Eight of the most out­ra­geous bud­dy cop movies

When Humphrey Bog­a­rt unex­pect­ed­ly joined forces with Claude Rains at the end of Casablan­ca, the seeds of the bud­dy cop film were sewn. Writer/​director Shane Black is an old hand at the genre hav­ing revi­talised it in 1987 with Lethal Weapon in which Mel Gibson’s near-sui­ci­dal detec­tive, Rig­gs, is paired with Dan­ny Glover’s by-the-book Murtaugh.

Black’s 2005 film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, where Robert Downey Jr’s sneaky thief is mis­matched with a gay detec­tive played by Val Kilmer, was more or less a warm up for his lat­est, The Nice Guys, which sees louche pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor Hol­land March (Ryan Gosling) team up with thug-for-hire Jack­son Healy (Rus­sell Crowe). From the moment Crowe breaks Gosling’s arm you know this is the begin­ning of a beau­ti­ful friend­ship. With The Nice Guys hit­ting cin­e­mas, here are eight mem­o­rable bud­dy cop movies – fea­tur­ing law enforcers paired with dogs, aliens and accoun­tants – to get you in the mood.

Aki­ra Kurosawa’s police pro­ce­dur­al is one of the ear­li­est bud­dy cop movies. Set dur­ing an unbear­ably hot sum­mer in Tokyo, it pairs rook­ie police­man Toshiru Mifu­ne with vet­er­an Takashi Shimu­ra in a bid to track down Mifune’s stolen gun. As with all these films, its suc­cess depends on the unlike­li­ness of the leads get­ting along – when ide­al­is­tic, nervy Mifu­ne firsts meets Shimu­ra, the lat­ter is eat­ing ice lol­lies and shar­ing cig­a­rettes with a sus­pect he is sup­posed to be inter­ro­gat­ing. Mifu­ne is hor­ri­fied and there doesn’t seem to be a cat in hell’s chance of these two work­ing well togeth­er. Of course, it’s not long before they’re see­ing eye to eye.

Vir­gil ​“they call me Mis­ter” Tibbs (Sid­ney Poiti­er) is an out­stand­ing homi­cide cop, forced to work along­side racist red­neck sher­iff Gille­spie (Rod Steiger) in Mis­sis­sip­pi, after he is inad­ver­tent­ly caught up in a mur­der inves­ti­ga­tion. Like Stray Dog, the film takes place dur­ing a swel­ter­ing sum­mer, which sees the ten­sion between the two char­ac­ters boil over. Based on John Ball’s ground­break­ing 1965 nov­el, Nor­man Jewison’s film works as both a clever who­dunit and an uncom­fort­able exam­i­na­tion of deep-root­ed racial tensions.

When a mur­der­ous street gang lay siege to an iso­lat­ed, soon to be decom­mis­sioned police sta­tion, offi­cer Austin Stok­er finds him­self in the unen­vi­able posi­tion of hav­ing to team up with Dar­win Jos­ton, a dan­ger­ous crim­i­nal cur­rent­ly in the police sta­tion cells, to defeat the gang. John Carpenter’s nod to Howard Hawks’ Rio Bra­vo (in which John Wayne’s sher­iff relies on a drunk Dean Mar­tin), Assault on Precinct 13 is a bril­liant­ly tense action film, its most elec­tri­fy­ing moment com­ing when Stok­er and Jos­ton join forces. By the end their rela­tion­ship is strange­ly moving.

A hard­boiled white cop is teamed with a street smart black con­vict to track down a killer in two days. Wal­ter Hill’s wild­ly enjoy­able com­e­dy thriller blast­ed new­com­er Eddie Mur­phy to super­star­dom, and lit­tle won­der. Play­ing off against a gruff and irri­ta­ble Nick Nolte, Mur­phy is like a kid in a can­dy store, and the scene where he swag­gers into a red­neck bar is a clas­sic, fea­tur­ing some of cinema’s most mem­o­rable – and unprint­able – put-downs.

Jack Sholder’s under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed sci-fi thriller has Michael Nouri as an LA cop who enlists the help of an alien cop, played by Kyle MacLach­lan (com­ing on like a smart suit­ed Spock), to track down a par­a­sitic mon­ster wreak­ing hav­oc in the city. It’s Bev­er­ly Hills Cop meets It Came from Out­er Space, and it’s a total blast. For more alien/​cop fun see 1988’s Alien Nation.

Robert De Niro is on fine form here as a boun­ty hunter attempt­ing to get Charles Grodin’s bail-skip­ping mob accoun­tant to Los Ange­les. The union of leather-jack­et­ed heavy and sim­per­ing white-col­lar crim­i­nal is a pure joy, espe­cial­ly when it becomes appar­ent that Grodin is play­ing his cap­tor. As one IMDb review­er notes: ​“It has every­thing except a few Acad­e­my Awards and that’s a mys­tery in itself.”

Hav­ing seem­ing­ly exhaust­ed all bud­dy cop for­mats, this action com­e­dy sees Tom Han­ks’ detec­tive team up with his dead pal’s dog, a slob­ber­ing French mas­tiff, whom he hopes will help solve a crime – if the hound doesn’t destroy his apart­ment first. It’s basi­cal­ly The Odd Cou­ple with a dog in the Wal­ter Matthau role. In a decade of high con­cept non­sense, Turn­er and Hooch was a box office hit, result­ing in sev­er­al cheap knock offs in the form of K‑9 and Top Dog. The lat­ter is, erm, a real howler.

Michael J Fox plays a jad­ed, spoiled Hol­ly­wood megas­tar who decides the only way to pre­pare for his forth­com­ing role as a New York cop in a crum­my action film is to hang out with the real thing. Much to the cha­grin of James Woods no-non­sense lieu­tenant, who is lum­bered with the brat­tish star as a ride along on a mur­der inves­ti­ga­tion. Direc­tor John Bad­ham also made bud­dy copy clas­sics Stake­out and Blue Thun­der, where Roy Scheider’s pilot cop not only doesn’t get on with his part­ner, but also has seri­ous reser­va­tions about the police heli­copter he has to fly. Talk about conflict!

The Nice Guys is released 3 June.