Film

Lethal Weapon

Name: Lethal Weapon
Genre: Action, Thriller, Crime
Released: 1987
Cast: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Mitchell Ryan, Tom Atkins

Other titles called Lethal Weapon: the 2016 series (FOX).

Richard Donner's buddy-cop template-setter pairs Mel Gibson's grief-wrecked, borderline suicidal Riggs with Danny Glover's steady family man Murtaugh, then lets the two men bicker their way through a heroin conspiracy. It's funnier than you remember and bleaker than the poster suggests — a Christmas action movie with real darkness under the wisecracks. Great for anyone who likes their explosions with a side of character work.

TMDb rating

3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love a pairing where the banter is as sharp as the gunfights, and where two mismatched men slowly earn each other's trust through shared danger.

Skip it if you find graphic violence and a rough, reckless streak hard to sit through, since the film leans on fistfights, explosions and a lot of bruising set-pieces.

What it asks of you: Settle in for under two hours of escalating set-pieces, with the mood swinging quickly between cheeky comedy and cruelty, so it wants you to keep up with abrupt shifts.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Die Hard1988

Same year, same pulse — a wisecracking cop against impossible odds, terrorists in a skyscraper, and one of the tightest action scripts ever written. If you want the era's other essential action classic, start here.

But No partner banter, no odd-couple chemistry — it's one man alone in a building, which is a very different pleasure.

48 Hrs.1982

This is the film that basically invented the mismatched-cop formula Lethal Weapon perfected — Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy handcuffed together, trading insults and gradually earning each other's respect.

But Rougher edges than you'd expect, some jokes that have aged badly, and a scrappier, less polished production overall.

Beverly Hills Cop1984

Eddie Murphy at his fastest and funniest, playing a Detroit cop who talks his way through Beverly Hills — the same era's cop-comedy energy, just cranked toward one dazzling star instead of a duo.

But Barely a partner dynamic to speak of, and the stakes stay comic rather than genuinely dangerous.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Lethal Weapon

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Ordinary People1980

Riggs' suicidal despair after his wife's death is played almost as a running gag between action beats. This film takes that exact grief and plays it entirely straight — no jokes, no rescue by a partner, just what mourning actually looks like.

A quiet, devastating family drama about grief and a suicide attempt's aftermath, told with total sincerity — the exact psychological terrain Riggs lives in, minus the one-liners and gunfire.

But Nothing explodes, nobody quips — this is slow, sad, and unglamorous in a way that couldn't be further from the poster of the film you just watched.

Lethal Weapon 21989

More Riggs, more Murtaugh, more jokes — Joe Pesci joins the fun and the villains get bigger, louder, and more cartoonishly evil. The obvious next step if you just want more of exactly this.

But Trades some of the original's grief and grit for broader comedy — lighter, sillier, less interested in Riggs' darkness.

The Nice Guys2016

Shane Black, the writer of Lethal Weapon, returns to the same rhythms decades later — a stoner comedy and a hard-boiled thriller stapled together, with the same rat-a-tat dialogue and unlikely partnership.

But Set in the seedy '70s and shaggier in plot, with less of the earnest emotional core the original has.

Bad Boys1995

Michael Bay takes the formula and turns everything up — more explosions, more attitude, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence bickering their way through a slicker, glossier version of the same buddy-cop engine.

But Style well ahead of substance, with a thinner plot and less genuine feeling between its two leads.

Point Break1991

An undercover cop infiltrates a gang of adrenaline junkies and finds himself drawn to their leader — same odd-couple pull between opposites, just swapped for surf, skydiving, and pure 90s excess.

But Less comedy, less buddy banter, more macho mysticism about waves and wind that can feel a bit much now.

Hot Fuzz2007

Edgar Wright's note-perfect parody takes every buddy-cop cliché Lethal Weapon helped establish and transplants it into a sleepy English village, with a shootout in a supermarket to prove the point.

But It only really sings if you already know the genre well enough to catch every joke it's making.

Rush Hour1998

A lighter, funnier, more family-friendly spin on the mismatched-partners idea, with Jackie Chan's astonishing physical comedy and Chris Tucker's motor-mouth doing most of the heavy lifting.

But Much softer violence and stakes than the original — this one's built for laughs, not grit.

In the Heat of the Night1967

Lethal Weapon's Black-and-white partnership plays the racial dynamic mostly for warmth and comedy. This is the film that got there first and refused to let the tension resolve into a joke — the mismatched-partners template, taken dead seriously.

Two decades before Riggs and Murtaugh, Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger play a Black detective and a white sheriff forced together on a murder case in the Deep South — tense, furious, and quietly landmark.

But No action, no comedy — a slow-burn drama that asks its odd pair to actually confront the prejudice between them instead of joking past it.

Cowboy Bebop1998

Same DNA as Riggs and Murtaugh: a found family of damaged people trading banter over violence, comedy sitting right next to real loss. Bebop just does it in space, in Japanese, with a horn section instead of a Christmas tree.

A ramshackle crew of bounty hunters — mismatched, broke, haunted by their pasts — bicker and shoot their way across space in an anime that swings from slapstick to genuine heartbreak within a single episode.

But It's animated, it's Japanese, and it asks you to sit with jazz-scored melancholy between the shootouts — a very different texture from a Hollywood action movie.