Top Ten Fictional Detectives

The greatest fictional detectives/investigators of all time.
The Top Ten
1 Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes is a fictional private detective created by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, forensic science, and logical reasoning that borders on the fantastic, which he employs ...read more.

Sherlock Holmes is basically shorthand for "brilliant detective" at this point. He's one of the most frequently adapted characters in all of fiction, and for good reason: he's a pretty good detective (and also never craps, according to something my brother used to say to me a lot). He's a mostly emotionless, calculating, analytical, deduction-obsessed super genius who solves crimes out of no sense of justice, but more or less to prove how brilliant he is. Practically every fictional detective has drawn upon Sherlock Holmes as an influence since. Modern audiences have THREE separate Sherlock Holmes being made - CBS's Elementary, BBC's Sherlock, and the Sherlock Holmes Shirtless Karate movies. But there's apparently one detective even greater than Sherlock. It's...

Sherlock is obviously the best detective since his is the most well known, he wouldn't have gotten to number 1 without his observational skill and his powers of deduction.

There is no way you could claim otherwise that Sherlock Holmes is the #1 fictional detective.

Batman was never the greatest detective of all time Sherlock was.

2 Batman Batman aka Bruce Wayne is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and first appeared in Detective Comics #27. In film, he has been portrayed by Lewis Wilson, Robert Lowery, Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale and Ben Affleck. He has been voiced by a variety of voice actors, including Olan Soule, Kevin Conroy, Rino Romano, Diedrich Bader, and Jason O'Mara.

"The World's Greatest Detective" is appropriately the world's greatest detective. He solves his crimes through a variety of ways: headbutting, using his cave's supercomputer, punching, kicking, dangling thugs off of roofs, punching more, and occasionally throwing things. Well, usually at least. Sometimes he actually does do detective work - trying to determine the true identity of the Holiday Killer, the identity of Hush, and... Well, there's more, but even the times he did do detective work, it was a lot of punching and gadgets solving things for him. Still, the results speak for themselves - he's put away more criminals than pretty much any other detective in history. Sure, most of them escape regularly, but that's really more of an Arkham Asylum security issue.

Batman is a master in all martial arts, he has the same IQ as Albet Enstein, he beat the god superman, he can come up with a solution to any problem in less then a minute, he is a billionaire with the top gadgets and be vechiles. He can beat pretty much anyone, he can maintain his pain and not fell it. He had the biggest rogues gallery in all of comics, and the best mythos out of all comics. He also has the title "world's greatest detective" which should make him the top of this list

Well, there's not really any deducting in Batman...

In my opinion he is the worst detective ever...

3 L Lawliet L Lawliet, exclusively known by the mononym L, is a fictional character in the manga series Death Note, created by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata .

L took a case where the murder weapon was unknown to man (not to mention also one of the deadliest fictional weapons ever), the killer himself was a brilliant sociopath with influence over the police, and that anyone in the entire WORLD was a possible suspect, and he still figured out who the killer was in less than a year. Meanwhile, Sherlock Holmes was struggling to catch a dog with paint on his face and Batman couldn't figure out who was the Holiday Killer, even though that could've been solved quite easily if he would just preform basic forensics on Alberto Falcone's "corpse". Enough said.

Unlike Holmes, L became a master detective when he was very young instead of waiting to become a detective when he was older. When L sees Light Yagami as a suspect of being Kira he watches him and sees that light looks innocent but when L sees someone acting innocent he knows that they're too innocent to be innocent. Right when he saw Light at the very beginning, he knew that Light was Kira but didn't tell the police force because they wouldn't believe him because he has no proof but even without proof L managed to find out that Light was Kira.

Death Note (2006 Anime)

L (also known as: Hideki Ryuga, Ryuzaki, Eraldo Coil, and Deneuve, at times when he's not going by a single letter) is the (fictional) world's greatest detective - constantly at odds with Light Yagami, aka a mass murdering genius megalomaniac known as "Kira." While he looks like an antisocial weirdo who eats wayyy too much candy, L's actually the most brilliant person alive - constantly analyzing and deducing things, and catches onto Light's out-of-control murder spree pretty quickly, although before he can do anything about it... Well, don't wanna spoil anything here (even a several years old manga), so just go check it out for yourself.

