Best Crime Movies of 1978

The Driver specializes in driving getaway cars for robberies. His exceptional talent has prevented him from being caught yet. After another successful flight from the police a self-assured detective makes it his primary goal to catch the Driver. He promises pardons to a gang if they help to convict him in a set-up robbery. The Driver seeks help from The Player to mislead the detective.

In Victorian England, a master criminal makes elaborate plans to steal a shipment of gold from a moving train.

Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau is dead. At least that is what the world—and Charles Dreyfus—believe when a dead body is discovered in Clouseau's car after being shot off the road. Naturally, Clouseau knows differently and, taking advantage of not being alive, sets out to discover why an attempt was made on his life.

Fed up with mistreatment at the hands of both management and union brass, and coupled with financial hardships on each man's end, three auto assembly line workers hatch a plan to rob a safe at union headquarters.

After being released on parole, a burglar attempts to go straight, get a regular job, and just go by the rules. He soon finds himself back in jail at the hands of a power-hungry parole officer.

Columbo (Peter Falk) investigates a famous restaurant critic for murder.

Toronto, Canada. A few days before Christmas, Miles Cullen, a bored teller working at a bank branch located in a shopping mall, accidentally learns that the place is about to be robbed when he finds a disconcerting note on one of the counters.

The true story of a part aboriginal man who finds the pressure of adapting to white culture intolerable, and as a result snaps in a violent and horrific manner.

John, a disillusioned Vietnam War journalist, turns to heroin smuggling. He cons Ray, an equally burnt out veteran into delivering the drugs stateside to his wife. Everything soon falls apart and Ray ends up on the run with John's wife trying to evade crooked narcotics agents.

A spoof of the entire 1940s detective genre. San Francisco private detective, Lou Pekinpaugh is accused of murdering his partner at the instigation of his mistress—his partner's wife.

In 1950, a group of unlikely criminal masterminds commits the robbery of the century. Led by Tony Pino (Peter Falk), a petty thief fresh out of prison, and Joe McGinnis (Peter Boyle), who specializes in planning lucrative capers, the gang robs Brink's main office in Boston of more than $2 million. However, things begin to go awry when the FBI gets involved, the cops start cracking down on the gang and McGinnis refuses to hand over the loot...

Private eye Philip Marlowe investigates a case of blackmail involving the two wild daughters of a rich general, a pornographer and a gangster.

During a spaghetti western screening a man is shot dead, the doors are locked and the police is called in to investigate.

When an extortionist threatens to force a multi-suicide unless a huge ransom is paid, only Peter Parker can stop him with his new powers as Spider-Man.

Masked intruders take the family of a bank manager hostage in order to rob his bank.

The plot is set on a group of bank robbers, who are both violent and successful, strangely getting away each time with an amount around the £60,000 mark, and often leaving behind cash in excess of this sum. The robbers are willing to kill their own team, to get away. As Jack Regan himself puts it after the first raid in the film: "I've never seen so many dead people". Armed with gold-plated Purdey shotguns, they evaded Regan and the Flying Squad for quite some time, before Regan finds encouragement from his Detective Chief Superintendent who was sent down for corruption because Jack wouldn't testify in court for him.

Officer Jim Wade is a loose cannon on the force with a reputation for roughing up suspects, informants, witnesses, and just about everybody else who rubs him the wrong way. When women start being killed by a mysterious serial murderer called The Slasher, Wade vows to put a stop to the killing spree, regardless of whether through legal means or not.

A group of crooks plan a heist to steal twenty million dollars from a Security Firm counting house.

A young director is a struggling filmmaker making hardcore features for the mob. His latest feature, he hopes, will be his big break into the world of "mainstream" film-making, but will the mafia allow him to realize his dream?

A drama about a community of senior citizens who are terrorized by a ruthless neighborhood gang. After learning that the police are stymied because the victims are too scared to testify against the bullying leader, a semi-retired toolmaker decides to take a stand.

Eurocrime/Poliziotteschi movie from 1978

An insurance investigator comes to a small town to investigate the death of a man insured by his company. The local residents believe his death was caused by his being run over by a ghost train. However, the investigator is sure there is a more rational explanation...

Teenagers at a correctional facility devise a plan to rob an armored van.

A woman's husband is murdered and she and her lover must find the killer or stand accused of doing it themselves.

Dino and Marco are two brothers who live alone with their sick father. Marco is on drugs, and Dino becomes involved with a gang of dangerous criminals and is roped into pulling a bank heist with them.

Director Paul Morrissey applies a hefty dose of humor to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic detective story in this interpretation of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Comedian Peter Cook takes on the role of brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes, who's not so gifted here as he relegates much of the investigation of demonic dogs to his bumbling sidekick, Watson (Dudley Moore), while he spends time with his mother and searches for an assistant.

Teenagers' van gets stolen and while the local authorites refuse to help they decidet to take manners to their own hands.

