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Only the first Police Academy was any good, really. They reused like 90% of all the jokes

SWAT fills your criteria, too - though it's more of an action movie, but it has Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson

Cop Land is excellent. It's a tailor-made role for Sylvester Stallone, although that's not really a compliment.

The great thing about the movie, though, is that it has literally a dozen actors who later made it very big in the movies. Throughout the whole thing, you'll be going, "I know that guy!"

JLTucker wrote: Christopher Nolan's Insomnia is a good flick.

...until the final act, when the movie plunges head first into tired Hollywood conventions. See the Norwegian original instead.

RedImperator wrote: So, a request: recommend for me one and only one cop movie, the cop movie you think anyone who loves the genre must see.

I'm going to brazenly ignore that you asked for movies and recommend The Wire. If you could only watch one cop movie/show in your entire life, The Wire should be it. It is just that good. Each season is essentially a self-contained miniseries (although later seasons of course build upon the earlier stuff). The first season details the attempts of a Baltimore special crimes unit to bring down a local drug kingpin through the use of surveillance techniques. The story is told from the perspectives of both the law enforcement personnel and the drug dealers, and nobody is simply "the good guy" or "the bad guy", at least not all the time -- the writers are far more interested in why people act a certain way and in particular in how far their actions are limited by the institutions they serve, be it the police, the drug trade or (in later seasons) local politics and school bureaucracy.

David Simon, the creator and head writer, was a reporter covering the crime beat in Baltimore for more than a decade; his partner Ed Burns was a cop for twenty years (and then a teacher for seven, which came in handy in later seasons). Their writing shows the kind of verisimilitude you can really only get from people who have literally lived in the world they write about. That, in addition with the documentary aesthetic -- there is virtually no soundtrack, the actors are largely unknown average-looking people with a lot of locals in minor roles, the dialogue is full of Baltimore patois etc. -- results in a show that is not easily accessible -- if you give it a try I'd urge you to watch at least two or three episodes in one sitting to get a real impression -- but that rewards viewers with a much more "real" experience than your typical great cop movie/show. Seriously, the last time I found myself caring that much about fictional characters on the screen was when I was a little child.

I could try to list a couple of other good cop movies that haven't been mentioned yet, but none of them have that "definitive cop story" feeling The Wire has. Go see it now.

Fuck yes, The Wire.

I'll second, third and FOURTH that motion to hell and back.

The Untouchables

A TV show, but what the hell: The Shield

How have none of you mentioned Traffic, for shame.

I'll second or third or whateverd The Departed also.

The French Connection is pretty awesome - New York cops tracing a heroin dealer in the seventies.

I'll third and fourth the motion for Heat. It's one of the few cop movies that has apparently done its homework regarding the tactical scenes, and actually does some tactical work fairly accurately.

In the Heat of the Night - awesome, awesome, awesome. A small Mississippi town experiences a brutal murder. The local racist hillbilly cops are overwhelmed, and ask for help. They get help in the form of Sidney Poitier. Brillance insues.

It's been a while since I watched it, but Black Rain wasn't too bad if I remember correctly.

Talking of Departed and Infernal Affairs, about half of all Hong Kong cinema are cop/gangster movies. There's too many to list, and some are utter crap, but there's plenty of good too.

"Eye in the Sky" is an interesting take on the genre - it tracks the job of an officer assigned to follow people and does so in a hands-off, detached game of cat and mouse. "Protege" is more conventional undercover cop and drug trade, but is atmospheric and showcases has some interesting moral dilemmas and not-quite-so realistic sex scene. Then they say Infernal Affairs 2 is better than 1.

TV series? Life on Mars.

All the films I'd recommend are taken.

You gotta watch some Steven Seagal movies. The plot is pretty simple; Seagal gets pissed and beats the shit out of people, and makes toughguy wisecracks along the way. Of his cop movies, my favourites would be either Marked for Death or Above the Law. I think the latter is a better movie, it's more serious & real while the first has more mindless fun & violence.

2 more cop flicks.... The Rookie with Clint Eastwood and Charlie Sheen is a good flick, and Rising Sun with Wesley Snipes and Sean Connery is decent, more of a who done it...

