Best Mystery Movies of 1986

14th-century Franciscan monk William of Baskerville and his young novice arrive at a conference to find that several monks have been murdered under mysterious circumstances. To solve the crimes, William must rise up against the Church's authority and fight the shadowy conspiracy of monastery monks using only his intelligence – which is considerable.

When the diabolical Professor Ratigan kidnaps London's master toymaker, the brilliant master of disguise Basil of Baker Street and his trusted sidekick Dawson try to elude the ultimate trap and foil the perfect crime.

A wanna-be blues guitar virtuoso seeks a long-lost song by legendary musician, Robert Johnson.

Remy McSwain is a New Orleans police lieutenant who investigates the murder of a local mobster. His investigation leads him to suspect that fellow members of the police force may be involved.

Determined to finish off the infamous killer Jason Voorhees once and for all, Tommy Jarvis and a friend exhume Jason’s corpse in order to cremate him. Things go awry when Jason is instead resurrected, sparking a new chain of ruthlessly brutal murders. Now it’s up to Tommy to stop the dark, devious and demented deaths that he unwittingly brought about.

A group of eight college friends gather together at an island mansion belonging to heiress Muffy St. John to celebrate their final year of school. Soon, they begin to fall victim to an unseen murderer over the April Fool's Day weekend, but nothing is as it seems.

After a Tibetan boy, the mystical Golden Child, is kidnapped by the evil Sardo Numspa, humankind's fate hangs in the balance. On the other side of the world in Los Angeles, the priestess Kee Nang seeks the Chosen One, who will save the boy from death. When Nang sees social worker Chandler Jarrell on television discussing his ability to find missing children, she solicits his expertise, despite his skepticism over being "chosen."

Norman Bates is still running his little motel, and he has kept the dressed skeleton he calls 'mother'. One day a nosey journalist comes to see him to ask questions about his past.

A tough police detective escapes from custody after being framed and arrested for the murder of his ex-wife, and must now find the real killer and prove his innocence.

Playing around with a Ouija board, a trio of friends succeeds in contacting the spirit of a young boy. Trouble begins when the evil spirit, Malfeitor, takes over one of their bodies.

Larry Abbot, speaker in the radio horror shows of Manhattan Mystery Theater wants to marry. For the marriage he takes his fiancée home to the castle where he grew up among his eccentric relatives. His uncle decides that he needs to be cured from a neurotic speech defect and exaggerated bursts of fear: he gives him a shock therapy with palace ghosts.

In this remake of the classic 50s SF tale, a boy tries to stop an invasion of his town by aliens who take over the the minds of his parents, his least-liked schoolteacher and other townspeople. With the aid of the school nurse the boy enlists the aid of the U.S. Marines.

When a family moves into a San Francisco apartment, an opportunistic troll decides to make his move and take possession of little Wendy (Jenny Beck), thereby paving the way for new troll recruits, the first in his army that will take eventual control of the planet. We soon discover Torok is the ex-husband of Eunice St. Clair, a resident in the building who was married to Torok.

Learn the tale of Joshua's leadership and his determination to follow his God. Joshua leads the Hebrews through a battle with the Canaanites, who built a wall to prevent them from passing through to the Promised Land.

Failed actress Alex Sternbergen wakes up hungover one morning in an apartment she does not recognize, unable to remember the previous evening -- and with a dead body in bed next to her. As she tries to piece together the events of the night, Alex cannot totally rely on friends or her estranged husband, Joaquin, for assistance. Only a single ally, loner ex-policeman Turner Kendall, can help her escape her predicament and find the true killer.

Story of Anna Anderson, who claimed to be Anastasia Romanov, the only surviving daughter of the Czar and Czarina of Russia.

Derek, Margo, and Moki jump through time yet again and find themselves lost. As they search for information, they are threatened by wild animals. A young shepherd arrives on the scene and rescues them. They learn that this shepherd just happens to be the future King David. They follow David to Jerusalem, where they watch as he tries to help mend Saul's ill temper. Finally, they witness the defeat of Goliath.

