Mystery Films

Wealthy, universally disliked Silas Wayne gathers his greedy relatives and mistreated servants to read them his will, and is stabbed to death in front of a room full of witnesses who all claim to have seen nothing. Detective Sergeant Mitchell (Regis Toomey) and wisecracking reporter "Nosey" Toodles (June Clyde) sort through a house full of suspects — a shrouded figure stalking the halls, a phony diamond in the safe, and a second body before the night is out. Lucille La Verne steals scenes as the dead man's housekeeper. Released by Monogram in November 1932 and reissued under the title The Wayne Murder Case, it is a brisk pre-Code old-dark-house mystery. The film is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Drama

Ten strangers lured to a remote island mansion by the unseen "Mr. Owen" are accused by a gramophone recording of crimes the law couldn't touch — then begin dying one by one, following the nursery rhyme tacked above the mantel. René Clair's adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel keeps the jagged suspense while letting an impeccable ensemble — Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Louis Hayward, Roland Young, June Duprez — play it with dry wit. Still the benchmark screen version of the most-read mystery novel ever written. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Crime · Mystery · Drama

The earliest surviving film to feature the character Charlie Chan, directed by Irving Cummings and produced by Fox Film Corporation. Warner Baxter stars as Col. John Beetham, a man under suspicion in a complex murder mystery. Lois Moran plays Eve Mannering Durand, whose husband's death sets the investigation in motion. Boris Karloff appears as Beetham's sinister manservant in an early role before his horror fame. Charlie Chan, played by the Chinese American actor E. L. Park, gets one mention early in the film and then makes only a few momentary appearances after 75 minutes. Park was the first Chinese American to play Charlie Chan on screen. Producer William Fox chose this film to open the palatial Fox Theatre in San Francisco on June 28, 1929. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A wartime espionage quickie from Monogram, rushed into theaters three months after Pearl Harbor. Bela Lugosi plays Dr. Melcher, a plastic surgeon who has spent years transforming six agents of Japan's Black Dragon Society into doubles of prominent American industrialists — a fifth column planted to sabotage the US war effort. When the infiltrators start turning up dead with ceremonial daggers in their chests, a doctor and a detective try to untangle the conspiracy. Clayton Moore, a few years away from the Lone Ranger, plays a young FBI man. Cheap even by poverty-row standards, but a vivid snapshot of wartime paranoia. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Thriller · Mystery · War

The second East Side Kids film and the first to star Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, and Ernest Morrison. Directed by Joseph H. Lewis and produced by Sam Katzman for Monogram Pictures, the film follows a group of street kids who escape the city heat for a summer camp in the Adirondacks. When their car breaks down, they take shelter in the home of Judge Malcolm Parker, who is under indictment for bribery and has been threatened by racketeers. After the Judge is found strangled and his niece kidnapped, the boys must solve the murder themselves, navigating secret passages and unmasking the real killer. The film is also known by the alternative title The Ghost Creeps. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Mystery · Thriller

A 1929 American pre-Code crime film in which Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond helps a young woman in distress. Ronald Colman stars as the title character in his first talking picture, a role that earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Claud Allister plays his loyal friend Algy Longworth, while Montagu Love plays the villain Carl Peterson and Lawrence Grant plays his accomplice Dr. Lakington. Joan Bennett appears as Phyllis Benton, the young woman whose plea for help sets the plot in motion. Produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by F. Richard Jones, the film was adapted by Sidney Howard from the 1921 play by H. C. McNeile. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Mystery · Thriller

One of Paramount's 1930s B-series about the British adventurer Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond, adapted from the novels by H.C. "Sapper" McNeile. Days before his long-delayed wedding, Drummond learns that his friend Colonel Nielson of Scotland Yard has been kidnapped and flown to a remote African compound. Drummond, his fiancée Phyllis, and his sidekick Algy follow, uncovering a plot to extract defense secrets from the colonel. John Howard plays Drummond as a breezy, unflappable gentleman hero, and Heather Angel is the fiancée who refuses to be left behind. The picture is a brisk, hour-long programmer of the old dark-house-in-the-bush variety. Released in 1938, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Adventure · Crime

The eighth and final film in Paramount's Bulldog Drummond series, and the wedding finally almost happens. Hugh Drummond (John Howard) and Phyllis Clavering (Heather Angel) are at the altar when a robbery interrupts the ceremony — a gang has hidden its take inside the radio in Drummond's own flat, and the chase to recover it takes the wedding party to a French village under siege. H.B. Warner, Reginald Denny, and E.E. Clive return as Nielsen, Algy, and Tenny for the last time, and Elizabeth Patterson joins as Phyllis's perpetually scandalized aunt. Directed by James P. Hogan, it plays the series' blend of drawing-room comedy and knockabout thrills at full speed. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Mystery · Comedy · Crime

Another entry in Paramount's Bulldog Drummond series, based on the McNeile novel "Temple Tower." Drummond is finally preparing to marry Phyllis at his ancestral country house when an absent-minded professor arrives with a story about a hidden treasure, and a murderer named Henry Seaton turns up to complicate the wedding plans. The plot winds through secret passages and a string of killings around the estate, with Colonel Nielson and Algy along for the chase. John Howard and Heather Angel continue their easy chemistry, and Leo G. Carroll plays the villain. Released in 1939, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Adventure · Crime

