Best Mystery Movies of 1990
Twin Peaks
An idiosyncratic FBI agent investigates the murder of a young woman in the even more idiosyncratic town of Twin Peaks. (This standalone version of the series pilot was produced for the European VHS market and has an alternate, closed ending.)
Jacob's Ladder
After returning home from the Vietnam War, veteran Jacob Singer struggles to maintain his sanity. Plagued by hallucinations and flashbacks, Singer rapidly falls apart as the world and people around him morph and twist into disturbing images. His girlfriend, Jezzie, and ex-wife, Sarah, try to help, but to little avail. Even Singer's chiropractor friend, Louis, fails to reach him as he descends into madness.
Ghost
Sam Wheat is a banker, Molly Jensen is an artist, and the two are madly in love. However, when Sam is murdered by his friend and corrupt business partner Carl Bruner over a shady business deal, he is left to roam the earth as a powerless spirit. When he learns of Carl's betrayal, Sam must seek the help of psychic Oda Mae Brown to set things right and protect Molly from Carl and his goons.
Twin Peaks (S1 & S2)
The series follows an investigation, headed by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) and local Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean), into the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) in the fictional town of Twin Peaks, Washington.
The Witches
A young boy named Luke and his grandmother go on vacation only to discover their hotel is hosting an international witch convention, where the Grand High Witch is unveiling her master plan to turn all children into mice. Will Luke fall victim to the witches' plot before he can stop them?
Presumed Innocent
Rusty Sabich is a deputy prosecutor engaged in an obsessive affair with a coworker who is murdered. Soon after, he's accused of the crime. And his fight to clear his name becomes a whirlpool of lies and hidden passions.
Quick Change
With the aid of his girlfriend, Phyllis Potter, and best friend, Loomis, Grimm enters a Manhattan bank dressed as a clown, creates a hostage situation and executes a flawless robbery. The only thing left for the trio to do is make their getaway out of the city and to the airport. It sounds simple enough, but it seems that fate deserts them immediately after the bank heist. One mishap after another conspires to keep these robbers from reaching freedom.
The Exorcist III
Fifteen years after the original film, the philosophical Lieutenant William F. Kinderman is investigating a baffling series of murders on Georgetown that all contain the hallmarks of The Gemini, a deceased serial killer. His investigation eventually leads him to a catatonic patient in a psychiatric hospital who has recently started to speak, claiming he is The Gemini and detailing the murders, but bears a striking resemblance to Father Damien Karras.
The Adventures of Ford Fairlane
To the Los Angeles elite, Ford Fairlane is known as "Mr. Rock 'n' Roll Detective." This loudmouthed ladies' man serves an exclusive rock star clientele, who depend on his keen eye and smug discretion. So when a heavy-metal musician dies mid-concert, Fairlane is on the case before the lights come up. But things turn shocking when radio personality Johnny Crunch hires Fairlane to find a missing groupie mere hours before he is electrocuted live on air.
The Two Jakes
This sequel to the classic Chinatown finds private detective Jake Gittes still haunted by the events of the first film. Hired by a man to investigate his wife's infidelities, Jake once again finds himself involved in a complicated plot involving murder, oil, and even some ghosts from his past.
Stephen King's It
In 1960, seven pre-teen outcasts fight an evil demon who poses as a child-killing clown. Thirty years later, they reunite to stop the demon once and for all when it returns to their hometown.