During a murder hunt game at a country house, to which Hercule Poirot is invited as an "expert", a real murder occurs.

In the Rocky Mountains, Harry Kenyon seeks out his missing wife Chris in the Winter Parade. Harry meets Lieutenant Rudameyer and tells that him he is from San Francisco and has just married Chris, from Philadelphia, in Las Vegas. They traveled to the Rockies on honeymoon and they had an argument the previous day, and Chris left their isolated cabin in her car. Harry also says that he is worried about her disappearance since she is not a good driver. Harry returns to his cabin and receives a phone call from the local priest, Father Macklin, who summons him to go to the church. Father Macklin tells says Chris is in the church waiting for him. When Harry sees Chris, he tells that she is not his wife; but the woman knows details of their lives and Harry is discredited by the evidences. Is a stranger impersonating Chris or is Harry delusional?

A detective comes out of retirement to help his daughter's fiance prove that he did not commit a series of murders.

In Acapulco, Hercule Poirot attends a dinner party in which one of the guests clutches his throat and suddenly dies. The causes seem to be natural until another party with most of the same guests produces another corpse.

The story of the Prophet Noah. Violence and corruption fill the earth. To punish this wickedness, God vows to send a cleansing flood. Only one man - Noah - and his family will be spared because they alone honor God's law. God commands him to build an ark and fill it with two of every animal. Once building is under way, Noah and his sons face scorn and sabotage from their sinful neighbors - but they persevere. Noah's faith is vindicated when the heavens erupt with a rainy torrent for 40 days. But God's test of Noah's courage and commitment is just beginning.

An actor rigs a fake shooting on TV with the connivance of his friend, the show's host, but the practical joke goes wrong when the gun turns out to contain a live round.

A priest is murdered and the main suspect is a nun.

After two attempts to kidnap a little girl Mike Hammer is hired to protect her.

One night, in a Los Angeles hospital, Dr. Flax attends to a seriously injured man who, apparently crazed, whispers mysterious and disconcerting words in French into her ear.

After returning home, Coman Gettme discovers that his hometown has come to be governed strictly by fashion.

Thriller about the kidnapping of two children and the investigation that follows, based on the book by Mary Higgins Clark.

Jamie and Allie are amateur sleuths whose grandfather runs a small security business. One afternoon, while digging around on their own, they accidentally stumble onto a major case.

Humanoid killer robots stalk a newspaperman, who has knowledge of their existence. One of the robots is made to look like his girl friend.

A playwright, who lost her fiance to suicide, is haunted by his spirit while staying on a remote island with his mother.

Three brothers (one who is slow and another who is adopted) have disturbing and violent hallucinations while their mother is at work.

Seven girls from the local Catholic school are chosen to go inventory the Wells estate. It sounds like a fun weekend until the girls hold a séance to try and contact Jennifer Wells, a 20-year-old who died mysteriously on the grounds in 1939. Their weekend gets even stranger when it is revealed one of the girls, Jackie, is a dead ringer for the deceased.

A hooded psycho is murdering high-school girls. A devil-worshiping, drug-dealing biker gang is suspected.

A beautiful novelist gets involved with the violent underworld crime elements in New York City and becomes a target. Alec Baldwin plays the cop who pursues her killers.

A retired agent from an Intelligence Agency is contacted by the Agency in order to stop an ultra-secret robot who is killing some government officials. That will be not an easy task, because the robot looks human and it was specifically built to be an efficient killer, not to mention that it is almost invulnerable.

Agatha Christie’s agents propose that it’s time for her to publish the manuscript she wrote thirty-five years earlier, a novel in which she finally kills off her most famous creation. And it’s not an entirely sad occasion. “That wretched little man,” she says. “He’s always been so much trouble. How is it Miss Marple has never upset me at all, not ever?” That night, who should appear at her doorstep but the wretched little man himself, Hercule Poirot? The great fictional detective and his creator proceed to play a very Christie-like game of cat and mouse for the manuscript – and for their own lives.