Mary Henry survives a car that plunges off a bridge into a river, dragged out hours later with no memory of how she escaped. She moves to a new town to start a job as a church organist, but she is drawn to an abandoned pavilion on the shore, and she keeps seeing a pale, grinning man no one else can see. Herk Harvey made the film for around thirty thousand dollars on weekends, with a crew borrowed from industrial film work. The organ score and the empty fairground imagery give it a dreamlike dread that influenced later horror. Mary keeps slipping out of the world entirely, becoming invisible and silent to the people around her, and the film never explains why in a neat way. The film was largely ignored on release and found its audience years later through television. It entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Horror · Mystery

Warner Oland's tenth outing as Charlie Chan sends the detective to a San Francisco mansion where Allen Colby, the heir to the Lowell fortune, has returned after being presumed drowned for seven years — and is murdered at a séance before he can reclaim a cent. Chan sifts through a household of psychics, suspicious relatives, and a butler who knows more than he says, while the killer keeps striking. Henrietta Crosman and Rosina Lawrence co-star, with Jonathan Hale as the police chief. Directed by Gordon Wiles, it is one of the more atmospheric of the Fox Chan pictures, leaning hard into spiritualism and old-dark-house menace. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A 1930 mystery melodrama from RKO, directed by Christy Cabanne and based on the 1912 play by Robert B. Baker and John Emerson. Margaret Holt and her brother Victor investigate the narcotics ring responsible for their father's death, with the help of a crotchety crime author played by Ned Sparks, whose over-the-top performance steals the show. The film is a fascinating artifact of the early sound era, when actors and directors were still learning to adapt to the medium of talkies. Bessie Love and Hugh Trevor round out the cast. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 1958 because the copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Drama

Francis Ford Coppola's feature directorial debut, produced by Roger Corman with leftover money from another shoot. A woman conceals her husband's death and travels to his family's Irish castle to secure a share of the inheritance, only to find the household haunted by the drowning of a young daughter years before. Then an ax-wielding killer begins picking off members of the family. Coppola shot the film in Ireland on a tiny budget, and Corman later added a prologue by Monte Hellman to pad the runtime. The result is a rough but atmospheric black-and-white horror picture that hints at the talent Coppola would soon develop. It entered the public domain and has circulated widely on budget labels ever since.

Horror · Mystery

The fourth and final RKO Dick Tracy feature, and the only one to star Boris Karloff. A convicted killer called Gruesome gets his hands on a canister of experimental nerve gas that freezes anyone who breathes it mid-action, and uses it to stage a bank robbery in which the customers and staff stand paralyzed while the vault is cleaned out. Tess Trueheart witnesses the robbery and barely escapes, bringing Dick Tracy onto the case. Ralph Byrd, who had played Tracy in the Republic serials, returns to the role here. Karloff's presence gives the picture a jolt of real menace that the series had lacked, and the gas gimmick is a neat piece of B-noir plotting. Released in 1947, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Crime · Mystery · Thriller

The second of RKO's four Dick Tracy features, based on Chester Gould's comic strip. A bald, thick-necked ex-convict called Cueball strangles a diamond courier with a shoelace and goes hunting for the rest of the stolen stones, leaving a trail of bodies across the city. Dick Tracy and his girlfriend Tess Trueheart work the case from opposite ends, she going undercover as a diamond broker to draw the killer out. Morgan Conway plays Tracy as a placid, square-jawed straight arrow, and Dick Wessel's Cueball is an effectively brutal heavy. The film is a tight, cheap, well-paced B-mystery that clocks in at just over an hour. Released in 1946, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Crime · Mystery · Action

The last of the fourteen Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. Three apparently ordinary music boxes, made by prisoners in Dartmoor and sold at auction, turn out to hide a coded message pointing to a fortune in stolen Bank of England plates. A collector who buys one of the boxes is murdered, and Holmes and Watson race a coolly ruthless woman, Hilda Courtney, to recover the other two before she cracks the code. Patricia Morison plays the villain, one of the series' most memorable, against Rathbone's weary, finally retiring Holmes. Roy William Neill produced and directed his final film before his death later that year. Released in 1946, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Crime

Edward Arnold stars as Duncan "Mac" Maclain, a blind detective who refuses to let his disability slow him down, relying on his guide dog Friday and his heightened remaining senses. When old friend Norma Lawry (Ann Harding) asks him to scare off a scheming actor courting her teenage stepdaughter (Donna Reed, in one of her earliest roles), Mac walks into a case that quickly turns to espionage and murder. Directed by Fred Zinnemann near the start of his Hollywood career, this lean MGM programmer spins Baynard Kendrick's novels into a tight, atmospheric thriller — the first of only two Maclain films. Its copyright was never renewed, placing it in the public domain.

