10 of the greatest murder mysteries of all time

4. The Hollow Man (1935) – John Dixon Carr

When it comes to locked room mysteries specifically, few hold as high a profile as The Hollow Man. The novel was specifically referenced in Dead Man’s Wake by Benoit Blanc, detective Daniel Craig, and praised by Knives creator Rian Johnson as a “stunning and complex mystery”. The film features Carr’s regular detective lead, Gideon Fell, who leaves him to solve the murder of Professor Charles Grimaud, who was found shot to death in his office moments after receiving a mysterious visitor, who disappeared without a trace. The beguiling novel was well received by crime fans and general readers alike, not least the lecture Phil gives the character late on the nature of locked room mysteries and their possible solutions; Such was his influence, this chapter itself has been republished as a standalone article on numerous occasions, although delivered by a fictional detective.

5. Green Peril (1946) – Sidney Gilliat

Adapting the novel by lesser-known Golden Age crime author Christiana Brand, British director Sidney Gilliat was an excellent choice to highlight the already baffling crime due to his experience co-writing the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller The Lady Disappears (1938). But Green for Danger shows that Gilliat’s directorial skill is equally suited to the murder mystery. Brand’s story follows Inspector Cockerill (played by Alistair Sim) as he gets to the bottom of a double murder; One was skillfully performed in a medical room during an operation, and the other was deposited as a witness to the former during a World War II blackout. Cockerill must unravel a web of connections and tensions between a small coterie of suspicious staff at the hospital, while also navigating the natural chaos of wartime England.

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6. The Living and the Dead (1954) – Boileau Narcejak

The French crime writing partnership of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac cornered the market in the 1950s with a host of sophisticated crime films, including the brilliant She Who Was No More (which director Henri-Georges Clouzot adapted as the classic Les Diaboliques). Another of their novels, The Living and the Dead (1954), is most famous for the film it inspired, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), and also demonstrates their skill at depicting emotional trauma and delivering relentlessly brutal twists. When his friend Gévinie assigns the Parisian lawyer Roger to investigate his wife’s strange behavior, Roger inevitably ends up falling in love with her. What follows is a haunting mix of supernatural insinuations and cruel criminal intrigue, as a simple investigation inevitably conceals a more complex murder.

7. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) – Dario Argento

After a higher dose of gore, the Italian Giallo film genre is a must-have for any fan of murder mysteries. Giallo films took their name from the stark yellow covers of paperback murder thrillers, looked to translated crime stories for inspiration, and added a healthy injection of gory horror. No one succeeded in this endeavor like Dario Argento, and his first film, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), showcases his visual talent and psychological insight. When American writer Sam (Tony Musanti) witnesses the attempted murder of Monica (Eva Rienzi) in a Roman art gallery late at night, he is quickly immersed in a tense story pursued by a killer in a black hat and leather gloves. Like many of Argento’s giallo films, the dramatic twists and turns are offset by sheer, gritty violence that often achieves a kind of operatic quality, until the final reveal of the killer.

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8. The Black Tower (1975) – B. D. James

British writer P. D. James (along with another genius, Ruth Rendell) inherited Agatha Christie’s mantle as the queen of the traditional novel of murder and murder mysteries. Her books following DI Adam Dalgliesh are really her crowning achievement, and The Black Tower (1975) is a great example of the series’ very special character. With a darker tone than her other Dalglish novels, thanks to its hero being off duty and recovering from leukemia, The Black Tower follows him as his convalescence is interrupted by a series of increasingly suspicious deaths in a rural nursing home. Initially considered somewhat slow by critics—Newgate Callendar of The New York Times noted that the book was “heavy” and would “try most readers’ patience”—in hindsight, The Black Tower fully highlights James’s distinct approach as a crime novelist, favoring fine detail, precise characterization, and sombre atmosphere over fireworks and showy shocks.

9. The Detective (1972) – Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Anthony Shaffer’s adaptation of his own play, Mankiewicz’s Sleuth (1972) is perhaps the most self-aware entry on this list, given its characters’ fluency with clichés and murder mystery metaphors. The film pits crime novelist Andrew (Laurence Olivier) against his wife’s lover, Milo (Michael Caine), and the plot descends into a nasty power game in which the pair fake crimes in order to manipulate each other. The film received more critical acclaim than the play, with four Academy Award nominations, including one each for Olivier and Caine. While built on the strong performances of these leading men, Detective certainly showed Shaffer firing on all cylinders; Its clever trick and unforgiving finale are completely unforgettable.

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10. Have Mercy on Us All (2001) – Fred Vargas

Vargas (real name Frédéric Audoin Rousseau), one of France’s greatest living crime writers, continues the Gallic trend honed by Georges Simenon and Boileau-Narcejac of associating murder mysteries with more Gothic styles. Indeed, her series of novels following the anarchist Commissioner Adamsberg often cast Paris as a city more in the eerie tradition of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera than a modern crime novel. This film is, somewhat anachronistically, about a town crier in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, who is paid by a mysterious figure to recite mysterious, ominous messages about a plague that will soon return to the city. When symbols of the plague appear on the doors of local residents, followed by deaths that appear to be the result of flesh-blackening plague-infested flea bites, Adamsberg embarks on a particularly dark investigation in this bleak but utterly compelling page-turner.

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