Best Mystery Movies of 1976

Lionel Twain invites the world's five greatest detectives to a 'dinner and murder'. Included are a blind butler, a deaf-mute maid, screams, spinning rooms, secret passages, false identities and more plot turns and twists than are decently allowed.

Quiet, withdrawn 13-year-old Rynn Jacobs lives peacefully in her home in a New England beach town. Whenever the prying landlady inquires after Rynn's father, she politely claims that he's in the city on business. But when the landlady's creepy and increasingly persistent son, Frank, won't leave Rynn alone, she teams up with kindly neighbor boy Mario to maintain the dark family secret that she's been keeping to herself.

New Orleans businessman Michael Courtland’s life is shattered when his wife and daughter are tragically killed in a botched kidnap rescue attempt. Many years later whilst visiting Italy he meets and falls in in love with Sandra Portinari, who bears a striking resemblance to his wife.

A couple and their 12-year-old son move into a giant house for the summer. Things start acting strange almost immediately. It seems that every time someone gets hurt on the grounds, the beat-up house seems to repair itself.

Alice is a withdrawn 12-year-old who lives with her mother and her younger sister, Karen, who gets most of the attention from her mother, leaving Alice out of the spotlight. When Karen is found brutally murdered in a church, suspicions start to turn toward Alice. But could a 12-year-old girl really be capable of such savagery?

A New York detective investigates a series of murders committed by random New Yorkers who claim that "God told them to."

A Texas Ranger hunts for a hooded serial killer terrorizing the residents of a small town, set in 1946 Arkansas. Loosely based on a true story.

In 1926, celebrated evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson mysteriously disappeared. She turned up several weeks later and recounted the details of her kidnapping and escape to authorities. Not everyone believed her, however, and she was accused of having gone away to have an affair with a married man. A court hearing took place to reveal the truth.

Concerned about his friend's cocaine use, Dr. Watson tricks Sherlock Holmes into travelling to Vienna, where Holmes enters the care of Sigmund Freud. Freud attemts to solve the mysteries of Holmes' subconscious, while Holmes devotes himself to solving a mystery involving the kidnapping of Lola Deveraux.

When a widowed mother falls in love with an American sailor, her troubled young son is pressured by the bullying leader of his clique to seek revenge.

A group of high school friends are invited to spend a weekend together at a mysterious house on a secluded island.

Vacationing in a small town, a frantic Daniel Corban shows up at the local police station, declaring that his wife has disappeared. Corban imperiously demands that the easygoing police inspector drop everything and find his missing spouse. Within a few days, a woman claiming to be his wife shows up, but Corban insists that he's never met the woman before.

A recently-married woman who has been labeled as mentally unstable, begins to suspect that someone close to her is the culprit in a sudden string of murders.

Daffy Fernald loses her brother's toy rocket when it flies into a storm drain. She knows Alvin will be upset if he finds out, so she climbs into the dark tunnel to search for it. She spots a stranger, Ernie Nelson, and sees that he's carying a gun. She races home and tells Alvin, but the would-be inventor refuses to believe her.

Two men exploring the Louisiana swamps run into a Bigfoot-type creature.

Private Detective Pink tries to identify who stole his breakfast cake (which he ate himself in his sleep), instead finding another crook and chasing him through a surreal house.

A young girl is accidentally run down by a car driven by a careless city slicker. This careless injustice provokes the girl's grandfather into summoning his mystical powers and placing a death curse on the young man. Desperate to stave off the dire consequences of the hex, Barry seeks the counsel of a local psychic medium

Night Ferry stars Bernard Cribbins as Pyramid, a dastardly master-of-disguise who plans to smuggle an ancient Egyptian mummy out of the country. When young Jeff discovers the plan, a dangerous chase via London's Victoria and Clapham stations ensues.

During an all-girl secret society initiation, one of the new members is killed playing Russian Roulette. Many years later the survivors are invited for a reunion to a lavish estate, which turns out to be owned by the crazed father of the girl who died.

Donna and Joel Gregory are staying at the estate of Lorna Love while researching a book about the long dead Hollywood goddess. Joel, whose father had a passionate affair with Lorna, becomes obsessed with her. His wife attempts to break the spell which threatens their marriage and their very lives.