Noir · Mystery · Crime

A bank teller wakes from a vivid nightmare in which he murders a man in a strange mirrored room, and finds physical evidence in his apartment that suggests it may not have been a dream at all. His brother-in-law, a police detective, does not believe him, until a family picnic strands them near an abandoned mansion that turns out to contain the very room from the dream. The film is based on a Cornell Woolrich story, and it works the Woolrich territory of ordinary people trapped in impossible situations. DeForest Kelley, years before he was Dr. McCoy on Star Trek, makes his film debut as the tormented teller, and Paul Kelly is the skeptical cop. Director Maxwell Shane later remade the film as Nightmare (1956) with Edward G. Robinson. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Crime · Noir · Mystery

Alan Curtis plays a former FBI agent flying passengers to Honolulu who gets pulled into a hunt for a stolen map of uranium deposits in Death Valley — a map that agents of a foreign power will kill for. Evelyn Ankers co-stars as a fellow passenger with her own reasons for the trip. A Screen Guild B-thriller trading on post-war atomic anxiety, with most of the action confined to the hotel and the doomed flight. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Mystery · Thriller

William Cagney — James's younger brother, in his only starring role — plays Bob Mason, a carefree socialite who poses as a detective to impress a girl and promptly gets himself suspected of a real murder. With the police on one side and the actual killer on the other, Bob has to solve the case to clear his own name, helped along by Marion Burns as the girl he is trying to win. A poverty-row quickie from Monogram directed by silent-comedy veteran Vin Moore, it coasts on Cagney's easy charm and a plot that never sits still for its sixty-odd minutes. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Mystery

Haldane of the Secret Service is a 1923 silent serial-style adventure produced by and starring Harry Houdini, directed by Burton King for the Houdini Picture Corporation and distributed by Famous Players-Lasky. Houdini plays Heath Haldane, a government agent who infiltrates a vicious gang of counterfeiters to rescue a captive agent and smash the ring. As in his other film vehicles, the picture was built around Houdini's escapes and physical stunts, though the acting is stiff and the plot is thin. It was the last feature Houdini made before returning to the stage. As a 1923 work, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2019.

Mystery · Action · Silent

A wealthy businessman survives a murder attempt arranged by his wife and her lover, then disappears so that the two of them can be charged with killing him. He hides out in a small town under an assumed name while the police, led by a sharp lieutenant played by Charles Coburn, work to build the case. Brian Donlevy is the wronged husband who has to decide whether to come back at all, and Ella Raines is the woman who helps him. The film was shot entirely in Northern California, around San Francisco and Marin County, which gives it a different look from the usual Los Angeles noir. It entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Crime · Noir · Mystery

On a dark train platform, a stranger tells a waiting woman the story of Harold Dunlap — a man who accidentally kills his jilting lover on that very platform and flees to a small town, only to find that a young boy named Mike saw the whole thing. Trapped by flooded roads, Dunlap has to decide what to do about his witness. Directed by prolific B-movie hand Lew Landers and tying into the Inner Sanctum radio and pulp-mystery brand, this hour-long M.R.S. Pictures cheapie stars Charles Russell and Mary Beth Hughes. It is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Mystery · Noir

When a newspaper columnist is murdered while investigating the Crusaders, a flag-waving hate group building itself into a political power, assistant district attorney Howard Malloy (Franchot Tone) is named special prosecutor and digs into the shadowy organization. The film is famous for its uncredited cameos — Marlene Dietrich, Henry Fonda, John Garfield, Burgess Meredith, and Everett Sloane all turn up in small roles as a favor to director Fletcher Markle. Produced by the Danziger brothers and released by United Artists, Jigsaw is in the public domain.

Noir · Crime · Mystery

Striptease artist Dixie Daisy is riding out backstage feuds and fending off brash comic Biff Brannigan when a string of murders starts picking off her fellow dancers one by one — and she's next on the list. Barbara Stanwyck leads the wisecracking company in William A. Wellman's adaptation of Gypsy Rose Lee's novel The G-String Murders, with Michael O'Shea, Iris Adrian, and a backstage world rendered with real backstage bite. It is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Mystery · Music

A 1940 American mystery film directed by Howard Bretherton and released by Monogram Pictures. The film stars John 'Dusty' King as Val Lennon and Marjorie Reynolds as Joan Marshall, who find themselves aboard the Midnight Limited, a train where a mysterious crime unfolds. George Cleveland plays Professor Van Dillon. The film is a classic Poverty Row mystery, typical of Monogram's low-budget output of the era. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Action

Reporter Sue Gallagher (Detour's Ann Savage) discovers the corpse of a notorious gangster propped up in a wax museum and fights to keep the scoop — while a rival reporter (William Gargan), the museum's bumbling maintenance man (Leo Gorcey), and the killer himself (George Zucco) all converge on the evidence. A fast, funny 64-minute programmer from Pine-Thomas Productions, Paramount's prolific "Dollar Bills" B-movie unit. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Crime · Mystery

A 1972 American made-for-television horror film directed by Daniel Petrie, broadcast on ABC Movie of the Week. After several locals are viciously murdered in a Louisiana bayou town, Sheriff Aaron Whitaker (David Janssen) begins to suspect he may be dealing with a werewolf. As the investigation deepens, the suspects include the town doctor, a swamp dweller, and the local aristocrat Andrew Rodanthe (Bradford Dillman), whose sister Louise (Barbara Rush) becomes the sheriff's romantic interest. Based on the novel by Leslie H. Whitten, the film is a Southern Gothic murder mystery with a lycanthropic twist, filmed on location in Burnside and Clinton, Louisiana. The film is marked Public Domain on Archive.org.

