One of the great legacies of film is the buddy cop movie – two wildly mismatched partners forced to stick together to solve a huge mystery and/or blaze through a series of over-the-top action sequences designed to devastate municipal economies. It’s a trope we’ve enjoyed for years, most recently exemplary displayed inBad Boys For Life, the latest entry in one of the best buddy cop series in history. In celebration of both that film’s digital release and the interest of public service, I’ve ranked ten of the best buddy cop movies ever made. This is not a definitive list, as I’ve left out all explicit spoofs likeLoaded Weapon 1and any movie involving a dog partner, but you should regard it as commandments chiseled in stone as far as things to watch while stuck inside during quarantine.
10. The Other Guys
The Other Guysshould technically be disqualified because it is a spoof of buddy cop movies, but the chemistry betweenMark WahlbergandWill Ferrellis undeniable. (It’s so good, in fact, that they did a whole other series together with theDaddy’s Homemovies.) Ferrell plays a ludicrously stuffed shirt police detective primarily concerned with low action crimes like tax evasion, while Wahlberg longs for the action of a car chase or a high stakes drug bust. It’s a send-up of the buddy cop tropes, but the movie does such a good job of restraining Ferrell and Wahlberg from their respective personas that it results in a wholly unique film that continually defies your expectations in the best possible way. Ferrell is the quiet straight man, and Wahlberg is the outspoken idiot who can’t actually pull off any of the badass things we’ve seen him do in countless other films. It creates a fun game that is indelibly watchable and doesn’t require you to be familiar with the tropes it’s playing with.
9. Die Hard with a Vengeance
Die Hardis a series about one man fighting against the odds, so I admit it’s unusual to see aDie Hardmovie on a list of buddy cop films. ButDie Hard with a VengeanceteamedBruce Willis’ grizzled hero cop John McClane withSamuel L. Jackson’s prickly pawn shop keeper Zeus Carver to stop a mad bomber from blowing up half the city. Willis and Jackson had recently appeared together inQuentin Tarantino’sPulp Fiction, but the two don’t actually share any scenes in that film, so it was exciting to see these two commanding actors carry an entire movie together. They have great chemistry, and Jackson fits easily into theDie Hardmold of an everyday guy thrown into an incredible situation. It’s also very funny, which is not necessarily unusual for aDie Hardfilm (McClane deals exclusively in gallows humor), butDie Hard with a Vengeancecleverly utilizes Zeus as an outside voice commenting on all the wild bullshit McClane engages in that we normally just take for granted as stuff we see in action movies. It’s like watching Samuel L. Jackson watch a Die Hard movie, while simultaneously acting in aDie Hardmovie, and it is excellent. It’s an unpopular opinion, but not only isDie Hard with a Vengeanceone of my favorite buddy cop movies, it might also be my favorite film in theDie Hardseries. And with that sentence, I think I may have just been fired.
8. Rush Hour
Rush Hourwas a surprise hit in 1998, pairing the unlikely duo ofChris TuckerandJackie Chanin an action comedy that was typical of Chan’s American films in the 1990s. But what makes theRush Hourseries stand out is his chemistry with Tucker, who essentially just comments on all the crazy stunts Chan whips out to dismantle the bad guys. Tucker is somewhat of a cinematic unicorn – he’s appeared in just over a dozen films in the past three decades, so getting him to commit to an entire franchise is no small feat. And theRush Hourseries is pure popcorn excellence. The films haven’t necessarily aged well – there are several jokes that play entirely on Chan and Tucker’s race,Roman Polanskicameos inRush Hour 3as an extremely creepy man, and the entireRush Hourfranchisewas directed by noted sexual harasserBrett Ratner– but theseries is an extremely good time. Chan’s stuntwork is dazzling as always, and Tucker’s presence provides the gobsmacked incredulity that audiences feel when they watch Chan’s movies. Plus, they clearly enjoy each other’s company, and their comradery rises above all the dated material to make the movies an all-time fun watch.
7. 48 Hrs.
48 Hrs.arguably created the buddy cop genre, and it catapultedEddieMurphyfrom a television player on SNL to a bonafide movie star. (It was his first movie!) Murphy plays Reggie, a small-time crook in prison for armed robbery, when Detective Jack Cates (NickNolte) decides to get Reggie a 48-hour release to help him catch a pair of cop-killing criminals. There has never been a more grizzled human being than Nolte. If he,TommyLeeJones, andHarrisonFordgot into a grizzled-off, the planet would simply implode. Pairing that extreme black hole of energy with Murphy’s cherubic wisecracking personality results in an all-time classic movie that launched decades of imitators.48 Hrs.spawned a sequel 8 years later, but the original is the only one you need concern yourself with.
6. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Before he was directingRobert Downey Jr.as Iron Man,Shane Blackdropped the actor in the middle of a goofball hardboiled detective story alongsideValKilmer, and the end result isdelightful.Kiss Kiss Bang Bangkind of came out of nowhere – it’s a meta comedy about detective stories and Hollywood and crime thrillers in general. But it manages to be a meaty detective story of its own, boosted by the performances of Downey and Kilmer, who frequently butt heads as an actor studying to be a private detective and an actual private detective respectively. AndMichelle Monaghandeftly steps in during the scenes in which Kilmer is absent to keep the buddy cop vibe going, trading barbs with Downey’s character as they lurch haphazardly through the case. It’s very funny, very smart, and very original. Do yourself a favor and watch it.
