Best Mystery Movies of 1985

Trapped in a missile silo, a small team of scientists, civilians, and trigger-happy soldiers battle desperately to ensure the survival of the human race. However, the tension inside the base is reaching a breaking point, and the zombies are gathering outside.

When investigative reporter Irwin "Fletch" Fletcher goes undercover to write a piece on the drug trade at a local beach, he's approached by wealthy businessman Alan Stanwyk, who offers him $50,000 to murder him. With sarcastic wit and a knack for disguises, Fletch sets out to uncover Stanwyk's story.

San Francisco heiress Page Forrester is brutally murdered in her remote beach house. Her husband Jack is devastated by the crime but soon finds himself accused of her murder. He hires lawyer Teddy Barnes to defend him, despite the fact she hasn't handled a criminal case for many years. There's a certain chemistry between them and Teddy soon finds herself defending the man she loves.

The residents of a quiet English village begin to receive nasty, threatening letters. The wife of the local vicar calls in her friend Miss Marple to investigate.

Holmes and Watson travel to Europe to escape Moriarty's vengeance.

Homicidal maniac Jason returns from the grave to cause more bloody mayhem. Young Tommy may have escaped from Crystal Lake, but he’s still haunted by the gruesome events that happened there. When gory murders start happening at the secluded halfway house for troubled teens where he now lives, it seems like his nightmarish nemesis, Jason, is back for more sadistic slaughters.

Maddie Hayes wakes up to find her staff have quit and all her money has been stolen. One of her few remaining assets is a loss-making investigation agency run by David Addison. She sacks the staff but David is determined to keep it going.

When a dead newborn is found, wrapped in bloody sheets, in the bedroom wastebasket of a young novice, psychiatrist Martha Livingston is called in to determine if the seemingly innocent novice, who knows nothing of sex or birth, is competent enough to stand trial for the murder of the baby.

Khamosh is 1985 Indian thriller directed and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. The film starred Bollywood actors such as Naseerudin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Amol Palekar, Soni Razdan and Pankaj Kapoor. It, however, did not do well at the box office. The film became notable for actors Amol Palekar, Soni Razdan and Shabana Azmi portraying fictional versions of themselves. It is a suspense movie, wherein the murderer is among the group of people living together in a hotel, and the actual murderer is well hidden in the plot until the very end.

The mysterious death of an enigmatic young man newly arrived in the suburb of Wetherby releases the long-repressed, dark passions of some of its residents.

A routine investigation of a shocking murder takes a bizarre twist when the killer contacts the reporter and appoints him his personal spokesman. As the killer's calls and clues increase, the reporter is lured into a deadly trap.

When Miss Marple arrives at palatial Stonygates, one thing is certain. Before there's time to lather a warm scone with marmalade and place a tea cozy, murder most foul is bound to occur.

A brother and his young sister come to a small town to find out a local gang terrorizes the population.

When his former secretary is accused of a murder, Perry Mason gives up a judgeship to defend her.

Twin sisters trade places with unexpected results.

Actress Jane Wilkinson wants a divorce, but her husband, Lord Edgware, refuses. She convinces Hercule Poirot to use his famed tact and logic to make her case. Lord Edgware turns up murdered, a well-placed knife wound at the base of his neck. It will take the precise Poirot to sort out the lies from the alibis - and find the criminal before another victim dies.

Mark Lowe, Private Investigator, is approached by a woman to help her find The Maltese Dildo. Mere description of the dildo drives women mad with desire. Mark must, therefore, interview many women regarding this strange object. Will he find it? Who cares!

Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World belongs to a 35-hour film cycle, The Book of All the Dead, which comprises the bulk of Toronto-based Bruce Elder’s filmmaking from 1975 to 1994. In ancient Egyptian culture, the Book of the Dead consisted of religious texts intended to help preserve the spirit of the departed in the afterlife — but in Elder’s reading, that comforting idea of continuity takes on a rather darker cast. Lamentations is comprised of a complex audio and visual patchwork: a philosophical meditation superimposed as text throughout the film; vignettes featuring a comical but disturbing Franz Liszt, a debate between Isaac Newton and George Berkeley, an angry, deranged man in an alley, and an arrogant psychiatrist; and a final search for salvation in the forests of British Columbia, the American Southwest, and Mexico’s Yucatan.

An ex-newspaper woman who is now a suburban housewife can't resist getting involved in an investigation of the murder of a philandering dentist who had been having affairs with several of her neighbors.

There is a mystery in the Forsight household, it surrounds a portrait - a portrait of Angel.

Ginger Lynn and Harry Reems play a happily married couple who find their wedded bliss interrupted by an offer for an all-expense paid trip to the mysterious Bacchanale Island. A young couple receives two tickets in the mail for a free stay at an island resort. After they get there they find out that someone is killing off the guests one by one.

Stop-motion animated short film in which a puppet on a trike captures a puppet bird-man.

As a child, Ed was cleaning his father’s hunting rifles (a surprise birthday treat for the old man) when one of them went off, hitting and killing his mother. On seeing the bloodshed, his father flew into a murderous rage—Ed just barely escaped with his life. Now in his teens, he returns home; he doesn’t expect to find his father, still there, waiting for a chance to settle the score . . .

Amid acrimonious divorce proceedings, Louise (Blythe Danner) unwittingly puts her life in danger when she contests the prenuptial agreement she signed before marrying attorney Arthur Jamison (Anthony Hopkins). He plans to kill her to resolve the situation. Armed with information on how her cheating husband conducts his business and personal affairs, she demands more money from him -- but will Arthur have the final word?