Horror · Mystery · Thriller

The third entry in Monogram's Mr. Wong series, with Boris Karloff in the unlikely role of the gentlemanly Chinese detective James Lee Wong. A Chinese princess visiting San Francisco to buy warplanes for her country is murdered in Wong's own home, and the trail winds through Chinatown tongs, shady ship brokers, and a counterfeiting ring. Marjorie Reynolds co-stars as wisecracking reporter Bobbie Logan, with Grant Withers as the eternally exasperated Captain Street. Karloff's quiet, courtly Wong remains one of the odder delights of the Poverty Row detective series. The film's copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Crime

An early Alfred Hitchcock thriller from his British period. An actress is found standing over the body of a murdered colleague with the weapon in her hand, and a jury convicts her. One juror, the distinguished actor Sir John Menier, is troubled by the verdict and sets out to investigate on his own, uncovering the real killer. The film, based on the novel Enter Sir John, shows Hitchcock working out ideas he would refine for decades: the wrongfully accused, the audience's complicity, and suspense generated by the gap between what the viewer and the characters know. Hitchcock makes his customary cameo, walking past the murder victim's house. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Mystery · Thriller · Crime

A professor perfects a working television system and invites investors to a demonstration, only to die on camera when a mysterious ray intercuts the broadcast. Bela Lugosi plays a dual role — the professor's loyal assistant and a sinister European interloper — in a whodunit where the murder weapon is the new technology itself. Shot in 1935, when television was still laboratory speculation, the film treats live broadcast as exotic enough to carry a thriller. June Collyer plays the professor's daughter caught between suspects. Made by poverty-row outfit Cameo Pictures, it entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Thriller · Sci-Fi

A baby photographer who dreams of being a private detective gets his chance when a beautiful baroness mistakes him for the real detective next door and drags him into a plot involving a kidnapped uncle and a map to uranium. Bob Hope sends up the noir genre he loved. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Mystery

The fifth of Columbia's Whistler films. A shady private detective named Don Gale is hired by an old shopkeeper to find a young woman from his past so he can leave her a fortune, but the case is a setup, and Gale is soon framed for murder. As the Whistler's narration reminds us, the detective's own greed set the trap, and the film watches him scramble to stay ahead of the police and the real killer. Richard Dix plays his seventh Whistler lead, with Barton MacLane as the cop on his trail and Mike Mazurki as a menacing thug. William Castle directed. Released in 1946, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Noir · Crime

A 1934 American Pre-Code mystery film directed by William Nigh and based on an Edgar Wallace story. Captain Holling (Noah Beery) is relieved of command of his ship after suffering a nervous breakdown. His replacement takes over the liner just as it is about to be used for an experiment in remote control. Professor Grimson has devised a system for controlling the ship from a land-based laboratory, but as Grimson demonstrates the system, a rival group is listening in, hoping to use the device for its own purposes. The film was entered as a feature attraction at the 1934 International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art in Venice, the forerunner of the Venice Film Festival. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

Private detective Humphrey Campbell tracks down a missing girl for a bank vault company, only to find her murdered — and his search pulls in a psychic act, a collection of eccentric suspects, and his own sharp-tongued wife Louise. Chester Morris plays the brash Campbell, a lighter riff on his Boston Blackie persona, with Jean Parker as Louise. A fast, cheap, and lively Pine-Thomas production for Paramount, directed by Frank McDonald and adapted from a novel by Daniel Mainwaring writing as Geoffrey Homes. The film entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Mystery · Comedy

Insurance salesman Albert Tuttle arrives at the Rutherford mansion to sell a policy — only to find his prospect already dead, the heirs locked in by a will that won't be read until the body is entombed, and the corpse itself refusing to stay put. Jack Haley plays the jittery Tuttle, with Bela Lugosi in a red-herring role as the sinister butler, plus secret passages and a disappearing body. A Pine-Thomas production for Paramount, directed by Frank McDonald. It is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Horror · Mystery

A 1922 American Gothic silent mystery film directed by D. W. Griffith. The plot revolves around a series of murders on a wealthy estate and the attempts of the cast to uncover the murderer's identity. A young orphan girl (Carol Dempster), courted by an unpleasant older wealthy man who has a hold over her adoptive mother, falls in love with a young stranger (Henry Hull) at a party. Odd noises begin to be heard as a group of bootleggers clandestinely try to get away with their hidden loot. One of them is killed and the young man is suspected of being the killer. Griffith reassembled the cast and shot a new ending involving a terrifying hurricane, using a combination of real hurricane footage and studio special effects. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Silent

