10. BULLITT (1968)

Steve McQueen with an upside down shoulder holster and a green Mustang? Shit yeah. Based on real life Bay Area cop Dave Toschi (as was Dirty Harry, to some extent) Frank Bullitt is a no nonsense cop in a no nonsense movie with a no nonsense title. What’s it about? Bullitt. What’s it called? Bullitt. What comes out his gun? Bullits. MIND BULLITTS.

9. ROPE (1948)

One of Hitchcock’s most underrated films, Rope is one of his most tense, one of his most brilliantly acted and one of my favorites. After two college graduates kill their freind and have a dinner party with his corpse in the room, James Stewart, playing against type as a bit of an asshole, slowly works out what’s happened and slowly racks up the tension, applying more and more pressure on the murderers until they – and the audience – reach breaking point. And, no, of course it wasn’t all filmed in one take.

8. CASINO (1995)

Honestly? I think Casino is ten times the movie GoodFellas is. GoodFellas is all about Henry Hill (played by Ray “what happened to my career?” Liotta) making Bambi eyes and pretending to be remourseful about his criminal past when, in actual fact, he’s nothing but a stooge and a coward, while Casino is about real gangsters, doing real gangster shit. One man’s rise to power and his eventual downful, Casino is, like GoodFellas, stunningly lensed and mesmerisingly acted, but, unlike GoodFellas, it pulls no punches.

7. HALLOWEEN (1978)

The film that launched the slasher genre and the careers of John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis, Halloween is rightly remembered as one of the best films of its kind. Who knew a man in a William Shatner mask could be so bloody scary? John Carpenter, that’s who. The classic images of the film, coupled with the genuinley unnerving soundtrrack – composed by Carpenter – make for essential horror viewing that, even today, still has the power to creep audiences out.

6. ROCKY (1976)

One of the all time great feel-good movies, Rocky is, nonetheless, quite a downbeat affair, especially compared to the later films in the series. Sure, Rocky loses the fight and gets beat to a bloody pulp, but along the way he finds love, friendship and realises that he has something to live for. The later films may have tarnished the reputation of the original, but it remains one of my all time favorite films and one that, if I come across it on TV, I’m compelled to watch to the end.

5. SCARFACE (1932/1983)


Whether you’re talking about the 1932 original or its more widley seen Al Pacino starring remake, there’s no denying that Scarface is a powerful movie. The remake is a rare example of a remake being better than the original, but both are classic examples of gangster cinema. The original stars Paul Muni as Itallian thug-turned-kingpin Tony Camonte and the remake, of course, boasts an incredible performance from Al Pacino as thug-turned-drug lord Tony Montana

4. PSYCHO (1960)

Based on a novel by Robert Bloch, Psycho is Alfred Hitchcock’s most well known film and the film that he’ll forever be remembered for, Psycho is, in actual fact far from Hitchcock’s best film, but the fact that Hitch was betteron his worst day than most are on their best makes Psycho a classic. Single handedly creating the slasher genre, there’s actually very little blood in the film, regardless of the film’s gory reputation. The masterfully edited “shower scene” is worth the price of admission alone, but for my money, the death of Detective Arbogast is the more shocking scene.

3. CASABLANCA (1942)

I’m shocked that it’s taken this long for me to get around to writing about Casablanca on this site. I mentioned it in passing on the “original casting choices” list, but that was more an excuse to wax lyrical about how awesome Bogart was than anything else. One of the all time classics of any genre and the perfect example of how “they don’t make ‘em like they used to” Casablanca is a close to perfect movie. From the pitch perfect performances from a cast comprised soley of Hollywood legends to the brilliantly tight plotting and snappy dialouge, Casablanca should be required viewing for anyone with even a passing intrest in film. I don’t care if you’re a gorehound, a Western fan, a rom-com junkie or whatever, if you haven’t already done so, you need to see Casablanca.

