

The Bone Collector

Rookie cop, Amelia Donaghy reluctantly teams with Lincoln Rhyme – formerly the department's top homicide detective but now paralyzed as a result of a spinal injury – to catch a grisly serial killer dubbed 'The Bone Collector'. The murderer's special signature is to leave tantalizing clues based on the grim remains of his crimes.

Broken City

In a broken city rife with injustice, ex-cop Billy Taggart seeks redemption and revenge after being double-crossed and then framed by its most powerful figure, the mayor. Billy's relentless pursuit of justice, matched only by his streetwise toughness, makes him an unstoppable force - and the mayor's worst nightmare.

Brown's Requiem

Fritz Brown is an ex-LAPD, recovering alcoholic who now splits his time repossessing cars for a used car lot and staffing his one-man private detective agency. When a filthy caddie named Freddy "Fat Dog" Baker wanders into Fritz's office one day, flashing a wad of cash, Fritz is hired to follow Fat Dog's kid sister Jane, who is holed up with a Beverly Hills sugar daddy named Sol Kupferman. Kupferman is a 70 year-old bag man for the mob, and Fat Dog claims that "Solly K" is up to something evil that may harm Jane. The trail leads Fritz to an encounter with his dark past in the person of Haywood Cathcart, current head of LAPD internal affairs and the person who kicked Fritz off the police force.

Busting

Two Los Angeles vice squad officers find themselves up against their corrupt superiors when they try to bring a crime boss to justice. During the course of their investigation, the two cops disguise themselves as gay men and raid a gay bar.

L.A. Confidential

Three detectives in the corrupt and brutal L.A. police force of the 1950s use differing methods to uncover a conspiracy behind the shotgun slayings of the patrons at an all-night diner.

Cop Land

Freddy Heflin is the sheriff of a place everyone calls “Cop Land” — a small and seemingly peaceful town populated by the big city police officers he’s long admired. Yet something ugly is taking place behind the town’s peaceful facade. And when Freddy uncovers a massive, deadly conspiracy among these local residents, he is forced to take action and make a dangerous choice between protecting his idols and upholding the law.

Cruising

A serial killer brutally slays and dismembers several gay men in New York's S&M and leather districts. The young police officer Steve Burns is sent undercover onto the streets as a decoy for the murderer. Working almost completely isolated from his department, he has to learn and practice the complex rules and signals of this little society.

The Stone Killer

A Los Angeles detective is sent to New York where he must solve a case involving an old Sicilian Mafia family feud.

Madigan

Policemen Bonaro and Madigan lose their guns to fugitive Barney Benesch. As compensation, the two NYC detectives are given a weekend to bring Benesch to justice. While Bonaro and Madigan follow up on various leads, Police Commissioner Russell goes about his duties, including attending functions, meeting with aggrieved relatives, and counseling the spouses of fallen officers.

Dark Blue

Set during the Rodney King riots, a robbery homicide investigation triggers a series of events that will cause a corrupt LAPD officer to question his tactics.

Gone Baby Gone

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 neighborhood in which they all live.

Gang Related

Two corrupt cops have a successful, seemingly perfect money making scheme- they sell drugs that they seize from dealers, kill the dealers, and blame the crimes on street gangs. Their scheme is going along smoothly until they kill an undercover DEA agent posing as a dealer, and then try to cover-up their crime.

Edison

In the troubled city of Edison, a young journalist, his jaded editor, and an honest investigator from the district attorney's office join forces to gather evidence against corrupt members of an elite police unit.

Freedomland

A black police detective must solve a strange case of a kidnapped boy and deal with a big racial protest.

Internal Affairs

Keen young Raymold Avila joins the Internal Affairs Department of the Los Angeles police. He and partner Amy Wallace are soon looking closely at the activities of cop Dennis Peck whose financial holdings start to suggest something shady. Indeed Peck is involved in any number of dubious or downright criminal activities. He is also devious, a womaniser, and a clever manipulator, and he starts to turn his attention on Avila.

True Believer

Eddie Dodd is a burnt out former civil rights lawyer who now specializes in defending drug dealers. Roger Baron, newly graduated from law school, has followed Eddie's great cases and now wants to learn at his feet. With Roger's idealistic prodding, Eddie reluctantly takes on a case of a young Korean man who, according to his mother, has been in jail for eight years for a murder he didn't commit.