A teacher's bizarre discipline causes two students to seek revenge with a spell culled from a rock song played backwards. Unfortunately something goes wrong when they cast the spell. When they attempt another spell to fix the problem they accidently remove the head of their teacher.

A white bisexual vampire, Lillia, is trapped in a monotonous cycle with her thoughtless, misogynist vampire partner, Luke (who, while also being a bisexual, prefers to devour women prey). Her encounter with Black lesbian Zena, who is reading about goddesses across religions and cultures and thinking about the horror film genre, pulls Lillia out of a state of bad faith into an enlightened state of knowledge and play. 'The Mark of Lilith' was the graduation film of Bruna Fionda, Polly Gladwin, Zach Mack-Nataf’s from The London College of Printing, under the tutorship of Laura Mulvey. The film was shot in Brixton and made with a cast and crew of local filmmakers, artists and activists. The Mark of Lilith was digitally restored from the 16mm print by the BFI in 2021.

A detective sets out to capture a psycho who kills women, but the psycho turns the tables and goes after the detective's girlfriend.

During World War II, two allied soldiers escape from a Nazi POW camp to Lyons, where they accept the hospitality of mademoiselle Helene.

Years after his Uncle Charles (Dick Sargent) cruelly and unjustly has him committed to a mental asylum, Robert Knight (Bernard White) manages to escape and immediately tracks Charles down at an upcoming family reunion. Along the way, Robert makes a detour to abduct his cousin (Lauren Woodland). After sharing a meal and conversation, the two set off to the reunion, where Robert plans to dispense gory vengeance.

The city is rocked by a series of brutal murders. All the victims are women of lose character or prostitutes, and all have been brutally slain. Inspector Arjun Dutt is assigned this case, and he launches an investigation. The only clue is part of a photograph. Arjun concludes that these murders are being committed by a young man named Vikram alias Devendra. Arjun's superiors do not agree with him, and fault him. His superiors also find out that Vikram was Arjun's close friend, and both were rivals for the same woman, Kiran. The point to ponder is why would Arjun want to accuse Vikram, a man he has known since his college days, of these heinous crimes?

By-the-book cop Sgt. Joe Thursday is assigned to work with a female partner as they search the streets of San Francisco for a missing movie star.

An over-the-hill gumshoe reluctantly teams with worldly retired master thief to solve a string of art thefts and murders.

When the doorman of an expensive apartment building turns up with a broken neck, it doesn't attract much attention. But when it happens a second time, and then a third, the city starts to get nervous. The trail of murder and mystery leads from the posh lobbies of Park Avenue to the back alleys in the "Wrong" part of town. Terry Reilly would rather not get involved. He has his novel to finish, and he has the late shift as the doorman at the Biltmore to keep him busy. But when the murderer picks his building as the next target, Terry finds out that he'll have to solve the mystery to save his own neck.

The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults is a two-hour live American television special that was broadcast in syndication on April 21, 1986, and hosted by Geraldo Rivera. It centered on the live opening of a secret vault in the Lexington Hotel in Chicago once owned by noted crime lord Al Capone.

Gorgeous Jessica Longe is a boardroom widow - her husband is always away on business trips, and on the rare occasion when he is home, he pays her little mind, especially in the sexual arena. Jessica decides to spend a weekend at Paul Thomas' house, where she can think things over and also maybe beat the insomnia that's been keeping her up at night. When se arrives, the house is alive with kinky sexual escapades, including a wall-to-wall orgy that Paul tries to get her to join. She refuses but doesn't pass up a three-way lesbian dalliance with Erica Boyer and Heather Wayne. Gradually, her sexual hang-ups dissolve and she does the wild thing with Paul before being driven home by her now-devoted hubby. A vast and rich sexual panorama.

Faced with two false confessions and numerous suspects after a despised civil magistrate is found shot in the local vicarage, Detective Inspector Slack reluctantly accepts help from Miss Marple.