2. UNFORGIVEN (1992)

There are two types of people in the world: John Wayne fans and Clint Eastwood fans. John Wayne fans are people who see the world in black and white (the bad guys are irredeemably bad and the good guys are saints) whereas Clint Eastwood fans tend to see the world in shades of grey. Me/ I’ve got a lot of time for the Duke, but Clint is not only a hundred times more badass in every concievable way, but is much more grounded in reality. The good guys don’t always win and sometimes the “good” guys are just as corrupt and immoral as the “bad.” Clint’s masterpeice, Unforgiven, bears this out, with Clint playing William Munny, the culmination of every gunslinger and cowboy he ever played, from Rowdy Yates to Josey Wales. Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman and Richard Harris are all on top form, but it’s Eastwood’s movie, and it’s brilliant. Interesting theory: at the end of the movie we learn that Munny moved to San Fransico and “prospered in dry goods.” I like to imagine that, to avoid unwanted attention, he changed his name to “Callaghan” and had a grandson who went into law enforcment…

1. JAWS (1975)

The film that made people sit up and notice Steven Speilberg, the film that scared people out of the water and the film at the number one spot on our list today is 1975′s Jaws. The first true “blockbuster” movie, it paved the way for such “event movies” as Star Wars and Avatar, but more than that, it played to a deep and very primal fear that all human beings have: the fear of the unknown. Never before had a film so effectivley played to our fear of what lies beneath and touched such a nerve with so many people as Jaws. Shark movies have been made since (including three increasingly risable sequels) but none have been able to recreate the fear – nay, terror – of Jaws. The title is iconic now, but in 1975 it must have been a strange title indeed, as it doesn’t tell the viewer anything about the film. Had it been made twenty years before it would’ve been called Attack of the Shark or something equally silly, but the cryptic title can only have added to the movie’s appeal. Thirty years on, and everybody – whether they’ve seen it or not – knows exactly what you’re talking about when you say the word Jaws to them and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the mark of a great movie title.

Honorable mentions in no particular order to:

1. Vertigo (1958)
Another Hitchcock classic.
2. Dracula/Frankenstein (1931)
The monster movies that started it all.
3. Spartacus (1960)
No, not the shitty TV show. The best movie of its kind ever made.
4. Seven (1995)
Intense and creepy, with a three brilliant performances from Freeman, Pitt and Spacey.
5. Clerks (1994)
He may be a bloated self parody now, but once upon a time Kevin Smith made a masterpeice. It was called Clerks.
6. Platoon (1986)
They say “war is hell.” This film shows that they’re not lying.
7. Goldfinger (1964)
It’s not the best Bond movie, but it’s pretty darn good.
8. Rambo (2008)
After the excess of the sequels, Stallone takes Rambo back to his roots.
9. Metropolis (1927)
Silent cinema at it’s best. A nightmare vision of the future.
10. Alien (1979)
In space, everyone can hear you say “Alien is awesome.”

What a movie is called is every bit as important as the content of the movie. After all, a masterpeice with a terrible title isn’t going to draw an audience. Similarly, if you make a movie that you know is shit, you can always slap a really snappy title and hope to hell that’ll bring people in – just as Roger Corman. Anyway, let me know your favorite one word movie titles and stick around for the next installment in our never ending series of top tens. End transmission.

10. DETECTIVE EDMUND EXLEY from L.A. CONFIDENTIAL

Just as the last list of Supercops kicked off with a character from L.A. Confidential, we start this one with his polar opposite, Edmund Exley. Young, idealistic and driven, Exley is everything Bud White isn’t. The Exley of the movie (played by the quite remarkably handsome Guy Pearce) has nothing on the Exley of the book who has way more grey areas to his past and personality than his celluloid counterpart, but even so he’s deserving of a place on the list, even if it is last place on the B-Team.

9. COMMISIONER JAMES GORDON from BATMAN

Officially, Commisioner Gordon does not approve of vigilantism in any form. Off the record however is quite a different story. Wether he’s being played by Neil Hamilton, Pat Hingle or Gary Oldman, Jim Gordon is one of Batman’s closest allies in the battle against crime. Once a simple beat cop stomping the mean streets of Gotham City, Gordon worked his way up to Commisioner and yet somehow always falls for it whenever Batman lurks in the shadows atop police headquarters to scare him shitless.

