20 best movies like The Singing Detective (2003)

A struggling screenwriter inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends kidnap a gangster's beloved Shih Tzu.

In Los Angeles at the turn of the 1970s, drug-fueled detective Larry "Doc" Sportello investigates the disappearance of an ex-girlfriend.

In 1939, WBN, a fourth radio network, is about to take to America's airwaves. As if the confusion of the premiere night wasn't enough, Penny Henderson, the owner's secretary, must deal with an unhappy sponsor, an overbearing boss and a soon-to-be ex-husband who desperately wants her back. As the broadcast begins, a mysterious voice breaks the broadcast and suddenly members of the cast turn up dead. It's up to her husband Roger, to find out whodunit as the police chase him through the halls of WBN.

Detective Philip Marlowe tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife.

Director Billy Wilder adds a new and intriguing twist to the personality of intrepid detective Sherlock Holmes. One thing hasn't changed however: Holmes' crime-solving talents. Holmes and Dr. Watson take on the case of a beautiful woman whose husband has vanished. The investigation proves strange indeed, involving six missing midgets, villainous monks, a Scottish castle, the Loch Ness monster, and covert naval experiments. Can the sleuths make sense of all this and solve the mystery

During an annual board of trustees meeting, one of the trustees dies. Miss Marple thinks he’s been poisoned after finding a chemical on him. She sets off to investigate at the ship where he had just come from. The fourth and final film from the Miss Marple series starring Margaret Rutherford as the quirky amateur detective.

Victoria "V.I" Warshawski is a Chicago based private detective who agrees to babysit for her new boyfriend; then he is murdered. Being the detective type, she makes the murder her next case. In doing so she befriends the victim's daughter, Kat, and together they set out to crack the case.

Mafia hitman Tommy Spinelli (Joe Pesci) is flying to San Diego with a bag that holds eight severed heads, which he's bringing to his superiors to prove that some troublesome rival mobsters are permanently out of the picture. When his bag gets accidentally switched at the airport, Tommy must track down his duffel bag and the 8 heads it contains.

The true story of the investigation of the "Zodiac Killer", a serial killer who terrified the San Francisco Bay Area, taunting police with his ciphers and letters. The case becomes an obsession for four men as their lives and careers are built and destroyed by the endless trail of clues.

Juliet Forrest is convinced that the reported death of her father in a mountain car crash was no accident. Her father was a prominent cheese scientist working on a secret recipe. To prove it was murder, she enlists the services of private eye Rigby Reardon. He finds a slip of paper containing a list of people who are 'The Friends and Enemies of Carlotta'.

Society sleuths Nick and Nora Charles investigate a murder in a jazz club.

Set in 1920s New York City, this movie tells the story of idealistic young playwright David Shayne. Producer Julian Marx finally finds funding for the project from gangster Nick Valenti. The catch is that Nick's girl friend Olive Neal gets the part of a psychiatrist, and Olive is a bimbo who could never pass for a psychiatrist as well as being a dreadful actress. Agreeing to this first compromise is the first step to Broadway's complete seduction of David, who neglects longtime girl friend Ellen. Meanwhile David puts up with Warner Purcell, the leading man who is a compulsive eater, Helen Sinclair, the grand dame who wants her part jazzed up, and Cheech, Olive's interfering hitman / bodyguard. Eventually, the playwright must decide whether art or life is more important.

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

Jonathan Ames, a young Brooklyn writer, is feeling lost. He's just gone through a painful break-up, thanks in part to his drinking, can't write his second novel, and carouses too much with his magazine editor. Rather than face reality, Jonathan turns instead to his fantasies — moonlighting as a private detective — because he wants to be a hero and a man of action.

A writer of BAD detective novels is in full writers' block. He pretends to be the alibi of a beautiful woman who was arrested for murder at first thinking her innocent, but as she shows more and more interesting abilities (such as knife throwing) he begins to doubt his first assessment.