The Keeper of Underwood Asylum has the mental patients of the wealthiest families in British Columbia. The rest of the family members have been dying under mysterious circumstances, so Biggs hires private investigator Richard Driver, who puts his assistant, Maybelline, in the asylum pretending she is his cousin and that they came from a family where the parents were all first cousins to each other and they decided to keep their love platonic for genetic reasons. Then he tries to get Inspector Clarke to check him in as a narcoleptic who didn't wake up with his body. They all know what the keeper has been doing, but it is a matter of proving it, and avoiding the hypnotized Biggs twins and Danny, who he is able to keep catatonic with his machine. Inspector Clarke gives driver a lot of trouble, and the kid giving shoe shines looks down on everybody, knowing more.

Cindy Lou Sutters casts a striking redhead she dubs Red Heat to star in her latest movie. After Red Heat catches her boyfriend with another woman, she goes crazy and stabs him to death. Red Heat proceeds to embark on a murderous spree throughout Las Vegas. Sutters recasts the lead for her feature and gets down to the basics of making the movie. Meanwhile, a thief on a motorcycle robs everyone he encounters.

A man travels to another city for his sister's funeral to try to find out why she killed herself. He discovers that she is actually a vampire and returns from the dead to take revenge on her family.

Two police detectives try to catch a serial killer who is stalking a rural California drive-in theater, randomly killing people with a sword.

Scientists mount an expedition to find a Bigfoot-type creature.

Demonstrating that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, a convicted strangler studies the paranormal and finds a way to render himself invisible. Once he escapes, he sets out to find and eliminate five women who remind him of the mother he murdered. A police lieutenant (Robert Foxworth) sets out to safeguard them and bring the invisible killer to justice.

A group of young professionals decides to play a practical joke on one of their ex-girlfriends who married a rich man who is about to close a major real estate deal. They plan to kidnap her and mess up the deal. Unfortunately, the joke becomes deadly serious.

A young private detective takes on his first case, a young woman with amnesia who doesn't know why a gunman is trying to kill her but believes she might be involved in a murder.

Documentary exploring such phenomena as astral projection, telekinesis, telepathy, voices from beyond the grave, ghosts/spirits, etc.

An RSPCA officer is horrified when he discovers a pet shop owner has been conducting experiments on a wolf, searching for proof of lycanthropy. Created as an episode of Nigel Kneale’s “Beasts” horror anthology miniseries.

A crime lord hires Velvet Smooth, the head of a detective agency, to find out who is stealing his business.

A washed-up actor has a nervous breakdown and believes that he really is the movie monster that he has been hired to play. Created as an episode of Nigel Kneale’s “Beasts” horror anthology miniseries.

A Los Angeles cop falls off his motorcycle, strikes his head and wakes up believing himself to be Sherlock Holmes. Along with the social worker who is treating him, he sets out to solve the murder of an embezzler.

In this pilot film, an Irish Catholic police chief and a Jewish rabbi join together to solve the murder of a housekeeper whose body was discovered by the front entrance of the rabbi's synagogue.

From BBC2 Playhouse's The Mind Beyond series. Professor Reeve wonders about strange events that seem to be connected to Stonehenge (Source: BBC).

When a nightclub owner buys a derelict dolphinarium, he and a young woman seem to be haunted by the ghost of Buddy Boy, the star attraction. Created as an episode of Nigel Kneale's "Beasts" horror anthology miniseries.

Identical twin brothers who own a detective agency hatch a plan to expose a phony group of psychics, but soon find themselves involved in a murder.

A scientist on a secluded island uses revolutionary brain surgery to revive his dead wife.

A young couple move to the countryside and discover a strange mummified animal in the wall of their cottage. The wife increasingly feels that she and her unborn child are in danger. Created as an episode of Nigel Kneale’s “Beasts” horror anthology miniseries.

A misfit teenage checkout operator has an unrequited crush on her supermarket manager. At the same shop's cuddly cartoon mascot seems to have come alive and is causing havoc. Created as an episode of Nigel Kneale’s “Beasts” horror anthology miniseries.

A suburban couple are held under siege by a pack of frighteningly intelligent rats.

When a wealthy winegrower disappears, the three private investigators go undercover at the vineyard to track down the whereabouts of the body. If the body doesn't turn up in a certain amount of time, the inheritance will be presented to the man's second wife instead of his long-lost daughter.

An law student and his wife get caught up in murder and blackmail when they visit an influential attorney's remote island home.

Low-budget mystery centers on a murder committed during the premier of a Broadway show.