Best Whodunits (Film or Television)

Television:

N.B. While the categories sometimes overlap, these are not necessarily my favorite episodes of these shows, simply the ones that weave the best mystery/whodunit tales, in my opinion.

“The Adventure of the Lover’s Leap” (Ellery Queen)

“The Adventure of the Chinese Dog” (Ellery Queen)

“Trial by Error” (Murder, She Wrote)

“The Grand Old Lady” (Murder, She Wrote)

“Mr. Monk Goes to the Ballgame” (Monk)

“Mr. Monk and the Daredevil” (Monk)

“Mr. Monk and the Genius” (Monk)

“A Stitch in Crime” (Columbo)

“Forgotten Lady” (Columbo)

“Last Salute to the Commodore” (Columbo)

“Jack in the Box” (Jonathan Creek)

“No Trace of Tracy” (Jonathan Creek)

“The Problem of Gallows Gate” (Jonathan Creek)

“Mother Redcap” (Jonathan Creek)

“Black Canary” (Jonathan Creek)

“Satan’s Chimney” (Jonathan Creek)

“The Tailor’s Dummy” (Jonathan Creek)

“Wicked Wedding Night” (Death in Paradise)

“Predicting Murder” (Death in Paradise)

“Ye of Little Faith” (Death in Paradise)

“Stab in the Dark” (Death in Paradise)

“A Study in Pink” (Sherlock)

“The Hounds of Baskerville” (Sherlock)

“Peril at End House” (Agatha Christie’s Poirot)

“Murder on the Links” (Agatha Christie’s Poirot)

“Death on the Nile” (Agatha Christie’s Poirot)

Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (1980)

“The Killings at Badger’s Drift” (Midsomer Murders)

“Ghosts of Christmas Past” (Midsomer Murders)

“The Curse of Beaton Manor” (Murdoch Mysteries)

Sherlock Holmes (entire series, w/Jeremy Brett)

“The Laws of Motion” (Father Brown, 2013 series)

“The Mirror of the Magistrate” (Father Brown, 1974 series)

“The Dagger with Wings” (Father Brown, 1974 series)

“The Sorcerer” (Colonel March of Scotland Yard)

“The New Invisible Man” (Colonel March of Scotland Yard)

“Error at Daybreak” (Colonel March of Scotland Yard)

“The Case of the Winthrop Legend” (Sherlock Holmes, 1954 series)

“The Case of the Exhumed Client” (Sherlock Holmes, 1954 series)

“Speedy Death” (The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries)

“Retirement is Murder” (Frasier)

“The Town of No Return” (The Avengers)

“Castle De’ath” (The Avengers)

“Too Many Christmas Trees” (The Avengers)

“From Venus with Love” (The Avengers)

“The Living Dead” (The Avengers)

“Death’s Door” (The Avengers)

Thanks for the kind words, lynx0139. I am fond of whodunits, as you may be able to guess… As for the TV shows, they put a lot of them on TV, and I’m also surprised when I find a well-plotted episode—an unexpected gem, to speak. For example, Murder, She Wrote is usually a bit too cutesy and poorly-plotted (“I never said it was poison!”) for my tastes, but every once in a while there’s a work of ingenuity like “Trial by Error” (perhaps the best courtroom mystery of them all) or “The Grand Old Lady.” 

As for the history, my own tastes in film lean towards the ‘30s and ‘40s; if I were interested in “my favorite movies” lists, most of my favorites, of all genres, would probably come from those decades. 
Yes, indeed, but I’m not all that fond of it, for better or worse. 

BATouttaheck

Wouldn’t ya know it, I watched Rehearsal for Murder (via YouTube) for the first time a few months ago, mostly because of Levinson and Link. It’s a lot of fun, though a few things seemed “off” to me—as if Levinson and Link intended a bigger twist, or something like that. Thanks for thinking of me there, Bat.

mikef6

I don’t believe I’ve read anything by Mr. Coben, for my sins… I’m not particularly well-read on modern mystery fiction (or modern fiction in general, to be honest). I think I told you somewhere here that I’d like to look into Ne le dis à personne… I will find it and get back to you! By the way, apropos of European mystery films, have you seen Contratiempo, a great little Spanish mystery flick? Very good, very fun and well-paced.

louise

I was waiting for someone to bring this up! Columbo is of course an “inverted mystery story” (or “howcatchem”), in which you know the identity of the murderer from the get-go, and the focus is the sleuth’s attempts to catch him.
To be strict with our definitions, you are of course right here. And yet… and yet…

Columbo has far more in common with the whodunit tradition than, say, the tales of R. Austin Freeman, who pioneered the genre—that is to say, we are provided with fair-play clues by which we may determine how Columbo will be able to catch the killer (and, oftentimes, there are other, subsidiary mysteries—the “how” in “Columbo Goes to the Guillotine,” for example). “Forgotten Lady,” “A Stitch in Crime,” and “By Dawn’s Early Light” are particularly good in this regard (and just very good episodes, to boot).

For that matter, one of the Monk episodes I’ve put on the list, “Mr. Monk and the Genius,” is a howcatchem, yet it’s still a fair-play problem. Again, these are not strict whodunits, so perhaps I’m breaking my own rules, but they’re far closer (in my opinion) than, say, something like The Big Sleep (or even Deathtrap), in which we don’t know the killer’s identity from the beginning. I hope that makes some bit of sense…

This may be blasphemous, but is Geraldine McEwan anyone else’s favorite screen Miss Marple? To be candid, I find the McEwan adaptations much better-paced than the much-vaunted Joan Hicksons, and McEwan displayed a wonderful mischief-streak that made her Marple more of a character than a stereotypical old gossip.