5. The Nice Guys
Written and directed by the godfather of buddy cop movies, Shane Black,The Nice Guysis a pitch-perfect comedy crime thriller. Centered around a murder in the 1970s Hollywood porn industry, the movie is carried by career-high performances byRyan GoslingandRussell Crowe. Gosling arguably has the more obviously fun role, playing relentlessly self-assured alcoholic private detective Holland March, but Crowe’s gentle menace as hired goon turned detective Jack Healey quietly steals the show. He’s a soft-spoken, thoughtful man who forms a strong bond with March’s young daughter Holly while simultaneously engaging in vicious acts of brutality against the film’s antagonists (and, in a particularly funny sequence, against March himself). Black is a fan of gumshoe novels and subversive filmmaking, andThe Nice Guysdoes an incredible job of flipping the detective genre on its head by throwing the case into the laps of two guys who are absolutely not equipped to solve it. Apparently the script was originally written as a pilot for a TV series, and while I would have been delighted to tune in week after week for the continued adventures of March and Healy, I’m glad we were given the film version featuring Gosling and Crowe instead.
4. Tango & Cash
Tango & Cashwas the very last movie released in the 1980s, and it absolutely shows. Imagine if the firstLethal Weaponhad been written on ten times the amount of cocaine and 8,000% of the hubris, and this motion picture is the result. It’s a gonzo action comedy featuringSylvesterStalloneat the height of his career, improbably playing a meticulously dressed police detective who is exceptionally good at playing the stock market. He looks like he could flex his head and shatter his glasses at any moment. That plot description is already completely insane, and we haven’t even discussedKurtRussellyet. Russell plays the streetwise daredevil detective, a guy who cheerily beats suspects in custody while cracking wise and throwing back waves of his glorious hair. The two are professional enemies, but are forced to team up after they are framed for murder and sent to an improbable prison the likes of which would not be replicated until the 1995DenzelWashingtonthrillerVirtuosity.Tango & Cashis the definition of batshit – the ending sequence involves Stallone and Russell stormingJack Palance’s palatial fortress with an actual tank and confronting Palance in a literal hall of mirrors. It’s goofy, dumb fun, and I challenge you to sit through the entire film without laughing hysterically at least three times.
3. Lethal Weapon
It’s hard to overstate the impactLethal Weaponhad on the buddy cop genre, and on action films in general. The formula already existed (most notably in films like48 Hrs.), butLethal Weaponcemented the trope of the wild loose cannon paired with the stuffed-shirt family man, and it did so without being ridiculous. At least, not in the first film. Written by Shane Black, the indisputable architect of the genre, the original film eschewed the comedy normally associated with buddy cop films and leaned firmly into pathos.Mel Gibson’s Martin Riggs is a deeply troubled man, and the movie gives us plenty of unflinching looks at his day-to-day life on the ragged edge of oblivion. Meanwhile,Danny Glover’s Roger Murtaugh can’t wait to be done with the police force and retire to his fishing boat when Riggs gets dumped in his lap. I can’t stress enough that “I’m too old for this shit” and “You’re a loose cannon!” were not originally played for laughs, and if you sit and think about the real world implications behind those tropes, you’ll realize that they were never intended to be funny. The sequels steered the series into Looney Tunes territory, and they’re all very enjoyable as comedic action films, but the originalLethal Weaponbroke new ground in presenting us with characters that were fundamentally broken in specific ways, and only succeed when they work together. Also, Mel Gibson fistfightsGary Buseyon a suburban lawn in front of 100 cops, and it is wonderful.
2. Hot Fuzz
Hot Fuzzis easilyEdgarWright’s best movie. Part action movie and part action movie send-up, it does the difficult task of juggling wry observations of buddy action tropes while delivering some of the best versions of buddy action tropes ever captured on film.Simon Peggunexpectedly plays the role of a rigid police officer immaculately, and it’s arguably his best performance if for no other reason than it’s so against type and he pulls it off so well.Nick Frostis his naïve protégé, which was also somewhat against type for him at the time because most American audiences had only seen him as Pegg’s crass friend inShaun of the Dead. He’s so endearingly earnest that he comes off as Pegg’s little brother, and the two actors’ legendary chemistry is put to excellent use as two small village police officers in the UK. It’s simultaneously a buddy cop satire and a legitimately great buddy cop movie. The only reason it’s not my #1 pick of the genre is because it’s technically a spoof, but the action and comedy are so good in this movie that it stands above almost every other film of its kind, and I’m depressed there was never a sequel.
Bad Boysis the definitive buddy cop movie series, as far as I’m concerned. Other films came first, andLethal Weaponundeniably did a lot to push the genre forward, butBad Boysis the ultimate realization of two wacky assholes blowing shit up under the paper-thin defense of a police badge. A buddy cop movie is entirely dependent on the chemistry between the two lead characters, and the chemistry betweenMartin LawrenceandWill Smithis so electric you barely even need to write a movie around it. I would watch those two guys sit down and read the phone book together, so the offer of watching them go on high-speed freeway chases involving a big rig throwing driverless cars at them like projectiles, drive through a bank withMichael Shannonin their trunk, and get into international shootouts that would likely cause some sort of global conflict is completely irresistible. Each one of theBad Boysfilms delivers enough action and comedy for several movies, so the fact that it’s all one series is almost unfair.Bad Boysis the best, hands down.