Stephen King's It
In 1960, seven outcast kids known as "The Loser Club" fight an evil demon who poses as a child-killing clown. Thirty years later, they reunite to stop the demon once and for all when it returns to their hometown.
Narrow Margin
An L.A. District Attorney attempts to take an unwilling murder witness back to the United States to testify against a top-level mob boss. Frantically attempting to escape two deadly hitmen sent to silence her, they board a Vancouver-bound train only to discover that the killers are onboard with them. For the next 20 hours, as the train hurls through the beautiful but isolated Canadian wilderness, a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues in which their ability to tell friend from foe is a matter of life and death.
Hidden Agenda
In Ireland, American lawyer Ingrid Jessner and her activist partner, Paul Sullivan, struggle to uncover atrocities committed by the British government against the Northern Irish during the "Troubles." But when Sullivan is assassinated in the streets, Jessner teams up with Peter Kerrigan, a British investigator acting against the will of his own government, and struggles to uncover a conspiracy that may even implicate one of Kerrigan's colleagues.
Mountains of the Moon
The story of Captain Richard Francis Burton's and Lt. John Hanning Speke's expedition to find the source of the Nile river in the name of Queen Victoria's British Empire. The film tells the story of their meeting, their friendship emerging amidst hardship, and then dissolving after their journey.
The Guardian
Phil and Kate select the winsome young Camilla as a live-in nanny for their newborn child, but the seemingly lovely Camilla is not what she appears to be...
Desperate Hours
An escaped con, on the run from the law, moves into a married couple's house and takes over their lives.
Psycho IV: The Beginning
Norman Bates recalls his childhood with his abusive mother on a radio show about boys who commit matricide.
After Dark, My Sweet
The intriguing relationship between three desperados, who try to kidnap a wealthy child in hope of turning their lives around.
Perry Mason: The Case of the Silenced Singer
Perry Mason defends the husband of a famous rock singer who was found being killed after having had a tremendous discussion with her husband and her manager.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Poisoned Pen
The chief suspects in the murder of an author are the numerous colleagues whom he continuously plagiarized.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Desperate Deception
Perry Mason ventures to Paris to defend a U.S. Marine Corps Captain accused of murdering a man suspected of being a Nazi SS Officer.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Defiant Daughter
A young woman from Las Vegas wants Perry Mason to defend her father.

The Awakening
A high school student falls asleep while sitting in class. When he wakes up, all time is frozen, except for him.
Love at Large
Vampish miss Dolan hires hardboiled P.I. Harry Dobbs to tail her shady boyfriend. Harry realizes that the man leads a double life but then his client disappears. Harry teams up with his own tail, P.I. Stella Wynkowski, to clear things up.
IT
In 1960, seven pre-teen outcasts fight an evil demon who poses as a child-killing clown. Thirty years later, they reunite to stop the demon once and for all when it returns to their hometown.
IT (ESO)
In 1960, seven pre-teen outcasts fight an evil demon who poses as a child-killing clown. Thirty years later, they reunite to stop the demon once and for all when it returns to their hometown.
Loose Cannons
Mac, the two-fisted, savvy cop finds that he's being saddled with a new partner, a known burnout, to work with him on a new and difficult case. The new partner is Ellis, an amazing detective, one who puts Sherlock Holmes to shame with his lightning-fast deductions. But he keeps assuming the personalities of entire casts of Television shows. This can be a problem when people begin shooting at them.

Hands of a Murderer
Sherlock Holmes must track down his nemesis, Professor Moriarty, after the villain kidnaps Holmes' brother, Mycroft. The evil doctor is forcing his captive to decode highly classified military documents.
Silhouette
An architect witnesses a brutal murder in a small Texas town.
Meridian
After her father’s death, Catherine returns to her family’s gothic castle in Italy and gets caught in the web of a mysterious love triangle.
The Rift
An experimental submarine with a very experienced crew, the "Siren II" is sent to find out what happened to the "Siren I" after it mysteriously disappeared in a submarine rift. Things go awry when they begin to find things that shouldn't be there...
Everybody Wins
A seemingly good Samaritan hires a private detective to prove a teen sitting in prison on a murder charge is innocent. His investigation discovers deep corruption in a Connecticut town and finds the woman isn't everything she is pretending to be either.

