Best Mystery Movies of 1980
The Long Good Friday
In the late 1970s, Cockney crime boss Harold Shand, a gangster trying to become a legitimate property mogul, has big plans to get the American Mafia to bankroll his transformation of a derelict area of London into the possible venue for a future Olympic Games. However, a series of bombings targets his empire on the very weekend the Americans are in town. Shand is convinced there is a traitor in his organization, and sets out to eliminate the rat in typically ruthless fashion.
Dressed to Kill
After witnessing a mysterious woman brutally slay a homemaker, prostitute Liz Blake finds herself trapped in a dangerous situation. While the police thinks she is the murderer, the real killer is intent on silencing her only witness.
Cruising
A serial killer brutally slays and dismembers several gay men in New York's S&M and leather districts. The young police officer Steve Burns is sent undercover onto the streets as a decoy for the murderer. Working almost completely isolated from his department, he has to learn and practice the complex rules and signals of this little society.
American Gigolo
Julian makes a lucrative living as an escort to older women in the Los Angeles area. He begins a relationship with Michelle, a local politician's wife, without expecting any pay. One of his clients is murdered and Detective Sunday begins pumping him for details on his different clients, something he is reluctant to do considering the nature of his work. Julian begins to suspect he's being framed. Meanwhile Michelle begins to fall in love with him.
Bad Timing
Alex Linden is a psychiatrist living in Vienna who meets Milena Flaherty though a mutual friend. Though Alex is quite a bit older than Milena, he's attracted to her young, carefree spirit. Despite the fact that Milena is already married, their friendship quickly turns into a deeply passionate love affair that threatens to overtake them both. When Milena ends up in the hospital from an overdose, Alex is taken into custody by Inspector Netusil.
Scooby Goes Hollywood
Shaggy and Scooby-Doo quit their Saturday morning TV series in pursuit of Hollywood stardom.
The Ninth Configuration
Col. Vincent Kane is a military psychiatrist who takes charge of an army mental hospital situated in a secluded castle. Among Kane's many eccentric patients is Capt. Billy Cutshaw, a troubled astronaut in the midst of an existential crisis. Although Kane's own grasp on sanity is questionable, he manages to engage Cutshaw in a series of thoughtful conversations about science and faith that deeply affect the lives of both men.
Prom Night
At a high school senior prom, a masked killer stalks four teenagers who were responsible for the accidental death of a classmate six years prior.
The Mirror Crack'd
Jane Marple solves the mystery when a local woman is poisoned and a visiting movie star seems to have been the intended victim.
The Return of the King
Two Hobbits struggle to destroy the Ring in Mount Doom while their friends desperately fight evil Lord Sauron's forces in a final battle.

A Strange Harvest
Emmy Award-winning hour documentary about the worldwide animal mutilation mystery that has haunted ranchers and law enforcement since the 1950's. TV producer Linda Moulton Howe follows the eyewitness testimonies and the facts where they lead, linking the unusual animal deaths to a non-human intelligence and technology.
The Private Eyes
The lord and lady of a capacious manor are killed, and the lord's ghost seems to have returned to knock off the staff one by one, causing Inspector Winship and Dr. Tart to investigate the wacky house and its inhabitants.
Harlequin
In this modern-day version of the Rasputin story, David Hemmings plays an up-and-coming senator, Nick Rast, whose young son is terminally ill with leukaemia. A mysterious faith healer, Gregory Wolfe, appears and seems to cure the boy. Rast's wife Sandy falls in love with Wolfe, but the powerful interests behind Rast's career, represented by geriatric monster Doc Wheelan are less happy with events.
Death Ship
Survivors of a tragic shipping collision are rescued by a mysterious black ship which appears out of the fog. Little do they realise that the ship is actually a Nazi torture ship which has sailed the seas for years, luring unsuspecting sailors aboard and killing them off one by one.
Rough Cut
A romantic comedy with action and suspense. Two sophisticated jewel thieves join forces to steal $30 million in uncut jewels. Despite a continuous exchange of quips they eventually become romantically involved.

Death of a Princess
A journalist investigates a newspaper story of the execution of an Arab princess.
The Formula
While investigating the death of a friend and fellow cop, Los Angeles police officer Barney Caine stumbles across evidence that Nazis created a synthetic alternative to gasoline during World War II. This revelation has the potential to end the established global oil industry, making the formula a very valuable and dangerous piece of information. Eventually, Caine must contend with oil tycoon Adam Steiffel, who clearly has his own agenda regarding the formula.
Fade to Black
A shy, lonely film buff embarks on a killing spree against those who browbeat and betray him, all the while stalking his idol, a Marilyn Monroe lookalike.
The First Deadly Sin
A serial killer is stalking New York. Inspector Edward X. Delaney is an NYPD detective, nearing retirement, who is trying to put together the pieces of the case. Are the victims somehow linked? What does the brutal method of death signify?

Night Accident
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The Island
David Nau leads a band of modern day pirates who raid yachts and sail boats of people on vacation in the Caribbean. When reporter Blair Maynard and his son arrive to investigate the mystery of the disappearing boats, Nau and his band of raiders decide to induct them into their tribe.