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

Nick and Frank Starkey were both policemen. A scandal forced Nick to leave the force, now a serial killer has driven the police to take him back. A web that includes Frank's wife, bribery, and corruption all are in the background as Nick tries to uncover the secret of where the killer will strike next, and finally must lay a trap without the police.

Detective Guy Johnson's client, Willie Heywood, is framed for murder. While Guy hides him so he can catch the real killer, both of them are nabbed by the police, tried, convicted and sentenced to jail: Guy for a year with Willie to be executed. On the way to jail, Guy comes across a clue and escapes from the police.

A year after Sheila is killed in a hit-and-run, her multimillionaire husband invites a group of friends to spend a week on his yacht playing a scavenger hunt-style mystery game. The game turns out to be all too real and all too deadly.

The Belgian detective Hercule Poirot investigates a series of murders in London in which the victims are killed according to their initials.

Police investigate when a man having an affair with his brother's wife disappears suddenly.

Concerned about his friend's cocaine use, Dr. Watson tricks Sherlock Holmes into travelling to Vienna, where Holmes enters the care of Sigmund Freud. Freud attemts to solve the mysteries of Holmes' subconscious, while Holmes devotes himself to solving a mystery involving the kidnapping of Lola Deveraux.

A mentally unhinged factory worker must decide whether to listen to his talking cat and become a killer, or follow his dog's advice to keep striving for normalcy.

To the Los Angeles elite, Ford Fairlane is known as "Mr. Rock 'n' Roll Detective." This loudmouthed ladies' man serves an exclusive rock star clientele, who depend on his keen eye and smug discretion. So when a heavy-metal musician dies mid-concert, Fairlane is on the case before the lights come up. But things turn shocking when radio personality Johnny Crunch hires Fairlane to find a missing groupie mere hours before he is electrocuted live on air.

The ambiguous suicide of a local beauty, weathergirl, cheese model, and Marilyn Monroe look-a-like finds an eager sleuth in David Rousseau, best-selling crime novelist. When Rousseau visits a remote Alps village for the reading of his friend's will he unwittingly, but irresistibly, gets caught in the tangled web of murder and small town politics in this off-beat mystery.

Rachel Watson, devastated by her recent divorce, spends her daily commute fantasizing about the seemingly perfect couple who live in a house that her train passes every day, until one morning she sees something shocking happen there and becomes entangled in the mystery that unfolds.

Over-the-hill gumshoe in Los Angeles seeks to avenge the killing of an old pal, another detective who had gotten himself involved in a case concerning a murdered broad, stolen stamps, a nickel-plated handgun, a cheating dolly, and a kidnapped pussycat.

Detective Inspector Richard Poole is transferred to Sainte Marie, an island in the Caribbean. Totally unsuited to the Caribbean way of life, Richard hates the sun, sea and sand and isn't used to the Sainte Marie style of policing. Working with the exotic Camille each week Richard investigates intricate and intriguing murders.

At Oceanfront High School, female students are being targeted by an unknown serial killer. Meanwhile, a married teacher hides his flings with nubile students, and an awkward male is frustrated by the plethora of uninhibited freewheeling young girls.

In late 1940s Los Angeles, Easy Rawlins is an unemployed black World War II veteran with few job prospects. At a bar, Easy meets DeWitt Albright, a mysterious white man looking for someone to investigate the disappearance of a missing white woman named Daphne Monet, who he suspects is hiding out in one of the city's black jazz clubs. Strapped for money and facing house payments, Easy takes the job, but soon finds himself in over his head.

A petty thief posing as an actor is brought to Los Angeles for an unlikely audition and finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation along with his high school dream girl and a detective who's been training him for his upcoming role...

A retired ex-cop and private detective gets mixed up in murder when he is asked to deliver blackmail money and walks into a 20 year old case involving the mysterious disappearance of an actress' former husband.

After attending a gathering on a billionaire's yacht during a European vacation, a New York cop and his wife become prime suspects when he's murdered.