Nightmare on the 13th Floor
In this made-for-cable television horror thriller, a travel writer visits a historic hotel to write a story about it and inadvertently finds herself on the 13th floor where she witnesses a Satanic rite and tangles with an axe-wielding killer. She escapes, but no one believes her story because the hotel has no 13th floor.
In the Cold of the Night
High profile fashion photographer Scott Bruin has been suffering from a series of increasingly disturbing and violent dreams in which he savagely attacks and murders a young woman. Fearing for his sanity, Scott begins to investigate these strange visions but slowly starts to believe that these all-too-real seeming nightmares might not be dreams after all and that the woman in them is in imminent danger.
The China Lake Murders
A small town sheriff has his suspicions in a murder case which involves a rogue cop who goes on a murder spree.

Crash: The Mystery of Flight 1501
Diane and Greg Halstead were once happily married, even deciding to try and have a baby in later years, despite the fact that she had already suffered two miscarriages. She has no luck in becoming pregnant and this leads to an estrangement from her husband. On his latest flight, Greg, a professional pilot, finds out about a bomb threat. The person carrying the bomb supposedly wants to kill another passenger, a politician with an outspoken opinion on abortion. Unknown to the killer, however, the politician has already left the plane because it had an hour and a half delay. Greg decides to make an emergency landing in Dayton, Ohio, but during the heavy weather, the plane crashes, killing almost everyone on board.
In Defense of a Married Man
When a defense lawyer's adulterous husband becomes the prime suspect in the murder of the woman he was cheating with, his wife chooses to defend him. Can she overcome his betrayal while searching for the truth?

False Identity
When Rachel, a radio personality, discovers a Purple Heart at a garage sale she decides to find out its history. She finds that the medal belonged to a man named Harlan Erickson, a long-lost brother of the town's leading citizen.

Menu for Murder
Joanne Mayfield, head of the parental school commission, behaves like a dictator and makes all the other women her enemies. But when she suddenly falls dead on a party after having a sandwich, the main suspect is Susan, who served her the food. The handsome detective Joe Russo interrogates her repeatedly and they become friends. He invites her to help him with the investigation, what she happily accepts - too happily, says her husband.
A Show of Force
In this thriller, television reporter Kate Ryan de Meléndez investigates the death of two radical Puerto Rican activists, whom she begins to believe may have been framed and murdered by undercover American agents.

Night Visions
A Los Angeles detective hunts a serial killer with a woman who has telepathic multiple personalities.

Still Life
The alleys of downtown Manhattan become a modern killing field when corpses begin turning up, disfigured and gruesomely posed to appear as pieces of art.In the frightening climate of the "Art Killer", Peter Sherwood, a struggling musician, is hired to compose for a patron of the arts, and thinks his dreams are coming true. But as the body count continues to rise, the clues surrounding the murders oddly begin to lead police closer and closer to Peter and his new job. Suddenly, all eyes are on Peter and he must scramble to find the real killer - before he becomes his next masterpiece.

Dr. M
In the not-too-distant future Berlin is shocked by a series of spectacular suicides; a policeman's investigations lead him to a beautiful, enigmatic woman and the revelation of a sinister plot to manipulate the population through mass hypnosis.

Deceptions
When a wealthy socialite kills her husband, she claims self-defense. The cop assigned to the case is suspicious but becomes obsessed with the sensual young woman.

Whispers
A woman is stalked by a psychopathic killer. She eventually kills him, only for the man to show up again, this time sane and without any knowledge of the attacks. The police don't believe her, but one detective agrees to look into it.

The Lorelei
A lonely schoolteacher has a strange experience on her walking holiday. It haunts her and threatens to wreck her growing romance with a colleague.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind
A rich woman becomes paranoid after losing her daughter to a so-called Kabuki Killer.
Burndown
The bodies turn out to be very radioactive. A sheriff and reporter start to investigate ...
Paint It Black
A California metal sculptor becomes a suspect after someone kills his gallery-owner lover.
Also check Best mystery movies of 1991.
Check out our top containing the Best Mystery Movies of 1990 - PickTheMovie.com. This top was obtained with our unique algorithm ordered by our unique ranking system.
