Top 10 movie detectives

'Sherlock Holmes' inspires a look back at great gumshoes

By S. James Snyder, Special to Metromix

When it comes to detectives, you don’t get much smoother than Sherlock Holmes.

In the newest and coolest big-screen adventure for Arthur Conan Doyle’s super sleuth, opening Dec. 25, Holmes (played by Robert Downey Jr.) can read an entire situation based off the slightest clue. Sitting down to dinner one night with a beautiful dining companion, he has it all pegged—the discolored flesh that point to a wedding ring, the dust on her dress that reveals her occupation, the jewelry she’s chosen to wear.

He’s a master of observation, but hardly the only outstanding gumshoe we’ve seen on the silver screen. Metromix looks back through the greatest of the big-screen detectives.