Film

The Nice Guys

A shaggy, profane buddy comedy dressed up as a hardboiled 1970s LA noir, from the writer of Lethal Weapon. Gosling's hapless private eye and Crowe's hulking enforcer stumble through a smog-choked mystery involving porn, pollution and a missing girl, tripping over corpses and punchlines in equal measure. It's for anyone who wants their crime plot delivered with genuine belly laughs and real menace, not irony instead of stakes.

TMDb rating7.1

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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang2005

Shane Black's other great buddy noir, with Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer doing the same bickering-detectives-in-over-their-heads dance, narrated with the same wisecracking self-awareness.

But The plot is deliberately, almost proudly, a tangled mess — if you need things to add up cleanly, this will needle you.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang poster

Lethal Weapon1987

The template Shane Black wrote before he perfected it — mismatched cop chemistry, wall-to-wall banter, and action that actually hurts. Riggs and Murtaugh invented this whole lane.

But Straighter and more earnest than The Nice Guys — less comedy, more genuine 80s cop-movie machismo.

Lethal Weapon poster

Inherent Vice2014

Same dazed, sun-bleached LA, same conspiracy-you-can't-quite-follow energy, but filtered through Paul Thomas Anderson's woozier, more melancholy lens with Joaquin Phoenix stoned throughout.

But Deliberately disorienting and slow where The Nice Guys is brisk — a mood piece more than a plot machine.

Inherent Vice poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Long Goodbye1973

Same city, same era, same amiable-loser detective wandering through a conspiracy he barely understands — this is the film Shane Black is quietly in conversation with.

Robert Altman's shambling, sun-drunk take on Philip Marlowe basically invented the bumbling-detective-adrift-in-LA mode that The Nice Guys is playing dress-up in, decades earlier and stranger.

But Slow, elliptical, and deliberately anti-climactic — 70s art-house pacing, not a plotted romp.

The Long Goodbye poster
More like this (8)

Hot Fuzz2007

If you loved how violence and jokes collide without cancelling each other out, this is the British cousin — village-cop satire that turns into a genuinely brutal action movie.

But Leans harder into parody of cop-movie tropes specifically, rather than just being a great one itself.

Hot Fuzz poster

In Bruges2008

Another pair of foul-mouthed men wandering a picturesque backdrop while morality and slapstick grind against each other. Same DNA of comedy that curdles into something sadder.

But Considerably darker and more mournful by the end — less pure fun, more existential gut-punch.

In Bruges poster

48 Hrs.1982

The granddaddy buddy-cop mismatch, with Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte establishing the insult-comedy-plus-real-danger formula this whole genre runs on.

But Rougher edges and dated attitudes throughout — it's a product of its era in ways that haven't aged gracefully.

48 Hrs. poster

Beverly Hills Cop1984

Pure fish-out-of-water charm — a detective talking his way through danger with jokes instead of fists, in a shiny LA that's one plastic layer removed from the grime of The Nice Guys.

But Lighter stakes and a more conventional plot; the danger never feels as real.

Beverly Hills Cop poster

L.A. Confidential1997

If you want the same city, the same era-adjacent corruption, and the same tangled conspiracy played completely straight, this is the gold-standard version with none of the jokes.

But Dead serious throughout — expect prestige noir gravity, not a single wisecrack to relieve the tension.

L.A. Confidential poster

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels1998

Guy Ritchie's kinetic, overlapping-criminals comedy has the same delight in watching idiots and professionals collide violently and hilariously.

But Thicker slang and a more ensemble, less character-driven structure — you're tracking factions, not a duo.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels poster

The Deuce2017

It's the serious, long-form documentary-adjacent version of the exact industry The Nice Guys mines for comedy — same subject matter, opposite register and format entirely.

David Simon's serialized drama about the birth of the porn industry gives you the world The Nice Guys treats as a punchline — the same period, the same milieu, but as lived reality with James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

But Slow-burn, novelistic television with a huge cast and no jokes to soften the exploitation it depicts.

The Deuce poster

Blood Simple1985

It's the same neo-noir engine of incompetence and violence colliding, stripped of the punchlines — shows what The Nice Guys would look like if it played every joke as a threat instead.

The Coen brothers' first film runs the identical machinery — bumbling investigators, a body that won't stay buried, black comedy simmering under the surface — but never lets you laugh out loud.

But Genuinely tense and grim where The Nice Guys releases the pressure; this one just tightens it.

Blood Simple poster

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