The BEST episodes of Columbo

Every episode of Columbo ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Columbo!

A Los Angeles homicide detective, Lieutenant Columbo, uses his humble ways and shrewd demeanor to ferret out even the most careful criminals.

Last Updated: 9/18/2024Network: ABC (US)Status: Ended
A Stitch in Crime
star
7.88
463 votes

#1 - A Stitch in Crime

Season 2 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/11/1973

Leonard Nimoy plays a heart surgeon whose talents turn to murder. Stung by jealousy, he's planning a surgical death for his brilliant but ailing associate. Will Geer plays the intended victim.

Directors: Hy Averback
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The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case
star
7.87
446 votes

#2 - The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case

Season 6 - Episode 3 - Aired 5/22/1977

Two former college friends, now partners in an accounting firm, become enemies when one realizes the other has embezzled funds. The reason for his embezzling ways is his wife, she demands nothing but the best.

Directors: Sam Wanamaker
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Columbo Cries Wolf
star
7.81
331 votes

#3 - Columbo Cries Wolf

Season 9 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/20/1990

Columbo is asked to investigate the disappearance of Diane Hunter, director of a men's magazine. Naturally, the prime suspect is her lover and co-editor Sean Brantley, who spends lots of time with the young girls he works with.

Directors: Daryl Duke
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A Friend in Deed
star
7.80
477 votes

#4 - A Friend in Deed

Season 3 - Episode 8 - Aired 5/5/1974

A police commissioner provides an alibi to a friend who has just killed his wife. Later the commissioner kills his own wife and gets the friend to repay the favour.

Directors: Ben Gazzara
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Any Old Port in a Storm
star
7.79
512 votes

#5 - Any Old Port in a Storm

Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/7/1973

Wine producer Adrian Carsini discovers that his younger brother Enrico plans to sell the family vineyards to pay his playboy-life debts, and sets out to murder him. He locks him in a wine vault and turns off the air and conditioning, then drags the body out to the ocean and makes it look like Enrico died during a scuba-diving accident. Columbo is suspicious of the contradictions that show up in the autopsy, and soon realizes that Adrian is the murderer. The final clue is the wine that was spoiled when the vault's air conditioning was turned off. Only Adrian could tell the difference, so Columbo secretly gets him to sample the wine and declare it unfit. Once Adrian realizes his wines were ruined, he is forced to throw them over a cliff, as Columbo looks on. In the end, Columbo takes in a relieved Adrian, confessing that Carsini is one of the few killers he was reluctant to bring in.

Directors: Leo Penn
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Columbo Goes to College
star
7.75
288 votes

#6 - Columbo Goes to College

Season 10 - Episode 1 - Aired 12/9/1990

Lt. Columbo is invited as guest speaker in a Criminology course and squares off against two cunning students, who are confident they have duped the lieutenant with various leads, when their professor is found murdered.

Directors: E.W. Swackhamer
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Now You See Him
star
7.73
396 votes

#7 - Now You See Him

Season 5 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/29/1976

Master magician the great Santini is amazing audiences at the Cabaret of Magic. What they don’t know is that Santini hopes to pull of the grandest illusion of his career - making club owner Jesse T. Jerome disappear. The crude Jerome is the only person who knows that Santini was a Nazi death camp guard named Stefan Mueller, He has been blackmailing the magician since learning his dark secret.

Directors: Harvey Hart
Watch Now:Amazon
Double Shock
star
7.72
474 votes

#8 - Double Shock

Season 2 - Episode 8 - Aired 3/25/1973

A wealthy man is murdered; his twin nephews stand to inherit, but which one committed the crime?

Directors: Robert Butler
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Negative Reaction
star
7.71
480 votes

#9 - Negative Reaction

Season 4 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/15/1974

Brilliant photographer Paul Galesko plans to murder his domineering wife, Frances, and pin the crime on an ex-convict named Alvin Deschler. His plan is to make it look as if Alvin kidnapped his wife and killed her before picking up the ransom money.

Directors: Alf Kjellin
Watch Now:Amazon
How to Dial a Murder
star
7.69
391 votes

#10 - How to Dial a Murder

Season 7 - Episode 4 - Aired 4/15/1978

A famous psychiatrist uses an appointment with his doctor as his alibi while he calls his house, where his dead wife's lover is. The call serves as the first step in a conditioning reflex on the psychiatrist's dogs. The other part is the word Rosebud as uttered by the victim. When Columbo arrives on the scene, the psychiatrist is very understanding when police say they may have to put his dogs to death. But Columbo notices how friendly the dogs seem, and then there's the telephone that's hanging from it's hook.