No Place To Hide

Detective Joe Garvey is called in to a mysterious case: a ballerina has been slayed on stage during a performance, it seems she didn't even fight. At her house Garvey finds her 14 years old precocious sister Tinsel. She's not very cooperative, so he arranges to have her sent to the orphanage -- until she's attacked too. He takes her under his wings, and soon both get the attention of a secret organization.

Mulholland Falls

In 1950s Los Angeles, a special crime squad of the LAPD investigates the murder of a young woman.

Pride and Glory

A saga centered on a multi-generational family of New York City Police officers. The family's moral codes are tested when Ray Tierney, investigates a case that reveals an incendiary police corruption scandal involving his own brother-in-law. For Ray, the truth is revelatory, a Pandora's Box that threatens to upend not only the Tierney legacy but the entire NYPD.

Prince of the City

New York City detective Daniel Ciello agrees to help the United States Department of Justice help eliminate corruption in the police department, as long as he will not have to turn in any close friends. In doing so, Ciello uncovers a conspiracy within the force to smuggle drugs to street informants.

Shakedown

When a local drug dealer shoots a dishonest cop in self-defense, lawyer and renegade undercover cop join forces to clear him. But when their investigation leads them into a maze of greed and corruption, they learn that in a town where everything is for sale, anything can happen.

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True Blue

Rembrandt Macy (Tom Berenger) is a maverick cop assigned to a case where the primary evidence is a woman's hand found in a pond. Investigators identify the dead, and Macy is lead into a young woman's past. Macy's primary path to understanding the victim is through one of her roommates, Nikki. Through Nikki and others, Macy learns of the victim's shady contacts at City Hall, the involvement of a gang of Asian drug runners, and the sordid affairs of one of the city's bigwigs. As Macy begins to understand how all these crimes fit together, he learns that his new friend Nikki is not an innocent bystander.

Fort Apache, the Bronx

From the sight of a police officer this movie depicts the life in New York's infamous South Bronx. In the center is "Fort Apache", as the officers call their police station, which really seems like an outpost in enemy's country. The story follows officer Murphy, who seems to be a tuff cynic, but in truth he's a moralist with a sense for justice.

Badge of the Assassin

Three black revolutionaries gun down two New York City police officers. The subsequent investigation puts a white assistant DA and a black police detective on the trail of the killers that leads from New York to San Francisco and down to New Orleans.

Tony Rome

Tony Rome, a tough Miami PI living on a houseboat, is hired by a local millionaire to find jewelry stolen from his daughter, and in the process has several encounters with local hoods as well as the Miami Beach PD.

Traces of Red

Jack, a Palm Beach detective, becomes involved in a case of multiple murders. All the women can be linked to Jack in some way. Jack and his partner have no leads, but numerous suspects. The murders continue, along with anonymous letters from the killer.

The Son of No One

A rookie cop is assigned to the 118 Precinct in the same district where he grew up. The Precinct Captain starts receiving letters about two unsolved murders that happened many years ago in the housing projects when the rookie cop was just a kid. These letters bring back bad memories and old secrets that begin to threaten his career and break up his family.

The Glass Shield

J.J. is a rookie in the Sheriff's Department and the first black officer at that station. Racial tensions run high in the department as some of J.J.'s fellow officers resent his presence. His only real friend is the other new trooper, the first female officer to work there, who also suffers similar discrimination in the otherwise all-white male work environment. When J.J. becomes increasingly aware of police corruption during the murder trial of Teddy Woods, whom he helped to arrest, he faces difficult decisions and puts himself into grave personal danger in the service of justice.

Righteous Kill

Two veteran New York City detectives work to identify the possible connection between a recent murder and a case they believe they solved years ago; is there a serial killer on the loose, and did they perhaps put the wrong person behind bars?

Exiled

NYPD Detective Mike Logan, who was demoted to a beat on Staten Island after punching a corrupt politician, seeks to solve the grisly murder of a prostitute and thereby help regain his old job in Manhattan.

L.A. Confidential

As corruption grows in 1950s LA, three policemen - one strait-laced, one brutal, and one sleazy - investigate a series of murders with their own brand of justice.

Narx

Based on a shocking true story. An undercover cop puts his life on the line to fight corruption in his department, while trying to take down the biggest Drug Kingpin of New York City. No one can be trusted as the body count rises.

The Pusher

A detective investigating the murder of a heroin addict discovers that there is a connection between the junkie and his fiance, who is his boss' daughter.

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