Puss n' Booty is a 1943 Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Frank Tashlin for Leon Schlesinger Productions. A woman is distraught because her pet cats keep mysteriously disappearing, and she hires a mouse investigator to solve the case. The short is a film noir parody with a surprising twist ending. Tashlin's live-action-influenced directorial style is evident throughout. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy · Mystery

A 1930 American pre-Code comedy-mystery film produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by George Fitzmaurice. Ronald Colman stars as A.J. Raffles, a distinguished English gentleman who leads a secret life as the notorious jewel thief the press has dubbed "The Amateur Cracksman." When Raffles falls in love with Gwen (Kay Francis), he decides to retire from crime, but an old friend, Bunny (Bramwell Fletcher), comes to him with a predicament that entails committing one last job. The film is based on the 1906 play by E. W. Hornung and Eugene Wiley Presbrey, adapted from Hornung's 1899 short story collection. Oscar Lagerstrom was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound Recording. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Comedy · Mystery · Romance

Larry Elliot, a timid chess columnist who covers murders for a newspaper, flees to Grape City to escape a gangster's threats — only to land in a haunted-house mystery involving a stolen jade chess set, a missing corpse, and a fortune hidden in a creepy mansion. Jack Haley, the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, plays the jittery reporter alongside Ann Savage and Barton MacLane. A Pine-Thomas production for Paramount, also released as Treasure of Fear. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Mystery · Horror

A 1916 American silent film and the only surviving filmed record of William Gillette's legendary stage performance as Sherlock Holmes. Directed by Arthur Berthelet for Essanay Studios, the film adapts Gillette's 1899 play, which drew on Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Scandal in Bohemia," "The Final Problem," and A Study in Scarlet. Gillette had played Holmes over 1,300 times on stage and shaped many of the character's iconic elements, including the deerstalker hat and calabash pipe. Long believed lost, a nitrate print was discovered in the Cinémathèque Française archive in 2014 and restored by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Silent

The 1922 Sherlock Holmes stars John Barrymore as Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary detective in one of the earliest surviving feature-length adaptations of the character. Roland Young, later famous for the Topper films, plays Dr. Watson, while Gustav von Seyffertitz portrays Moriarty. A young William Powell appears in a supporting role, years before his own stardom. Produced by Goldwyn Pictures and directed by Albert Parker, the film was long considered lost until a print was recovered in the 1970s. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Silent

The fourth of Universal's Sherlock Holmes films updates Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" to wartime. Holmes smuggles a Swiss scientist out of Zurich ahead of the Gestapo and brings him to London, where the man has developed a revolutionary bombsight he intends to give the Allies. When the scientist is kidnapped, Holmes and Watson discover that Professor Moriarty is behind it, working to deliver the weapon to Nazi Germany. Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce are in their familiar roles, with Lionel Atwill as a silkily malevolent Moriarty. The film grafts a spy thriller onto a Conan Doyle puzzle and was made on a small budget at a moment when the series leaned hard into the war effort. It was released in 1943 and is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A 1972 American slasher film directed by Theodore Gershuny, starring Patrick O'Neal, Mary Woronov, and John Carradine. The plot follows a series of murders that occur in a small New England town on Christmas Eve after a man inherits a family estate which was once an insane asylum. As the body count rises, the town's dark secrets are revealed through a series of eerie phone calls and flashbacks. The film was produced by Lloyd Kaufman (later of Troma Entertainment) and is considered a precursor to the slasher genre that would explode later in the decade. Although a copyright statement appears in the credits, the film was never registered for copyright, placing it in the public domain.

Horror · Thriller · Mystery

Haunted by a recurring dream in which a suave stranger seduces his widowed mother, teenager Paul Cartwright (Jimmy Lydon) becomes convinced that the man — Brett Curtis (Warren William) — murdered his father. Edgar G. Ulmer's poverty-row Hamlet, made on PRC's tiny budgets with his signature hallucinatory style, proves atmosphere doesn't require money. Curtis's oily charm does the rest. One of the most admired of Ulmer's "stylish cheapies," the film is in the public domain.

Noir · Mystery · Thriller

A 1932 American mystery film directed by Frank R. Strayer. When a plane makes an emergency landing during a storm, the passengers take refuge in a deserted house—only to discover that one of them is a killer. After a man is murdered and diamonds stolen, everyone becomes a suspect in this "old dark house" whodunit. The film stars Gene Morgan, Doris Hill, Glenn Tryon, and Vera Reynolds, and was distributed by Mayfair Pictures. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson board the London-to-Edinburgh express to guard the Star of Rhodesia, a priceless diamond with a bloody history. When the jewel's owner is murdered and the stone vanishes, Holmes must unmask the killer among a carriage full of suspects — including the eminent Colonel Sebastian Moran — before the train reaches its destination. Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce's thirteenth outing as Holmes and Watson, directed and produced by Roy William Neill for Universal, compresses the series' formula into a brisk, atmospheric hour. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A wealthy widow is convinced she hears her late husband's voice on the beach, and a suave spiritualist seems to confirm it, while her skeptical sister and a psychiatrist try to expose him as a fraud. Turhan Bey stars in this atmospheric noir, also released as The Spiritualist. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Noir · Mystery · Thriller