Wasn't expecting to see my boi L up so high, but at the same time I feel he deserves it. He is the worlds greatest detective and has solved some of the most difficult cases of the 20th century. enough said

4 Hercule Poirot

He is the best fictional detective of all time.
He can solve a case without leaving the room.
No one can beat the gray cells of hercule poirot

His stories are so great and creative. Poirot is a very funny but smart character, and he deserves to be in the top 3

No one comes close to the greatest detective of all time with the little grey cells!

The only one that could top Poirot is Holmes.

5 Inspector Gadget
6 Adrian Monk

Adrian Monk is definitely in the top 5. He is considered to be like Sherlock Holmes in the show. He solves so many impossible cases. He is one of the most famous detectives.

7 Miss Marple
8 Shinichi Kudo Jimmy Kudo, known in Japan and internationally as Shinichi Kudo, is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the manga series Case Closed and its adaptations, created by Gosho Aoyama.

Who thinks John Constantine is better than him!?
If I would like to choose :-
5. Batman
4. Hercule Poirot
3. L Lawliet
2. Shinichi Kudo
.
.
.
1. Sherlock Holmes

Who thinks Batman have more intelligence than Kudo...
Where is Yusaku Kudo / Booker Kudo he is slightly smarter than his son...

One of the best detective
Should be second
Sherlock is his idol he deserves first spot

9 Rorschach Rorschach is a fictional anti-hero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. He first debuted in the graphic novel Watchmen, published from 1986-1987. Rorschach was created by writer Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

Rorschach solved a lot of mysteries - who was behind the murder of costumed heroes, what was the secret behind Dr. Manhattan's supposed cancer victims, who was locked up in here with whom, etc. But his greatest achievement was (probably) solving the mystery of how to ruin world peace. Pretty impressive for a guy who calls blood "human bean juice."

He was able to price together a murder and was also able to expose who killed 4 million people

10 Columbo Columbo or Lieutenant Columbo is the eponymous main character in the American detective crime drama series Columbo. The character is a shrewd but inelegant blue-collar homicide detective whose trademarks include his shambling manner, rumpled beige raincoat and off-putting, relentless investigative approach. ...read more.

He is always smarter than the average crook, pretends to be dumb just to mess with everybody's mind, and has an awesome voice. Peter Falk is the best! Oh, and just one more thing...I like the way he says "Oh, and just one more thing..."

20 what? Are you joking? He should be at the top on this list!

The Contenders
11 John Constantine
12 Inspector Clouseau

Would have been really disappointed if Jacques didn't receive mention. Gotta go pump up the parrot and take a long walk off a short pier.

Just for the memes. But this man is secretly a genius, despite how idiotic he appears. He may be clumsy but he sure has talent

13 Scooby-Doo

The other comment says it all. Has busted literally THOUSAND of criminals. Saved millions of dollars from schemes and plots. Is able to deduce who someone is using a single obscure detail. Oh yeah, and he's a DOG. Suck on that Batman

Um, not a detective.

14 Tintin

Totally tintin he boss he cool and smart for a kid!

15 The Doctor
16 Philip Marlowe
17 Jessica Fletcher
18 Bruce Wayne Bruce Wayne is a fictional character appearing in the American comic books published by DC Comics. He is a wealthy American playboy, philanthropist, and owner of Wayne Enterprises. After witnessing the murder of his parents Dr. Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne as a child, Bruce swore vengeance against ...read more.
19 C. Auguste Dupin

Who doesn't agree Dupin must take the first place never read his stories. He beats Sherlock Holmes any day.

20 Watson
21 Lord Peter Wimsey
22 Fox Mulder
23 Professor Layton Professor Hershel Layton is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Professor Layton fictional universe, created by Level-5.
24 Sam Spade Sam Spade is a fictional private detective and the protagonist of Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel, The Maltese Falcon. Spade also appeared in three lesser-known short stories by Hammett. Spade combined several features of previous detectives, most notably his detached demeanor, keen eye for detail, and ...read more.
25 Dana Scully
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