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Agatha Christie, Edgar Allan Poe, Dashiell Hammett, Wilkie Collins are all some of the greatest mystery writers in history, and they are all English. It is not surprising that in this country the detective genre is better developed than anywhere else. In this compilation, we have collected the top 10 highly rated English detectives. The list includes films from different eras: from the 30s to the present.
10 Air Marshal (2014)
With obvious correlations to classics of detective fiction like And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express, Air Marshal tells the story of an air marshal (Liam Neeson) who foils a passenger who threatens to kill one person on a plane every 20 minutes unless he gets $150 million. As is the case with Agatha Christie’s most famous works, most of the main characters, including the protagonist, a troubled alcoholic, initially arouse our suspicions.
The characters are either too cooperative or not cooperative enough, oddly secretive, overly flirtatious, harboring a dark secret, or, in the zeitgeist, one Middle Eastern character (Omar Metwalli) is considered ethnically guilty.
9. Vanished Bunny Lake (1965)
The plot is mainly about American Ann Lake (Carol Lynley) and her inability to find her four-year-old daughter, Bunny, and her brother. If the movie had just shown the baby at the beginning, then the audience might have accepted the whole thing as a mystery. But it’s not entirely clear if Bunny really exists, and the presence of Police Inspector Newhouse (played by Laurence Olivier with great restraint and poise) is the driving force behind this suspense. Because the picture forces us to wonder not only who could have kidnapped the girl, but also whether she exists at all.
The growing sense of unease over the missing child is blunted a bit by Newhouse’s skepticism and the unease we feel about Anne and Steven’s relationship. A hint of weirdness, with a modern-day viewer’s realization of how thin the line between an incestuous relationship in 1965, leaves an uneasy aftertaste in a sister-brother relationship. Indeed, the initial phone conversation between them resembles a wife-husband conversation, and the police even mistake them for a married couple before informing Newhouse and company (as well as the audience) that they are in fact brother and sister.
8. Before I Sleep (2013)
Nicole Kidman plays Christina, a middle-aged woman who wakes up every morning with no memory of her life since she was 20. Not recognizing the man in her bed or her own face in the mirror, Christine must start each day with a lesson taught by Ben (Colin Firth) in a weary but endlessly patient tone: he is her husband; she had an accident; she has amnesia; tonight she would fall asleep and forget everything—again. The photographs on their bathroom wall tell the story of a lost life; romance, marriage, holidays – memories from time immemorial.
But while Ben is away from work, a phone call from the enigmatic Dr. Nasha (Mark Strong) alerts Christine to the existence of a camera on which she is keeping a secret video diary. According to the doctor, Christina was the victim of a brutal attack, the details of which are hidden by her husband. Whom should she trust – her oddly evasive spouse or not-so-good doctor?
7. The Lady Disappears (1938)
Lady Vanishes is one of the greatest train movies from the golden era of the genre. With the exception of the opening sequence at a hotel in a Central European village, the action takes place on a high-speed train that has only two official stops on its journey through the authoritarian Central European nation of Banrika. During this stressful journey, a middle-aged British spy posing as Miss Froy, an eccentric governess, is kidnapped by foreign agents. Shot on a modest budget, mostly in Gainsborough’s small studio in Islington, it doesn’t feel cramped or cut down and keeps you on your toes until the very end.
6. Death on the Nile (1978)
The 1978 adaptation of Death on the Nile is notable for several reasons. This was Pyotr Ustinov’s first appearance as Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in a film that won an Oscar for costumes and established itself as a daytime television favorite. Based on Christie’s 1937 novel, the film follows the beautiful, wealthy and newly married Lynette Doyle (Lois Chilis) who is found dead in her cabin on a luxurious river trip through Egypt in the early 1930s. There are many suspects on board who could pull the trigger, and Poirot must uncover the killer before he strikes again.
5. Shootout (1972)
Knockout is an exciting entertainment, alternately funny and scary, and always theatrical. The film is based on a play by Anthony Shaffer, who also wrote Hitchcock’s Madness. Both films have great dialogue and subtle counterpoint between irony and horror.
What really makes the film come alive and better than a play is the work of Sir Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine and Alec Cawthorne. Olivier plays wealthy mystery writer Andrew Wyke as a truly British eccentric: his head, like his house, is cluttered with ornate artifacts, mostly useless. Olivier clearly enjoys this role, which can be seen in every frame.
4. River London (2009)
London River, a short two-part film by Rashid Bouchareb, demonstrates how great acting can fill a banal politically correct drama with spoonfuls of emotional truth. This cozy story is about the convergence of two cultures, each of which is personified by a person. The movie is as cute as Driving Miss Daisy, though London River is more gritty and sadder and not as well written.
3. Endeavor (2012)
It’s a prequel to the long-running Inspector Morse series and, like the original, is set primarily in Oxford. Sean Evans portrays a young Morse beginning his career as a constable and later as a detective sergeant with the Oxford City Police. Evans, 31, plays a young Morse who dropped out of school at Oxford University. He has joined the police and is investigating the murder of a 15-year-old girl found naked in Oxford Woods. Although Morse is the star of the series, using his crossword abilities to crack a case, he is essentially a side character this time around as D.I. Fred, played by the silent Roger Allam.
2. Spy, get out! (2011)
Perhaps international espionage is very similar to this. No thrilling car races and no fights, but rather a row of tired men smoking and drinking tea or whiskey while talking. “Spy, get out!” talks about the search for a Soviet spy in MI6, the British intelligence service. This mole is most likely one of the men in the room. The film is based on the 1974 novel by John Le Carré.
1. Day of Reckoning (2001)
Nicholas (Paul Bettany) is a 14th-century priest with a bad conscience. Guilty of adultery, he flees to the countryside and performs with a group of itinerant theatergoers led by Martin (Wille Dafoe). Although Nicholas has no acting talent, the troupe becomes attached to him, especially as he develops an interest in the mystery of the disappearance and death of several boys in the small town where the troupe has arrived. Nicholas exhumes the corpse, attracting the attention and wrath of the local magistrate, and discovers a conspiracy that his conscience cannot go unpunished. Since the courts, local law enforcement, the church, and the local nobility won’t listen, Nicholas must do it himself with the help of friends.