Boris Karloff plays Dr. Bernard Adrian, a gentle small-town physician still grieving his wife and daughter's deaths from polio, now experimenting with spinal fluid to cure a paralyzed young woman. When a vicious circus ape escapes and is shot, Adrian sees a grim shortcut to the human material he needs — and the killings that follow are blamed on the ape itself. A Monogram horror cheapie that gives Karloff an unusually sympathetic mad scientist. The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Mystery

A 1959 American crime-mystery thriller directed by Crane Wilbur, starring Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead. Mystery novelist Cornelia van Gorder (Moorehead) rents a country mansion for the summer, only to find herself in the middle of a killing spree by a mysterious murderer known as "The Bat," who wears all black and slashes his victims' throats. Meanwhile, a million dollars has gone missing from the local bank, and the bank president has disappeared. As the bodies pile up in the mansion's secret passages, Dr. Malcolm Wells (Price) may hold the key to the mystery. Based on the 1908 novel The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart and the 1920 play The Bat, this is the fourth film adaptation of the story. Written and directed by Crane Wilbur, who also wrote House of Wax (1953).

Mystery · Thriller · Horror

The debut episode of the NBC anthology series "The Dow Hour of Great Mysteries," broadcast live on March 31, 1960 and preserved as a kinescope. Hosted by Joseph N. Welch — the Boston lawyer famous for the Army–McCarthy hearings — this elaborately staged television version of the 1920 Avery Hopwood and Mary Roberts Rinehart play stars Helen Hayes as spinster Cornelia Van Gorder, who rents a rambling country mansion where a fortune in stolen securities is believed to be hidden. A sinister criminal known only as "The Bat" stalks the corridors, determined to find the money first. Jason Robards Jr. and Margaret Hamilton round out the cast of one of television's most lavish live productions of its era, adapted from one of the archetypal "old dark house" mysteries.

Mystery · Horror

A 1930 pre-Code mystery film directed by Roland West and produced by Joseph M. Schenck for United Artists. Based on the 1920 play The Bat by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, the film follows the mysterious criminal known as "The Bat" who terrorizes the occupants of a lonely country mansion. Notable as one of the first widescreen films, West shot the picture in both standard 35mm and an experimental 65mm format requiring two cameramen. The film stars Chester Morris, Una Merkel, and Grayce Hampton, and is widely cited as an inspiration for Bob Kane's Batman. Long thought lost, a nitrate print was discovered at the Mary Pickford Estate in 1987 and restored by UCLA. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A 1930 pre-Code crime film directed by Frank Tuttle and based on the 1926 novel by S. S. Van Dine. William Powell stars as the aristocratic detective Philo Vance, investigating the murder of a wealthy broker at his Long Island estate. The film co-stars William "Stage" Boyd, Eugene Pallette, Paul Lukas, and Natalie Moorhead. The screenplay was adapted by Bartlett Cormack. The film entered the public domain on January 1, 2026.

Crime · Mystery · Thriller

A 1943 Poverty Row mystery-horror film directed by Sam Newfield and produced by Sigmund Neufeld for Producers Releasing Corporation. On a stormy night, a group of strangers—including an eloping couple, an embezzling bank teller, and a gangster—take shelter at the Black Raven inn, run by the mysterious Amos Bradford (George Zucco), known in the underworld as "The Raven." When a murder occurs and the roads wash out, the trapped travelers begin to suspect each other. The film co-stars Wanda McKay, Robert Livingston, and Charles Middleton. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Horror

A mysterious Chinese princess is murdered in Charlie Chan's own home, leaving only a large ring and the dying message "Capt K" as clues. Chan traces the ring to a visiting princess and untangles a plot involving stolen fighter planes and a cargo ship bound for China. The Chinese Ring was Roland Winters' first outing as Chan after taking over the role at Monogram, with Mantan Moreland and Victor Sen Yung back as Birmingham Brown and Tommy Chan. Directed by the prolific William Beaudine, the film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime

Bela Lugosi plays Dr. Lorenz, a mad scientist who sends poisoned orchids to brides so they collapse at the altar, then steals their bodies to extract the fluids that keep his aging wife young. A journalist investigating the string of deaths tracks Lorenz to his country home, where she finds a household of coffins, secret passages, and a hunchbacked servant. The Corpse Vanishes is a brisk Monogram B-picture from the stretch of Lugosi's career when he was working the Poverty Row circuit. It is campy and cheap, but Lugosi plays it with complete conviction. The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Mystery

A Chesterfield old-dark-house mystery directed by Charles Lamont. Two brothers, eccentric misers feared and hated by everyone in their household, have made a habit of threatening to cut off their heirs — so when one of them is murdered at midnight during a thunderstorm, nearly everyone is a suspect. Retired detective Jim Landis (Ray Walker) must sort out which heir pulled the trigger while reporter Elsa Carson (Irene Ware) gets in the way. Hedda Hopper, a year away from becoming Hollywood's most feared gossip columnist, appears as one of the scheming relatives. The film's copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Comedy

A 1952 American-French film noir directed by Rudolph Maté, starring Glenn Ford as Michael Blake, a World War II veteran who returns to France to recover a priceless jeweled gauntlet — the "green glove" — he found during the Normandy invasion and hid in a village church. The treasure is also sought by suave art dealer Count Paul Rona (George Macready), whose men are willing to kill for it, while Blake is aided by a Parisian tour guide (Geraldine Brooks) and a parish priest (Cedric Hardwicke). Shot on location in postwar Paris and the south of France, the film mixes heist thriller and travelogue. Also known as The White Road and Gauntlet. It is in the public domain.