Outland is a good one too, for sci-fi themed again.

Axis Kast wrote:Cop Land is excellent. It's a tailor-made role for Sylvester Stallone, although that's not really a compliment.

Anyone who has ever believed the tired mantra that "Stallone can't act" should watch Cop Land. Not a bad performance in the bunch, and one of the best cop movies (and Stallone movies) that I've ever seen.

EDIT: Cop Land trailer

Sine Police Story and Copland have been taken I suggest Project A with Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Biao Yuen (or Yuen Biao) The Japanese Emperor liked it so much he asked for a sequal, which was promptly made.

IMDB wrote:In late 19th Century Hong Kong the British may rule the land, but the pirates rule the waters. Reluctantly, the Coast Guard is given money to fight these pirates, but the pirates themselves have many contacts (that is, bribed officials) in the government, and seek to thwart the Coast Guard's efforts to eliminate them. One Coast Guard officer is Dragon Ma, who is determined that his beloved Coast Guard will not be made fools of.

By the way, Kiss Of The Dragon is not a cop movie. There is a throw away line about Jet Li's occupation being a cop but it plays no further part and is just a revenge movie.

RoboCop is highly recommended as a sci-fi cop movie, a darkly comical and violent one with satire that seems even more relevant today.

And if you liked Life on Mars, the early 1980s follow up, Ashes to Ashes, is certainly worth a try too (but with some reservations).

And while they take many artistic liberties with technology and proceedures, the original CSI and CSI: NY are both very solid cop shows. I got much more into them than any of the L&O shows.

Oh, RoboCop. Fuck me!


As for CSI, I like CSI: Miami. Horatio Cain is just the man!

Shroom Man 777 wrote: As for CSI, I like CSI: Miami. Horatio Cain is just the man!

*BOOM!*

You can say that again!

Another far fetched show involving the Miami PD is Showtime's Dexter (where the main character is a forensics man by day but a vigilante serial killer by night).

I'm not even gonna ask why his car spontaneously exploded!

Seriously, Horatio Caine is fucking ridiculous and I love him for it. He's way awesomer than Lt. Dan or Grissom.

What's with all the love for Heat?

*Spoilers*

I deleted your spoilers because spoiler space doesn't work on a board where you have to scroll past a post to read the next one. Next time, reduce the size of the text.~RI

I'll second Training Day, and add another Denzel Washington flick - Fallen. Simply. Awesome. Denzel Washington is a cop who catches a serial killer, and watches him get the gas chamber. And that's how the movie starts.

Darth Nostril wrote:What's with all the love for Heat?

*Spoilers*

Yes, one instance of a character letting his emotions get to him in order to carry out a task writes off a whole movie.

Oh, wait.

Admiral Valdemar wrote:

Darth Nostril wrote:What's with all the love for Heat?

*Spoilers*

Yes, one instance of a character letting his emotions get to him in order to carry out a task writes off a whole movie.

Oh, wait.

It just ruined the whole movie for me, he could have parked a block away behind the hotel, then exited from a fire escape to the rear or side and gotten clean away.
Seeing as he's the genius that plotted out the whole robbery, and was willing to cold bloodedly execute the hot headed asshole who let his emotions rule him this end sequence just jars like tinfoil on teeth.

Never really considered it that bad. I accept characters can do dumb things in movies, even when they're normally much better for the rest of it. For the life of me, I can't see that ruining Heat any more than, say, a scientific inaccuracy ruining something. If the rest of the package is excellent, it gets leeway.

Would people consider Leon a cop movie? It does have Oldman as a truly awesome crooked detective, even if the thing is about a lone assassin.

The rest of the movie was so cool then you get this bit at the end that just doesn't gel, breaks SOD and fucks it up, annoys me no end when that happens.

Leon? That's more the POV of the assassin and the orphaned survivor of the crooked cop hit. Although Oldman is good it's not from his perspective, not really what would count as a cop movie.
Although it is cool as fuck. (which is why it's there in my 200+ dvd movie collection... right next to Ronin)