Harper is a cynical private eye in the best tradition of Bogart. He even has Bogie's Baby hiring him to find her missing husband, getting involved along the way with an assortment of unsavory characters and an illegal-alien smuggling ring.
A black detective becomes embroiled in a web of danger while searching for a fortune in missing drug money. During the course of his investigation, he encounters various old connections, ultimately confronting the criminal responsible for Shame's expulsion from the force. He must also deal with two women, Angela, a beautiful old flame, and Peaches, his energetic but annoying sidekick.
Ned Ravine is a police officer and lawyer who occasionally defends the delinquents he arrests. He crosses paths with seductive Lola Cain during an assignment and promptly begins an affair with her. Meanwhile, Ned's wife, Lana, is deep in an affair of her own. Lana and her lover are planning to murder Ned in an elaborate fashion so they can collect on his triple indemnity life insurance policy.
Browning is a PI with a bad cold, who's sent to investigate a case by a mysterious client. He stumbles across the body of a young woman and is stabbed to death, and when he wakes up in heaven, they tell him he's "marginal material," and they can only decide on his final destination through one last assignment: to go back and solve his own murder. As a dog. A cute fluffy little dog (Benji). Undaunted, Browning begins to investigate the case as best he can around his canine disabilities (dialing the phone presents a special challenge) to solve the murders, save the girl, and see justice done.
Inept private investigator Harry Dobbs meets vampish new client Miss Dolan, who wants him to follow her abusive lover. But Dobbs sets about tailing a different person entirely – a mysterious character leading a double life. Harry, however, discovers that he himself is being followed by a distaff gumshoe.
A man is questioned on the "Claude killings" in Los Angeles.
Private detective and former football player Harry Moseby gets hired on to what seems a standard missing person case - a former Hollywood actress wants Moseby to find and return her daughter. Harry travels to Florida to find her, but he begins to see a connection between the runaway girl, the world of Hollywood stuntmen, and a suspicious mechanic when an unsolved murder comes to light.
Real estate developer Jake Berman hires private investigator and war veteran Jake Gittes for some run-of-the-mill matrimonial work. After Berman shoots his wife's lover, who happens to be his business partner, Gittes is drawn into a web of conspiracy and deceit involving the oil reserves beneath Los Angeles. While investigating, Gittes hears a voice from his past that causes him to revisit a traumatic case in Chinatown.
The Falcon travels to Mexico where he gets involved with murder and a mysterious painting.
This movie debut for saucy British TV comic Benny Hill has Benny leaving his job as a sweeper after winning some money. He becomes a private detective and investigates a plot to assassinate British scientists.
Private eye Dold, a specialist in surveillance tasks, is sent to investigate a Frankfurt bordello boss. He's a pain in the butt for many in the red-light district and is to be overthrown to pave the way for financially strong speculators to lucratively redevelop the area. Dold, who always saw his work as morally justified, comes to doubt the rightness of his actions far too late.
A private detective and a college student find themselves in hot water while investigating the murder of a night club owner.
A private detective is offered a job protecting a rich business man from suspected blackmail. Before he can accept the case a murder is uncovered.
The Falcon is framed for the murder of a banker and the theft of war bonds. He makes his escape into the mountains where he hides out in a rustic lodge. From here he uncovers a phony war bond operation.
While an escaped convict, Moose Malloy, goes in search of his ex-girlfriend Velma, police inspector Michael O'Hara attempts to track him assuming him to be a prime suspect for a number of mishaps.
A wistful PI reflects on the case of Alice Draper, a young starlet whose death he failed to solve.
When Richard Logan, the partner in a safe making firm, is found unconscious, on an old deserted bomb site, he finds that he has no recollection of the last three weeks. Then he discovers that the private detective, hired by his wife, has been found murdered, and a safe that his firm installed in a large country house, has been cleverly opened, and the contents are missing. So with the help of his wife, he sets out to uncover the truth.
The Bad Boy Squad, a variety of private detective agency, is composed of King (Ekin Cheng Yi-kin), Queen (Kristy Yeung), and Jack (Louis Koo Tin-lok), whose primary source of business is the reuniting of clientèle with their first flames, and when the trio of young operatives returns to Hong Kong from an assignment in Thailand and the Squad's next three customers supply photographs of lost loves, the women in the pictures appear to be the same individual.
A private detective and his assistant are hired to find a missing husband by the detective's former girlfriend who dumped him. The case is quickly complicated by a sexy brunette, a missing bank executive, a castle in the desert, and a dead body with its "head blown off" but identified as the husband.
Travis McGee is a world-weary private eye trying to help boat skipper friend Van Harder salvage his reputation that sank when his boat ran aground, resulting in a death that might have been faked.