8. LIEUTENANT RAYMOND TANGO and LIEUTENANT GABRIEL CASH from TANGO & CASH

One’s named after a carbonated beverage, the other’s played by the guy from The Thing, together they are Tango and Cash and together they are tied at number eight. There are certain things that just go together – peanut butter and jelly, milk and cookies – and Tango and Cash are no exception. The movie’s no masterpeice, but it’s a fun and diverting couple of hours spent in the company of Sly Stallone and Kurt Russel, and what more can you really ask for?

7. SERGEANT JACK VINCENNES from LA CONFIDENTAL

Flashy and with more than a splash of Hollywood glitz about him, Kevin Spacey’s Jack Vincennes rounds out the trio of cops from LA Confidential. More concerned with his TV show Badge of Honor and tipping off the diminutive editor of “Hush Hush” magazine in exchange for hefty payoffs and the thrill of seeing his name in print than actual policework, Vincennes is nonetheless the most likeable of the three central characters of both film and book.

6. DETECTIVE FREDDY NEWANDYKE from RESERVOIR DOGS

Perhaps better known as Mr. Orange, Freddy Newandyke, played by Tim Roth, spends the majority of the film flat on his back screaming and bleeding. An undercover cop masquerading as a member of a gang of black suited diamond thieves, what should have been a relativley easy operation goes tits up when the psycopathic Mr. Blonde starts shooting innocent bystanders. In the ensuing chaos, Newandyke gets shot and begins dying slowly and painfully. Honorable mention to Officer Marvin Nash who, like Tyler at the Redeemed pointed out, allows Mr. Blonde to torture him and cut his ear off even though he knows Newandyke is an undercover cop.

5. SERGEANT FRANK DREBIN, DETECTIVE LIEUTENANT POLICE SQUAD from THE NAKED GUN

The lulziest cop on the list and the cop with the longest official title on any list of anything anywhere, Drebin was first seen in the crimally short lived TV series Police Squad! before being rusurrected on the big screen in the Naked Gun trilogy, quite possibly the most lol inducing trilogy of movies ever made. Played by the incomparable Leslie Neilsen, Drebin is not only an ace cop, but also the man Vince McMahon called in to unravel the mystery of the two Undertakers (don’t ask.)

4. OFFICER FRANK SERPICO from SERPICO

The first of three characters on this list to be based on real people, Frank Serpico, played by Al Pacino, is an idealistic New York city policeman who goes undercover to expose corruption in the NYPD. This, of course doesn’t go down well and Serpico ends the film in Greenwich Village, long haired and beared due to the threats and indimidation of his fellow cops. Pacino was nominated for an Oscar and won his first Golden Globe for his performance, a performance that is undoubtedly one of his very best.

3. DETECTIVE JAMES DOYLE from THE FRENCH CONNECTION

“Alright, Popeye’s here!” The second character on this list based on a real person, “Popeye” Doyle of the NYPD drug squad, played by the always fantastic Gene Hackman, is another of those “fuck your red tape” types who does whatever it takes to lock up drug dealers. Based on real life cop Eddie Egan, Doyle and his partner Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider) are, to quote the original poster, “bad news – but good cops.”

2. OFFICER JAMES MALONE from THE UNTOUCHABLES

The self proclaimed only good cop in town, Malone is an Irish American beat cop nearing retirment who throws in with Elliot Ness to take down Al Capone’s criminal empire in Prohibition-era Chicago. Played by Indiana Jones’ dad, Malone gets all the good lines in David Mamet’s great script including the now classic “they pull a knife, you pull a gun” speech. Interestingly and somewhat disingenuously, despite the film’s being based on a true story, Malone is an entirley fictional character.

