Lethal Weapon (1987)
End of Watch is being praised for its realistic depiction of the LAPD, but what makes David Ayer’s action-drama so believable is its two lead buddy cops, played by Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña. It’s a dynamic that, in a way, owes its dramatic debt to Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson), a suicidal loose cannon who is a hollow husk of a man before he meets by-the-book partner Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover), who ends up giving the Vietnam vet the family he tragically lost. Funny, fearless and heartwarming, they’re the best buddy cop duo there is Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar
Infernal Affairs (2002)
The Hong Kong template for Martin Scorsese’s 2006 remake, The Departed, centres on two cops: an office-based traitor secretly leaking intelligence to the triads and a police mole embedded in the same gang. It’s the latter, Yan, played marvellously by Tony Leung, who fascinates, though. Immersed for 10 years in a triad culture of violence and criminality, he has sacrificed his life to fight monsters, yet faces the prospect of becoming one himself. As his crisis of identity deepens, however, so does the danger of being caught Photograph: Public Domain
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Detroit’s streetwise, sharp-talker Axel Foley is the ultimate comedy cop. Yet while he became Eddie Murphy’s signature, it could so easily have been first choice Sylvester Stallone, who would have slurred through the role like a dying tractor. Thankfully, what we got is Murphy at his fast, filthy, funny best – powering the entire fish-out-of-water plot (which is flimsy, at best) through sheer charisma. It’s this natural, improvised charm that allows his character to lie, cheat and pose so convincingly. Plus, he has an ace theme tune Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar
Fargo (1996)
Frances McDormand’s Marge Gunderson is not like other cops. She doesn’t have a drink problem, she isn’t a wisecracking hard-ass who won’t play by the rules – hell, she’s not even a day from retirement. Instead, the Coen brothers’ greatest creation is a polite, pregnant police commissioner who never loses her head beyond a simple “aw, jeez”. Even in the final act, when talking to a man arrested for killing six people, she adopts the gentle tone of a teacher: “There’s more to life than a little money, you know?” She’s not angry – just disappointed Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar
Robocop (1987)
Inspired by Judge Dredd and Blade Runner, Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop – a super-cyborg – is a satirical reaction to everything the conservative cop genre holds dear. Billed as “part man, part machine, all cop”, he is what remains from the brutal murder of police officer Alex Murphy, who, thanks to Verhoeven’s use of Christian symbolism, is resurrected as a violent RoboJesus. Ridiculous? Well, yes, but he does serve as a vessel for not only the film’s themes of capitalism and masculinity, but also the existential quandary of human identity Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar
Die Hard (1988)
Before he started talking to chairs, Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry was the epitome of the trigger-happy, catchphrase cop. Yet out of his legacy crawled John McClane – bloodied, bruised and probably wearing a vest. Always “the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time”, he is the foul-mouthed, New York maverick with a marriage on the rocks, a disregard for authority and a looming addiction to alcohol. Even so, for all his cliched characteristics, no other cop is half as sharp, funny or entertaining as Bruce Willis’s McClane. Yippee-ki-yay Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Virgil Tibbs is, by far, the most culturally important detective on this list, In the Heat of the Night having been released three years after the Civil Rights Act. Played by Sidney Poitier, the first black actor to win an Oscar, Tibbs is the smart, straight-talking Philadelphia detective investigating a murder in a racist Mississippi town. His defining moment comes when slapped by white suspect Eric Endicott. In the book from which the film is adapted, Tibbs doesn’t slap him back. In 1967, however, the resulting change may as well have been a grenade Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Hannibal Lecter may have stolen (and eaten) the show but Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling was the true conduit for our horror, making us feel just as out of our depth as she is. A trainee FBI agent (so technically not police), she’s tasked with gathering insight into an at-large murderer by analysing Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a cannibalistic serial killer who analyses back. As she unwisely opens up to him, we get a layered glimpse into someone who is not only tenacious but tortured too. It’s a mix masterfully pulled off by Foster, who was perfect for the role Photograph: Cinetext/Allstar
The Dark Knight trilogy (2005-2012)
Pre-Christopher Nolan, Commissioner Gordon was little more than Batman’s buddy. The Dark Knight trilogy, however, casts him as a cop conflicted between what is right and what is necessary, whether that means not apprehending a masked vigilante or perpetuating a lie. It’s a moral dilemma that Nolan develops from Frank Miller’s Year One comic, which deals with his first year in a corrupt Gotham, yet is given a sense of depth by Gary Oldman’s portrayal of a decent man in an indecent time. For Gordon is the real guardian of Gotham City, one with no mask to hide behind Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar
Heat (1995)
At the ever-burning heart of Heat is Al Pacino’s theatrical, wild-eyed Lt Vincent Hanna, an LAPD homicide detective whose devotion to the job has left his personal life in ruins. Not only is Pacino ferociously entertaining (“she’s got a great ass!”), but Hanna’s reluctant respect for the criminal Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) makes for a showdown of unparalleled gravitas and suspense. It’s the first time Pacino and De Niro appeared on screen together, resulting in a clash that reaches its peak with that memorable scene in the diner. As Hanna says: “Brother, you are going down” Photograph: Moviestore Collection/Rex Features
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