11-year-old Nick moves into a large old house with his sisters Jennie and Clare, left in the care of Helga the Swedish au pair while their parents are away in America. Nick is unhappy at his new school, where he is befriended by a boy named Sam and intimidated by scripture teacher Mr. Crabb, who is interested in the occult and demonology. Nick hears voices in the house and receives messages on his computer screen; he also suffers inexplicable blisters on his feet and grazes on his elbows and knees. When he dreams of burning and wakes up in a bed full of ashes, Nick tells a psychiatrist that he feels he is possessed by a demon.

In an English village, three youths see the spirit of a child who died in a 17th-century plague epidemic. They decide to learn about the town's history to find out how they can help set the child's ghost free.

Set in the "not-so-distant future", the crew of an international space station are set to return triumphantly to Earth, until someone starts killing the other crew members.

Sex-hungry teens are kidnapped by auto mechanics, who take them to a rural hospital run by aliens who need their blood as the key to their own longevity.

A murder victim reaches out from beyond the grave in an attempt to possess the body of a young woman who has moved into his old apartment.

A district attorney is kidnapped by a criminal who then has a deranged doctor do something to him that leaves him with the mind of a child. His assistant seeks out a man who is only known by the car he drives, a Stingray. He helps people who have problems and in return, they owe him a favor that he will collect later.

In a future police state, a stand-up comic murders a competitor for a job, then gets mixed up with a stripper.

In a Canadian village are women being killed by a psychopath. Chief Rich and Inspector McLane have no clue until McLane shoots a suspicious man. Now the killing seems to have ended, but the killer picks yet another victim...

A state employee tasked with photographing road conditions tracks a mysterious man (played by Steve Buscemi) who leaves suspiciously large garbage bags along a snowy country road.

An office building's security system goes after the employees to supply it's energy.

Female students on a college campus are being killed and their body parts used for blood sacrifices.

A bitter ex-cop, as his life takes a bizarre twist the day, meets a shady lawyer. After being hired to spy on a wealthy and promiscuous socialite he finds himself beyond obsession with this lustful and mysterious woman. As his sexual intensity mounts from watching the socialites smoldering encounters, Robert must sweat it out while watching from afar. Like an animal driven by savage passion, he must finally confront the image of his desire and you get to witness it right along wit him.

The unstable security chief of an auction house becomes increasingly obsessed with his female neighbor, who's being stalked, and a supposedly cursed jewel that's being auctioned. Is he losing his mind or is the curse real?

Only One Woman Had the Guts to Fight Back

Vicky's ex-husband, John, invites her on a trip to communist Prague. First John disappears, then her passport. Vicky finds herself alone and penniless in Prague and becomes a tragic pawn caught in a web of espionage and murder.

On the way for fishing Leonid Karetnikov finds the body of a man on the roadside and admit a car driving out of there. While Karetnikov called the police, the body was gone. Also disappeared the bag with tools to crack safes, lying next to body. Pursuing the investigation of the case, Colonel Kornilov states that the victim is probably Lev Kotlukov - known "safecracker" nicknamed Leo the Boar. Also, it looks like he got hit by a car belongs to citizen - professor of the Institute, which has no relation to criminal organizations. To reveal the intentions of criminals, Kornilov decided to send his man Major Bugaev undercover to the gang.

A WWII fighter plane crashes and although the pilot escapes, his partner burns. Years later, Maggie and Harry Dowl arrive in England to inspect a house left to Maggie by her mother. The house has a dilapidated tennis court, but this seems to have some force which takes over the daughter of John Bray, the local holy man, as well as causing tennis balls to gush blood and kill people with animated nets.

In a small town a wealthy aged male named Dharmesh Saxena, known for his worship of Devi Maa Kaali, and magic, is called "Saamri". Dharmesh knows that his end is near, he summons his lawyer and wills his entire estate to his niece, Anju Trivedi. But when Mama Taklifchand, Dharmesh's step-brother, finds this out, he, together with a gorgeous young woman, Maria, a hotel owner, Khanna, professor Chatterjee, and others, kill Dharmesh, throw his body in the river, and when the body is found, inform the police and the public that Dharmesh killed himself. With the case closed, Taklifchand & the others must find ways and means to kill Anju and keep the wealth and estate for themselves. Before they could carry out their plan - one by one they start dying horrible deaths. Looks like Saamri has arisen from the grave to hunt down his killers, and there is no one who can even dare to even think of stopping him.

Cybill Shephard stars as Vicky, a woman married to a rich old man, who has one foot in the grave. Gregory Harrison plays Mike Riordon a district attorney, who is young, handsome and living at home with his Irish mom for the most. Vicky's husband Arthur gets Mike involved in a merger of two companies...or something like that even though he knows that Mike and Vicky were a couple and that she had dumped him. Whilst Mike and Vicky are attending a party, Arthur is alone at home when a burglar appears out of nowhere and shoots him point blank.

A father is intent on finding the truth as to how his soldier son met his death while serving in Northern Ireland.

Shaggy and Scooby and friends must return 13 ghosts to a magic chest which they inadvertently released. Together with Daphne and Scrappy, along with newcomer Flim Flam, they travel the world facing the ghosts that must be returned.

She won't be a victim anymore

In 1965, a busload of boy scouts go for a camping trip, where they start telling campfire tales. One of the older scouts, in attempt to scare the youngers, tells the "true story" about The Berko Brothers , which according to the legend, used to be a pair of Italian brothers who crashed their plane near the area years ago.

This short silent film—the first movie directed by THE DAYTRIPPERS filmmaker Greg Mottola, who also shot and edited it—was made during Mottola’s brief stint at Pittsburgh Filmmakers in 1985.