Oh Heavenly Dog
Browning is a PI with a bad cold, who's sent to investigate a case by a mysterious client. He stumbles across the body of a young woman and is stabbed to death, and when he wakes up in heaven, they tell him he's "marginal material," and they can only decide on his final destination through one last assignment: to go back and solve his own murder. As a dog. A cute fluffy little dog (Benji). Undaunted, Browning begins to investigate the case as best he can around his canine disabilities (dialing the phone presents a special challenge) to solve the murders, save the girl, and see justice done.
The Nude Bomb
When KAOS develops a bomb that can dissolve all clothing, Maxwell Smart is brought in to foil the evil plot.
Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind
Sewage worker Roy Dreary and an assortment of odd characters meet up with some cute and cuddly extraterrestrials traveling to earth in a giant pie in the sky. Dreary develops an obsession with mashed potatoes, whipped cream and maraschino cherries.
Schizoid
When Dr. Peter Fales's patients start getting annihilated by an unknown serial killer, he and his daughter Alison both come under suspicion. Julie, a syndicated “Dear Abby”-style columnist, is in one of Dr. Fales's therapy groups. After she receives several ominous letters she not only wonders if Dr. Fales might be behind the killings, she also starts to suspect her estranged husband.

The Return
Two young children and an adult in a small town have an encounter with an alien spaceship. 25 years later the children are reunited as adults in the same town which is now beset by strange cattle mutilations. Matters become worse when the cattle mutilations are joined by human murders and mutilations.

Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
This intriguing story is set in the 1930s at a country house, where two amateur sleuths, Bobby Jones and Lady Frankie Derwent, try to unravel the mystery behind a tale of murder, suspense and false identities. And the only clues the two have to go on are the puzzling last words of a dying man. Featuring characters created by Agatha Christie, Why Didn't They Ask Evans is a classic crime thriller sure to please murder-mystery fans.
The Hearse
A schoolteacher moves into her deceased aunt’s house in a small Californian town, and is harassed by unfriendly locals and a mysterious hearse.

The Music of Erich Zann
Charles Dexter Ward, a young student of metaphysics, befriends Erich Zann, an elderly violinist who lives on the floor above him. Ward is fascinated by Zann's sinister yet wonderful music, which he hears late at night drifting down from above. But he discovers more then he bargains for when he peers at what beckons beyond that strange curtained window in Zann's room...

Die Laughing
A San Francisco cab driver find himself in possession of a monkey that is carrying a formula for turning atomic waste into a plutonium bomb. He finds himself framed for a murder and chased…
Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii
Magnum's old Navy buddy is dead and the Navy says he was a cocaine smuggler. Magnum sets out to prove his buddy was framed.

Deadline
A horror film about a screenwriter who loses the ability to distinguish between his fantasy world and the real world, with disastrous consequences. As he ruminates on his place in any world and loses his grip, he also loses his wife and his children's respect, and critics tear him apart. The final undoing of this screenwriter is a deadline that must be met at all costs, costs that perhaps are too great.

PSI Factor
Aliens from another dimension cross space and time to come to Earth. A scientist tries to discover what their motives are.

Union City
A 1950s accountant with a restless wife grows paranoid after hiding a milk thief's corpse next door.

Taste of Blood
In "Sabor a Sangre" (literally, "Flavor of Blood"), Antonio Aguilar plays Mauricio Rosales, whom along his good friend Chelelo (Eleazar García) are traveling towards another friend's ranch. During their trip, they find the dead bodies of a group of men, so they take them to the next town hoping to find some answers. At the town, they are informed that the dead men were a posse sent by police chief Rómulo (José Gálvez) to kill "El Tigre", a mysterious serial killer who has been hunting down the townspeople, viciously killing even women and children. (cont. http://w-cinema.blogspot.de/2008/03/sabor-sangre-1977.html)

Nightkill
The wife of a wealthy industrialist finds herself caught-up in a web of intrigue & murder which was created by her own deceit. When she tries to escape the results of her actions, she too falls victim to deception.

The Sicilian Defence
A group of police detectives are trying to prevent shipping abroad of stolen art valuables.

The Curse of King Tut's Tomb
Egyptologist Robin Ellis and American reporter Eva Marie Saint uncover King Tut's burial site but wealthy profiteer Raymond Burr tries to make sure that the valuable artifacts in its chambers never leave the country.

The Memory of Eva Ryker
A young woman has spent her life tormented by the death of her mother, who was on a ship torpedoed during World War II. When her father hires an investigator to look into the circumstances of the mother's death 30 years prior, it triggers a new rash of emotional turmoil for the young woman and uncovers a heinous crime.

Strange Force

Plato's: The Movie
Two intrepid female reporters enter Hollywood's most exclusive club, Plato's Retreat West. Between two orgies, they try to elucidate mysterious crimes. Because an assassin would defeat his female partners with the knife after honoring them in the room fantasies.

The Murder That Wouldn't Die
William Conrad stars as a retired L.A.P.D. detective who has moved to Hawaii and taken a job as a college security chief and assistant football coach in this pilot to a post-"Cannon" series to have been called "Battles." With the aid of his niece, the school's star football player, a local tough-turned-college student, and the college dean, he investigates two related murders that occurred nearly 40 years apart.

The Sensuous Detective
Some people think the life of a private detective is filled with cheap thrills and gorgeous babes. And they're right. Take detective Mac Donald for instance. When he's not dodging bullets, he's ducking between the sheets with a beautiful client or two. What a life!

Tales of the Unexpected: Hitchhiker
A fast-car enthusiast runs into trouble after picking up a trampish hitchhiker.

Beat the Deva
Using film noir, documentary, and animation, focuses on the offbeat artistic and spiritual theories of Russian composer, Alexander Scriabin. Show how a detective/filmmaker, attempting to cash in on the special effects of inner space, becomes obsessed with the idea that he has been chosen to compose Scriabin's "mystery" festival.
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