Gumshoe Philip Marlowe is hired by the oafish Moose Malloy to track down his former girlfriend. He's also hired to accompany an effeminate playboy buy back some jewels. When the exchange results in the playboy's murder, Marlowe can't leave the case alone, and soon discovers it's related to Malloy's. As he gets drawn deeper into a complex web of intrigue by a mysterious blonde, the detective finds his own life in increasing jeopardy.

Three friends head to the seafront for a drunken weekend, only to be imprisoned on the top floor of their holiday apartment by a malevolent paranormal force.

Garralda is a troubled college student who only has to pass one last subject to obtain his academic degree. When his teacher catches him copying on a test, he requires him to perform a very unethical task in exchange for passing and thus achieving his goal.

After spending decades living in the shadow of his more famous and successful sibling, Consulting Detective Sigerson Holmes (Wilder) is called upon to help solve a crucial case that leads him on a hilarious trail of false identities, stolen documents, secret codes... and exposed backsides.

A ditsy reporter enlists the help of a sleazy private eye to solve a series of gory killings of female strippers at a Chicago nightclub.

After the theft of copies of SAT exams from a principal's office, teenage reporter Bobby Funke sets out to unmask the thief. Bobby prints an article fingering Class President Paul Moore as the thief, shredding the youth's reputation. But as Bobby gets to know Paul's girlfriend, Francesca, he comes to realize he was wrong about Paul, so he sets out to unmask the true culprit.

A private investigator helps a former flame solve the murder of her wealthy grandfather, who lived in a sprawling estate surrounded by his idiosyncratic family.

Christopher Gill is a psychotic killer who uses various disguises to trick and strangle his victims. Moe Brummel is a single and harassed New York City police detective who starts to get phone calls from the strangler and builds a strange alliance as a result. Kate Palmer is a swinging, hip tour guide who witnesses the strangler leaving her dead neighbor's apartment and sets her sights on the detective. Moe's live-in mother wishes her son would be a successful Jewish doctor like his big brother.

In a world where human beings and puppets live together, when the members of the cast of a children's television show aired during the 1990s begin to get murdered one by one, puppet Phil Philips, a former LAPD detective who fell in disgrace and turned into a private eye, takes on the case at the request of his old boss in order to assist detective Edwards, who was his partner in the past.

Two hit men walk into a diner asking for a man called "the Swede". When the killers find the Swede, he's expecting them and doesn't put up a fight. Since the Swede had a life insurance policy, an investigator, on a hunch, decides to look into the murder. As the Swede's past is laid bare, it comes to light that he was in love with a beautiful woman who may have lured him into pulling off a bank robbery overseen by another man.

In small-town Texas, affable and popular mortician Bernie Tiede strikes up a friendship with Marjorie Nugent, a wealthy widow well known for her sour attitude. When she becomes controlling and abusive, Bernie goes to great lengths to remove himself from her grasp.

Matt Lee Whitlock, respected chief of police in small Banyan Key, Florida, must solve a vicious double homicide before he himself falls under suspicion. Matt Lee has to stay a few steps ahead of his own police force and everyone he's trusted in order to find out the truth.

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.

A phobic con artist and his protege are on the verge of pulling off a lucrative swindle when the con artist's teenage daughter arrives unexpectedly.

Kyle Fisher has one last night to celebrate life as a single man before marrying Laura, so he sets out to Vegas with four of his best buddies. But a drug and alcohol filled night on the town with a stripper who goes all the way, turns into a cold night in the desert with shovels when the stripper goes all the way into a body bag after dying in their bathroom. And that's just the first of the bodies to pile up before Kyle can walk down the aisle...

Henry Petosa and Freddy Ace are twins who were separated being babies, and they do not know each other. Henry was adopted by a honest man, while Freddy becomes a gangster. Henry is very shy and has a lot of mental troubles. The film melts the two stories by a young writer who discovers that they were sons of an european noble and they own a large inheritance.

Supernatural private eye, Dylan Dog, seeks out the monsters of the Louisiana bayou in his signature red shirt, black jacket and blue jeans.