Crime · Mystery

William Powell's fourth and final outing as S.S. Van Dine's dilettante detective Philo Vance. A Long Island dog-show society gathering ends in a locked-room murder when the universally disliked Archer Coe is found dead — apparently by suicide, except for the bullet in his head and the corpse of his dog found in a closet. Vance unpicks a tangle of rivalries, inheritances, and championship terriers. Directed at speed by Michael Curtiz for Warner Bros., it's widely considered the best of the Philo Vance pictures and one of the cleverest whodunits of the pre-Code era. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime

A 1953 British film noir directed by Cy Endfield — one of several crime pictures he made in Britain before Zulu (1964). American veteran Frank Prior (Lloyd Bridges) returns to London to rekindle a wartime romance with actress Pauline French (Moira Lister), only to watch the man standing beside him get shot dead by a sniper on the airport tarmac. Drawn into the investigation, Frank discovers his old flame is entangled in blackmail and murder, and the killer — a marksman who walks with a limp — is still out there. The film ends with one of the most infamous rug-pull endings in B-movie history. It is in the public domain.

Crime · Mystery · Thriller

A mystery film directed by Ralph Staub for Republic Pictures, loosely based on the Ellery Queen novel The Chinese Orange Mystery. Eddie Quillan plays Ellery Queen, a mystery writer and amateur detective who investigates the theft of a rare Chinese Mandarin stamp from a Manhattan hotel and the murders that follow. Charlotte Henry co-stars as Josephine Temple, the stamp's owner who becomes a suspect. The film also features Franklin Pangborn as the hotel's hysterical manager. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime

The second of Columbia's eight Whistler films, drawn from the popular radio mystery series in which an unseen narrator who "knows many things" walks the listener through a story of fate and guilt. Richard Dix plays a drifter who stumbles into a dormant bank account left in his name by a dead man, and tries to pass himself off as the depositor's long-lost son to collect the money. The scheme draws in a woman who may know more than she lets on and a killer waiting in the background. William Castle directed, working from a Cornell Woolrich story, and the film carries Woolrich's signature dread of ordinary people trapped by coincidence. Released in 1944, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Noir · Crime

Bela Lugosi plays the title role in this Monogram poverty-row thriller, a Chinatown crime lord hunting down the twelve legendary coins of Confucius, which are said to grant their possessor control of a Chinese province. Bodies start turning up across the district as Wong's men retrieve the coins one by one, and wisecracking reporter Jason Barton, played by Wallace Ford, follows the trail into Wong's secret headquarters. Lugosi is clearly enjoying himself in a dual role that lets him be both the suave mastermind and his own humble shopkeeper cover. Directed by William Nigh, a Monogram regular who also helmed several of the studio's Mr. Wong detective films. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A radio-era whodunit from Monogram. Crooner Norman Wilder (Ralph Forbes) is the most popular voice on the air — but the voice isn't his: he has been secretly lip-syncing to a blacklisted singer, the "phantom" of the broadcast. When Wilder is shot dead mid-performance, detectives and rival singers pile into a case where everyone in the station had a motive and nobody is who they claim to be. Phil Rosen, one of Poverty Row's most prolific directors, keeps the mystery brisk. Its copyright was never renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Crime · Music

Pete Morgan is a farmer with a bad leg and a dark secret. He has raised his niece Meg as his own and forbids her from going near an abandoned house deep in the woods on his land, warning her that the woods are haunted. When a hired hand starts asking questions and Meg grows more curious, the family's buried past begins to surface. Edward G. Robinson plays against type as the gentle, haunted farmer, and the film leans on atmosphere and dread rather than violence. Miklos Rozsa's score and Bert Glennon's camerawork make the forest feel like a place that does not want its secrets found. The film was the first production of Thalia, the company Robinson formed with producer Sol Lesser. It entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Crime · Mystery · Thriller

The fiendish Dr. Fu Manchu returns from apparent death to continue his campaign of vengeance against the Petrie family, ensnaring a young woman in his web of poison and hypnotism. Warner Oland reprises his role in this sequel to The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu. The 1930 film entered the public domain on January 1, 2026.