1. LIEUTENANT FRANK BULLITT from BULLITT

The proto-Dirty Harry, Steve McQueen’s effortlessly cool Frank Bullitt was based on real life Bay Area cop Dave Toschi, a man most famous for investigating the Zodiac Killer. But his fictional counterpart had no time for decoding cyphers when there’s Jaqueline Bisset waiting to be romanced and Highland Green 1968 Mustangs to be driven at high speed on the trail of Mafia hitmen and mob bosses. Cutting through bullshit like a blowtorch trough butter, Bullitt pretty much sums up why Steve McQueen is remembered as the “king of cool.”

I’ve noticed there’s three Franks and three Jameses on this list – wonder why those names are so popular for fictional cops. Hmmm. Anyway, comment below. End transmission.

10. OFFICER BUD WHITE from L.A. CONFIDENTIAL

The most feared man in the LAPD and as ruthless as they come, Wendell “Bud” White is a gorilla of a man on a violent and self righteous quest against men who abuse women after witnessing his father beat his mother to death. As well as this crusade against wife beaters, he also has a vendetta against fellow officer Ed Exley who testified against Bud’s former partner and had him removed from the force. One of those characters who’s an asshole that you can’t help but like, the Bud White of the movie ain’t got shit on the Bud White of the book. Check it out if you haven’t already.

9. SHERIFF FREDDIE HEFLIN from COP LAND

Quiet, unassuming, hard of hearing and with limited authority, Freddie Heflin is, to quote a character in the movie, “the sherrif of Cop Land.” Masterfully played by Sylvester Stallone (one of the most underrated actors of his generation), Heflin finds his quiet little town invaded by corrupt NYPD and decides to take matters into his own hands. By the end of the film, Freddie has gone from passive and easy going to a shotgun toting avenger, wiping out the corrupt policemen that have taken control of his town. In a film that also stars Scorsese alumni Robert DeNiro, Ray Liotta, Harvey Keitel, Frank Vincent and Cathy Moriarty, Stallone makes Freddie seem less like a character in a movie and more like a real person, outshining his co stars and in some cases acting circles around them.

8. INSPECTOR JAQUES CLOUSEAU from THE PINK PANTHER

The first comedy cop on the list, Inspector Clouseau of the French Sûreté, the Peter Sellars version of course, bumbles his way to number eight. Created by Blake Edwards as a relativley minor character in the swinging sixties comedy The Pink Panther and proving so popular that he starred in a spin-off series of movies starting with 1964′s A Shot In The Dark. In 1968′s Inspector Clouseau, he was played by Alan Arkin who exaggerated some of the more over the top aspects of the character and when Sellars returned to the role he took what Arkin had done and turned the volume up to eleven making an already funny character one of the most hilarious characters in movie history.

7. CHIEF MARTIN BRODY from JAWS

The only man worth calling in a giant fish related emergency, Chief Brody (Roy Schieder) is the chief of police in the quaint and quiet little seaside town of Amity Island by day, but by night he heads out on the Orca in search of Carcharodon Carcharias. A former NYPD police officer, Brody moves is family to Amity where he deals with traffic violations and local karate clubs breaking fences until the day a twenty five foot shark decides to mosey on by and eat some tourists. Heading out with a sharkologist (I made that word up) and a shark hunter to find and kill the shark, Brody ends up clinging to the mast of a sinking ship and firing wildly at the shark. His reputation as shark killer extraordinaire was sealed in Jaws 2 when another shark shows up in Amity and is roasted by Brody. After that a memo went out around the shark world warning them to give Amity a wide bearth.

6. DETECTIVE AXEL FOLEY from BEVERLY HILLS COP

Remember when Eddie Murphy used to be funny? Before Pluto Nash, before the fat suits, before Mel B, there was a time fondly remembered by those fortunate enough to have lived through it when Eddie Murphy made movies like Delirious, Raw, Trading Places, Coming to America and, of course, Beverly Hills Cop. A former small time hoodlum who joins the Detroit PD after reforming, Axel F goes to Beverly Hills, California to investigate the murder of his friend. Hilarity and some pretty kick ass action ensue. Interestingly, the part of Axel was originally offered to Mickey Roarke and Sylvester Stallone before Eddie Murphy.

