The BEST episodes of Miami Vice
Every episode of Miami Vice ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Miami Vice!
Miami Vice centers around the unlikely partnership of Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and Ricardo Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas), two undercover detectives from the Miami Police Department’s vice squad battling against drug trafficking and prostitution in the city’s seamy underworld. Its use of New Wave music and colorful Italian men’s fashion was groundbreaking and the series had a defining influence on the popular culture of the 1980s.
#1 - Deliver Us from Evil (1)
Season 4 - Episode 21 - Aired 4/29/1988
A murder case that hits close to home reunites Crockett with the man who used him to trick his way off Death Row.
#2 - God's Work
Season 4 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/6/1987
The return of a kingpin's financial wizard son sets off speculations in the Miami underworld.
#3 - Mirror Image (2)
Season 4 - Episode 22 - Aired 5/6/1988
A concussion leaves Crockett thinking he is his drug dealer alter-ego Burnett and goes to work for a Colombian crime boss.
#4 - The Lost Madonna
Season 5 - Episode 14 - Aired 3/17/1989
Crockett & Tubbs help an NYPD detective retrieve a stolen 15th century Madonna statue in the possession of a mob family.
#5 - Freefall
Season 5 - Episode 17 - Aired 5/21/1989
Crockett & Tubbs embark on what they see as a suicide mission. They are recruited by a Special Drug Taskforce to escort the corrupt dictator of Costa Morada, a fictional Revolution ravaged Latin American country. Gen. Manuel Borbon has promised to reveal the members of the most powerful South American drug cartel. Crockett & Tubbs are faced with what might be their final showdown.
#6 - Over the Line
Season 5 - Episode 15 - Aired 4/28/1989
In the midst of working an undercover assignment, Crockett and Tubbs come across a clandestine vigilante group of frustrated law enforcement officers working within the department. Aware of Sonny and Rico's own frustration with how easily the bad guys seem to circumvent the law, the vigilante organization offers them an opportunity to join in. Lieutenant Castillo encourages them to accept the offer and work undercover in ferreting out the identities of everyone involved and to make sure that no one gets hurt. Unfortunately, that is too tall an order for his detectives to accomplish successfully.
#7 - Line of Fire
Season 5 - Episode 6 - Aired 12/16/1988
Crockett & Tubbs reluctantly comply with an FBI request to guard their key witness in a drug overlord's trial.
#8 - Victims of Circumstance
Season 5 - Episode 16 - Aired 5/5/1989
Holocaust survivors are being murdered in Miami. Crockett and Switek infiltrate a White-supremacist group that might be responsible.
#9 - Bad Timing
Season 5 - Episode 4 - Aired 12/2/1988
Ordered to take time off, Crockett's vacation is cut short when he is kidnapped by 3 homicidal prison escapees.
#10 - Redemption in Blood (4)
Season 5 - Episode 2 - Aired 11/11/1988
As now drug-lord Crockett's memory returns, Tubbs feels his partner has gone bad and must be destroyed.
#11 - Hostile Takeover (3)
Season 5 - Episode 1 - Aired 11/4/1988
Still thinking he is really Sonny Burnett, Crockett starts a war between the crime family he has joined and a rival clan.
#12 - To Have and to Hold (a.k.a. Second Chance)
Season 5 - Episode 10 - Aired 2/10/1989
While undercover, Tubbs falls for the widow of a slain drug kingpin. Crockett must leave to help his son deal with the pregnancy of his remarried mother.
#13 - Child's Play
Season 4 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/30/1987
Crockett agonizes about shooting a child during a weapons investigation.
#14 - Miami Squeeze
Season 5 - Episode 11 - Aired 2/17/1989
The irresponsible son of a fierce, anti-drug-minded Congresswoman jeopardizes his mother's political career when he incurs the wrath of a British drug lord by stealing his shipment of drugs.
#15 - Heart of Night
Season 5 - Episode 3 - Aired 11/18/1988
Castillo grapples with emotions while protecting his ex-wife from a drug kingpin trying to kill her current husband.
#16 - Down for the Count (1)
Season 3 - Episode 12 - Aired 1/9/1987
Zito reluctantly uses a boxer as bait to help the vice squad nail a former drug kingpin involved in bookmaking; it ends in tragedy and the loss of a comrade for the vice cops.
#17 - Out Where the Buses Don't Run
Season 2 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/18/1985
Crockett and Tubbs question the sanity of a retired vice cop who wants them to chase after a coke dealer thought to be dead.
#18 - One Way Ticket
Season 2 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/24/1986
Efforts to convict a drug dealer who murdered a deputy DA are hampered by a lack of evidence and by a defense attorney disliked by Crockett.
#19 - Hard Knocks
Season 5 - Episode 8 - Aired 1/20/1989
Switek sinks into drinking and gambling when thugs convince him to talk a friend's son, a major college quarterback, into throwing a game.
#20 - Lombard
Season 1 - Episode 22 - Aired 5/10/1985
After crime boss Al Lombard is subpeonaed to testify against the Family, Crockett & Tubbs are assigned to provide his protective custody.
#21 - Brother's Keeper
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/16/1984
Miami Vice Squad detective James 'Sonny' Crockett has just lost his partner, Eddie Rivera, in a car bombing. Crockett was investigating Esteban Calderone, a Colombian cocaine dealer, when he meets a New York City narcotics detective, Rafael Tubbs. Since they are having difficulties approaching Calderone, Crockett and Tubbs are forced to work together. Crockett later confronts "Rafael" and discovers that he is actually Ricardo, Rafael's younger brother and a New York detective, who is seeking revenge on Calderone for killing his brother. They agree to work together and Calderone is collared, but he pays $2 million bail and escapes. In the end, Crockett persuades Tubbs to enter a career in "Southern law enforcement." NOTE: This was originally a two-hour pilot movie, but in syndication it is shown as two separate episodes.
#22 - By Hooker by Crook
Season 3 - Episode 20 - Aired 3/20/1987
Crockett & Tubbs seek a murder witness, unaware that she works for a madame who is Sonny's lover.
#23 - Evan
Season 1 - Episode 21 - Aired 5/3/1985
A former Vice member, Evan Freed, is now working undercover with ATF to bring down an arms dealer. Sonny and Evan have a mysterious past that Tubbs is determined to learn. They must reconcile long enough to calibrate efforts in the weapons sting.
#24 - Smuggler's Blues
Season 1 - Episode 15 - Aired 2/1/1985
Crockett & Tubbs are recruited by DEA to pose as drug smugglers in an effort to expose someone in law enforcement who is murdering drug dealers and their families.
#25 - Forgive Us Our Debts
Season 3 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/12/1986
New leads persuade Crockett that a man he put on death row might be innocent, but a campaign-conscious DA is reluctant to help.