Crime · Mystery · Drama

A 1936 American murder mystery directed by Robert F. Hill and produced by Sam Katzman. A young couple, Jimmy Kelly (Wallace Ford) and Marjorie Burns (Barbara Pepper), arrive at the Red Rock Tavern seeking to marry, only to find themselves trapped with a group of suspicious guests when a killer begins picking off the occupants one by one. As the body count rises and the phone lines are cut, Jimmy—a detective himself—must unmask the murderer among the stranded travelers. The film co-stars Joan Woodbury and Clara Kimball Young and was released by Puritan Pictures. The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Mystery

One of the six Charlie Chan pictures Sidney Toler made for Monogram after the series left Fox. When murders pile up around a radio station that is secretly tied to a wartime espionage ring, Chan works the case while his son Tommy and chauffeur Birmingham Brown stumble through the clues beside him. The film is best remembered for the extended comedy routine between Mantan Moreland and Ben Carter, whose rhyming, never-finished conversations became a signature of the Monogram Chans. Directed by series veteran Phil Rosen, it is a brisk poverty-row mystery that keeps the plot moving and the banter constant. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A newlywed woman moves into her husband's estate, the home he shared with his first wife, who drowned on the grounds. Soon she begins seeing a skull that rolls toward her and hearing screams no one else can hear, and she starts to wonder whether she is losing her mind or whether the dead wife is reaching out from the grave. The Screaming Skull is a low-budget black-and-white horror film that builds its scares from atmosphere and suggestion rather than effects. The opening famously warns the audience that the film is so frightening the producers will pay for a burial coffin if anyone dies of fright while watching. It entered the public domain and later found a second life through Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Horror · Mystery

A 1950 psychological noir directed by James V. Kern. Robert Young — playing against his wholesome image — is Jeff Cohalan, an architect haunted by his wife's murder on their honeymoon and a string of inexplicable accidents that seem to follow him. When he meets the warmhearted Ellen Foster (Betsy Drake) on a train, she's drawn into his dark world and begins to wonder whether Jeff is a cursed man, a madman, or the target of something more sinister. A moody, underrated mystery with a striking finale at a cliffside house, the film is in the public domain.

Drama · Mystery

A string of murders has witnesses giving identical descriptions of a man seen leaving each scene — Jerome Breen, a wealthy philanthropist who has been deaf and mute since birth and could not possibly have been overheard. Lionel Atwill plays Breen in a Monogram old-dark-house mystery directed by Phil Rosen, with Sheila Terry as the reporter convinced there is more to the suspect than his affliction suggests, and Paul Hurst as the detective working the case. The solution, when it comes, is a genuinely nasty piece of pre-Code plotting. Made the same year Atwill headlined Mystery of the Wax Museum, it shows why he was the era's go-to man for quiet menace. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

The final Charlie Chan film starring Sidney Toler, directed by Howard Bretherton for Monogram Pictures. When two members of a showgirl troupe vacationing at a Malibu Beach resort are garroted, detective Charlie Chan is called in to solve the case, assisted by his Number Two Son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) and faithful chauffeur Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland). Toler was stricken with cancer during filming and was so physically weak he could hardly walk or deliver his lines; he died on February 12, 1947. The film entered the public domain due to the omission of a valid copyright notice on original prints.

Mystery · Crime

A string of murders of young women baffles Scotland Yard, but Sherlock Holmes spots the pattern: respectable gentlemen are being hypnotized into believing they are the killers, then blackmailed. The trail leads through a society of mesmerists to a glamorous woman in green — and behind her, Professor Moriarty, reported hanged in Montevideo but very much alive. Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce's eleventh Holmes film, with Hillary Brooke and Henry Daniell as a memorably icy Moriarty, directed by Roy William Neill for Universal. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A district attorney who uncovered a utilities price-fixing racket is murdered before he can present his evidence, and his successor (Pat O'Brien) picks up the case with a fast-talking reporter (Neil Hamilton) while the killers work through everyone connected to the grand jury. Evelyn Brent plays the dead man's mistress, who knows where the evidence is hidden. Made at Majestic Pictures during the pre-Code window, it moves quickly and lets O'Brien do the cocky, irritable thing he did best, with J. Carrol Naish among the heavies. Released in April 1933, weeks before the studios began enforcing the Production Code. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama · Mystery

Ken Maynard rides into Tombstone Canyon looking for the man who murdered his father and finds the valley terrorized by a masked killer called the Phantom, who strikes from a cave hideout with a scream that echoes off the rocks. A prototype of the "weird western" — half horse opera, half old-dark-house mystery — the film leans on Maynard's stunt riding and a genuinely spooky masked villain. Made for Tiffany Pictures near the end of that studio's run. The film is in the public domain.

Western · Mystery

A young woman is murdered at a creepy mansion and returns as a ghost to enlist the mild-mannered Cosmo Topper to find her killer, dragging the bewildered man through a house full of secret passages and suspects. The third Topper comedy. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Mystery · Fantasy

Alfred Hitchcock's wronged-man thriller about Robert Tisdall (Derrick De Marney), a young writer who finds a strangled body on the beach and is promptly accused of the murder. On the run, he picks up an unwilling — then increasingly willing — accomplice in Erica (Nova Pilbeam), the police chief's daughter, and the two hunt for the one man who can prove his innocence. Made at Gaumont-British between The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, it features one of Hitchcock's most celebrated shots: a slow crane across a hotel ballroom that ends on the twitching eyes of the real killer. Released in the US as The Girl Was Young. The film is in the public domain in the United States.

Thriller · Mystery · Romance