5. SERGEANT MARTIN RIGGS from LETHAL WEAPON

Putting aside my utter hatred for Mel Gibson for just a moment, even I have to admit that Lethal Weapon is a freakin’ awesome movie partly due to Gibson’s performance as former special forces operative Sgt. Martin Riggs of the LAPD. Depressed and suicidal after the death of his wife, Riggs is teamed with Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) to rescue Murtaugh’s daughter from her drug lord kidnappers. Gunning down perps with his Berretta 92, the awesomeness of Martin Riggs almost makes up for the anti semitism and holocaust denial and Jesus porn that has come since. Almost, but not quite.

4. INSPECTOR NICHOLAS ANGEL from HOT FUZZ

The only UK cop to make the list, Simon Pegg’s London supercop Nicholas Angel is our fourth greatest movie cop. Angel is sent to the sleepy village of Sandford, a crime free haven after making his fellow London cops “look bad” but, of course, Sandford turns out to be the tip of a criminal iceberg headed up by none other than James Bond himself, Timothy Dalton. Paired up with Nick Frost’s PC Danny Butterman and filled with the kind of blue fury that only an all night Bad Boys II/Point Break session can inspire in a man, Angel and Butterman take to the streets, armed to the eye teeth and ready to turn the streets of Sandford into a raging river of blood. All for the greater good, of course. The greater good.

3. ROBOCOP from ROBOCOP

Part man, part machine, all cop and all awesome, Robocop was formerly Detroit PD officer Alex Murphy and the straightest cop on four continents until a a bust went wrong and he was brutally murdered. Transformed into a crimebusting cyborg by Omni Consumer Products and dubbed RoboCop, Murphy takes to the streets like the anti-Terminator, kicking ass and taking names – but all by the book, of course. Wether he’s cruising the streets of new Detroit in his badass 1985 Ford Taurus and taking out criminals with his super-badass Auto-9, if he tells you to come quietly or there will be… trouble, it’s in your best intrests to do as he says.

2. DETECTIVE JOHN McCLANE from DIE HARD

A man who, according to the original Die Hard trailer, “doesn’t want to be a hero, but doesn’t have a choice,” John McClane is a chain smoker, is two steps away from being an alcoholic and who’s marriage is constantly on the rocks. But does that stop him being an utter, utter badass? No it does not. Wether he’s stopping Alan Rickman stealing a bunch of bearer bonds or preventing Jeremy Irons from nabbing half the gold in the Federal Reserve, McClane is the kind of guy you would want to have your back in a tight spot. It’s fitting that the McClane movies are called Die Hard because despite being an everyman, McClane is seemingly unkillable, stopping at nothing to take down badguys with a cheeky grin and a hearty cry of “yippi-ki-yay, motherfucker.”

1. INSPECTOR HARRY CALLAHAN from DIRTY HARRY

Do ya feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? The greatest movie cop of all time armed with the greatest movie weapon of all time and spitting out some of the greatest movie catchprhases of all time, “Dirty” Harry Callahan played by the king of the badasses Clint Eastwood is the guy the mayor of San Fransico turns to whenever he needs something done yesterday. With little or no regard for the more formal rules of policework, Callahan is the ultimate antihero, shooting his way through the red tape bullshit to take out perps with extreme prejudice. After all, this is the man who when seeing a naked man chase a woman with a gun in one hand and his dick in the other, he “figures he’s not out collecting for the Red Cross.” Thinking of breaking the law in the fine city of San Fransico? Go ahead… make his day.

So, once again, there you have it, the ultimate list of movie cops. Think Cadet Carey Mahoney should’ve made the list? Think that Burnett and Lowrey deserve a place? Or maybe you’re coming from way out of left field and think the T-1000 should’ve been there? Thoughts, comments, cheers and jeers below. End transmission.