Directors: James Frawley
Watch Now:Amazon
Candidate for Crime
star
7.69
487 votes

#11 - Candidate for Crime

Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 11/4/1973

A Senate Candidate running for office kills his campaign manager by making it look like he was the target for the killer's bullet.

Directors: Boris Sagal
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Death Lends a Hand
star
7.67
628 votes

#12 - Death Lends a Hand

Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/6/1971

A private investigator kills his client's wife after she threatens to expose his blackmail scheme. The client then hires the detective to assist Columbo in the search for the killer.

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Suitable for Framing
star
7.65
438 votes

#13 - Suitable for Framing

Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/17/1971

An art critic, Dale Kingston, kills his uncle for his valuable collection of paintings. All the clues lead to the dead man's first wife. Can Columbo correct the Lieutenant's error before it is too late?

Directors: Hy Averback
Watch Now:Amazon
Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star
star
7.64
225 votes

#14 - Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star

Season 10 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/29/1991

Lt. Columbo is pitted against an equally brilliant, nationally recognized criminal defence lawyer who murders his rock star girlfriend when he discovers she is seeing another man.

Directors: Alan J. Levi
Watch Now:Amazon
Ransom for a Dead Man
star
7.61
709 votes

#15 - Ransom for a Dead Man

Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 3/1/1971

A high-flying lady lawyer kills her husband for the insurance money, and tries to makes It look like a kidnapping gone wrong.

Directors: Richard Irving
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Double Exposure
star
7.60
497 votes

#16 - Double Exposure

Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 12/16/1973

A film maker kills one of his clients. in a break, during the screening of a new ad campaign

Directors: Richard Quine
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Try and Catch Me
star
7.60
452 votes

#17 - Try and Catch Me

Season 7 - Episode 1 - Aired 11/21/1977

A writer of murder mysteries wreaks revenge on her nephew-in-law by blaiming him for her niece's murder.

Directors: James Frawley
Watch Now:Amazon
Murder, Smoke and Shadows
star
7.60
371 votes

#18 - Murder, Smoke and Shadows

Season 8 - Episode 2 - Aired 2/27/1989

An egocentric film director resorts to his mastery of special effects to murder a vengeful friend who discovers the director's role in the movie stunt death of the friend's sister years before.

Directors: James Frawley
Watch Now:Amazon
Prescription: Murder
star
7.58
882 votes

#19 - Prescription: Murder

Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 2/20/1968

Columbo's first mystery pits him against a cheating doctor out to get rid of his wife in favor of his young, pretty actress girlfriend.

Directors: Richard Irving
Watch Now:Amazon
Blueprint for Murder
star
7.56
269 votes

#20 - Blueprint for Murder

Season 1 - Episode 9 - Aired 2/9/1972

An architect kills his business partner and deliberately lets Columbo suspect him, leading Columbo to think that he's hidden the body in the foundation of a building under construction. He plans to let Columbo dig up the site and find nothing, knowing that its the perfect place to hide the body since Columbo would never look in the same place twice.

Directors: Peter Falk
Watch Now:Amazon
Identity Crisis
star
7.54
398 votes

#21 - Identity Crisis

Season 5 - Episode 3 - Aired 11/2/1975

A spy is killed on a lonely beach by his contact, but the killer has been photographed beforehand walking with the victim.

Directors: Patrick McGoohan
Watch Now:Amazon
Swan Song
star
7.54
477 votes

#22 - Swan Song

Season 3 - Episode 7 - Aired 3/3/1974

A Country and Western singer kills his overpowering wife in a plane crash while he parachutes to safety.

Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
A Deadly State of Mind
star
7.53
512 votes

#23 - A Deadly State of Mind

Season 4 - Episode 6 - Aired 4/27/1975

A doctor kills the husband of the woman,he is having an affair with. but is seen leaving the house by a witness who is happens to be blind.

Directors: Harvey Hart
Watch Now:Amazon
The Greenhouse Jungle
star
7.51
463 votes

#24 - The Greenhouse Jungle

Season 2 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/15/1972

Jarvis Goodland, along with his nephew, plan a kidnap scam to break the nephews trust fund, but after the money has been collected, Jarvis kills his partner.

Directors: Boris Sagal
Watch Now:Amazon
Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo
star
7.50
352 votes

#25 - Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo

Season 9 - Episode 4 - Aired 3/31/1990

Columbo unwittingly becomes part of a deranged woman's diabolical plot to destroy the two men she believes responsible for her husband's death in prison. After murdering one, she moves in on the other, Columbo, to kill the person closest to him, his wife.

Directors: Vincent McEveety
Watch Now:Amazon