Coming back from an extended business trip, Frank discovers that his girlfriend Janie is now working at a new resort hotel where the owner has given her a permanent place to stay, as well as other gifts, in exchange for her affections. The two of them get into a fight and things quickly get out of control and the police are called and in turns into a hostage situation...

Story of a group of drag races and the young boy and girl who join them.

Home from a date, a couple is brutally attacked in the man's apartment. After the smoke clears, the ashamed woman pleads that the police not be told. A suspicious cop persuades a lady friend to date the same man, and a similar attack ensues. It's revealed that the seemingly innocent man was in on the act, as a clever method to violate women.

Jungle Blue tells the story of a group of sinister explorers hunting for fortune in the jungles of South America. Along the way they meet a tree-swinging wild man, his sex-crazed companion gorilla, and hoards of scantily clad natives.

Leon Isaac Kennedy is Doug Russell, an American who steals a shipment of gold in the Philippines with two Vietnam War buddies, who cut his throat and throw him overboard. Russell washes ashore an island inhabited by two Japanese soldiers stranded there since World War II. They nurse him back to health and he is taught martial arts and the art of the samurai. Back in the States, his treacherous pals, Marelli and Maghee, use their loot and viciousness to muscle their way into Los Angels mafia turf.

Four mental patients - who, due to unauthorized experiments, believe they're living in a dream and have shed all moral imperatives - escape and find their way to the nearest bus-load of stranded schoolgirls.

Some ex-convicts who have recently gotten out of prison plan a series of highly organized robberies of some Las Vegas casinos.

A small-time talent agent discovers an amazing boxing kangaroo and figures to use it as his stepping-stone into the big time.

In order to unmask a pathological killer who is targeting the beautiful centrefolds of Playbirds magazine, a sexy policewoman Lucy Sheridan puts her life and reputation on the line by sleeping with millionaire publisher Harry Dougan. The Chief Superintendant and Police Commissioner are keeping a close eye on her, but time is running out fast.

Two policemen are suspected of excessive violence and causing two deaths. The investigation brings to light, little by little, the whole truth.

It's the biggest event of the year — the Super Bowl! But the star players for the Cougars, gathered in New Orleans for the big game, are preoccupied with some serious off-the-field issues. Dave Walecki's marriage to his wife Nancy is falling apart, while Jim McCauley is involved in a shady deal with a management firm that could destroy his career. But that's nothing compared to the real drama. There's an assassin killing off many of the team's personnel (as well as their chances of winning)!

After the death of his parents, millionaire playboy Jack Cole is framed on charges of embezzlement. In prison, Cole learns various tricks of the criminal trade - lockpicking, safecracking, electronic surveillance, etc. Upon his release, Cole uses his wealth and his newly learned talents to help others, leaving his calling card, a "sword of justice", at the scene.

Earl Eischied is a man with his hands full. As the Chief of Detectives in New York City he is trying to break up a group of black militants that are on a crime spree including the killing of a police officer. He is also trying to battle with a mayor and police commissioner that want him out of his job.

Women whose husbands are incarcerated decide to band together to rob a hotel safe.

The story involves a hectic and hilarious chase as Mrs. Leautrec (Juliet Anderson) and her dashing son Paul (Ron Jeremy) stalk three incredibly beautiful diamonds through the ballrooms and bedrooms of Europe, using love and lust as tools of their trade. Hot on the trail of the third and finest diamond, our notorious heroes find themselves at an elegant New York disco where Mrs. Leautrec meets the diamond's owner, Mr. Greenfield, while Paul strikes an unusual sexual bargain with "The Lady in Red" (Samantha Fox). Mr. Greenfield, a multi-millionaire, invites Paul and his mother to his annual masquerade and orgy. As hundreds of masked party-goers publicly pursue their favorite perversions, Paul and his mother are caught in a devious trap, causing them to lose the diamond to another thief (Veronica Hart).

A veteran street cop is teamed up with the police department's new crime-fighting weapon--an android.

Las Vegas private eye Dan Tanna probes the murder of Marilyn Ochs, a teenage prostitute who ran away from home because she didn't get along well with her mother Loretta's new husband Merle.

Dusty is a runaway teenage girl who gets attacked and gang-raped by a group of savage motorcyclists. She gets taken into the household of a sympathetic artist named Frankie whom she falls in love with, but has problems adjusting to his artistic and social lifestyle.

A hold-up man Jon Martin, flees the scene of his crime, only to end up hiding out at the house of the same cop who's chasing him!

A woman communicates with a houseplant that was the only witness to a recent murder.

A bubble-brained Philadelphia waitress witnesses a murder during the Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans and finds herself stalked by the killer.

When two boys are killed and two girls are blinded for life in a tragic accident, Buford Pusser, the town sheriff, is determined to get revenge. Though he must bend the law, Pusser is resolved to get the bootleg booze and dope king of the county who provided the poisoned moonshine that caused the accident. Based on a Real-Life Story (i.e. another version of Walking Tall (1973)).