All 18 Movies Featuring Hercule Poirot in Order

Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot is probably the most famous detective in history – fictional or non-fictional. The brilliant Belgian detective from Christie’s novels has appeared in countless adaptations on the big screen, in TV shows, radio dramas, and even theater plays, portrayed by dozens of actors. 

From the 1930s to 2023, there have been 18 Hercule Poirot movies, not including the feature-length episodes of ‘Agatha Christie’s Poirot’ with David Suchet. If you want to learn how to watch them in the correct order, you’re in the right place.

Movies featuring Hercule Poirot in order by release date

To jump right into the movies, the easiest strategy to watch Hercule Poirot films is by their release order. I’ve included three French movie adaptations to the list, as they provided a different, more comedic approach to the classic Poirot stories. I’ll let you decide if it worked or not when you watch them yourself. Here’s the complete list:

1. ‘Alibi’ (1931)
2. ‘Black Coffee’ (1931)
3. ‘Le Coffret De Laque’ (1932)
4. ‘Lord Edgware Dies’ (1934)
5. ‘The Alphabet Murders’ (1965)
6. ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ (1974)
7. ‘Death on the Nile’ (1978)
8. ‘Evil Under the Sun’ (1982)
9. ‘Thirteen at Dinner’ (1985)
10. ‘Murder in Three Acts’ (1986)
11. ‘Dead Man’s Folly’ (1986)
12. ‘Appointment with Death’ (1988)
13. ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ (2001)
14. ‘Le Grand Alibi’ (2008)
15. ‘Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case’ (2013)
16. ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ (2017)
17. ‘Death on the Nile’ (2022)
18. ‘A Haunting in Venice’ (2023)

The most renowned Poirot actor ever, David Suchet – who played the detective in ‘Agatha Christie’s Poirot’ series – does make an appearance in one of these movies – but not as Hercule Poirot. In this article, I’ll explain how all of these movies are connected and what the best watch order is to watch them all. There may be minor spoilers throughout the rest of the article!

Are all Hercule Poirot movies connected? What’s the best order to watch them?

All Hercule Poirot movies – from the early 1930s to 2023 – are connected in more ways than one. They adapt the same stories about the same character, written by the same author. However, like the books, each movie can be viewed as a standalone storyline, as every movie covers one of Poirot’s many mysteries.

In fact, you’ll find that some cases were adapted multiple times throughout the years – like ‘Murder on Orient Express,’ which was adapted into three movies. Well, four, if you count the feature-length episode of ‘Agatha Christie’s Poirot,’ but despite many episodes being around 90 minutes long, they are still considered TV show episodes, not movies.

That being said, I believe the best way for you to watch all Hercule Poirot movies is by their release date. The actors have changed over the decades, and so has the style in which these stories were adapted, so it’s great to watch the movies in order of their release and see how storytelling progressed, which actors gave the best performances, etc.

Alternatively, you can watch these movies by grouping them, for instance, based on the case they’re adapting. For instance, you can watch all the film adaptations of the ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ mystery first, then move on with all the adaptations of the ‘Alibi’ story, etc.

You could also watch the three French movies separately from the rest of them, as they are quite different from the rest in terms of style and portrayal of Poirot. Whichever way you choose to watch, though, I also recommend you watch the popular show with David Suchet in the lead role. 

It covers almost every Poirot mystery that you’ll see in the films, and most of them are, in my opinion, the best adaptations of those cases. I have actually included one of the episodes – the final episode – of the show on this list: ‘Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case.’ It’s a 90-minute movie episode that will give you a great feel about the complexity of the rest of the show.

In the following subheading, we’ll go over how to watch these movies chronologically.

Movies featuring Hercule Poirot in chronological order

Seeing that each of these movies depicts one particular story, there’s really no need to watch the films in any specific chronological order. The actors and small details have changed over the years, so the best way to watch every film is just to follow the release order.

Even if some movies are connected to each other – like Kenneth Branagh’s recent trilogy – you’ll still get enough of a chronological order of events if you watch the movies by their release order. In the end, each case is a separate story with only minor references to past cases, so the chronological order of those cases isn’t really important.

Save yourself the trouble of trying to figure out what happened when, and just enjoy the mysteries as they unfold in every film.

If you want to separate the films into individual series, this is the way to do it:

Austin Trevor as Hercule Poirot:

1. ‘Alibi’ (1931)
2. ‘Black Coffee’ (1931)
3. ‘Lord Edgware Dies’ (1934)

Tony Randall as Hercule Poirot:

1. ‘The Alphabet Murders’ (1965)

Albert Finney/Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot:

1. ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ (1974) – Albert Finney as Poirot
2. ‘Death on the Nile’ (1978) – Peter Ustinov takes over as Poirot throughout the rest of the series
3. ‘Evil Under the Sun’ (1982)
4. ‘Thirteen at Dinner’ (1985)
5. ‘Murder in Three Acts’ (1986)
6. ‘Dead Man’s Folly’ (1986)
7. ‘Appointment with Death’ (1988)

Alfred Molina as Hercule Poirot:

1. ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ (2001)

Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot:

1. ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ (2017)
2. ‘Death on the Nile’ (2022)
3. ‘A Haunting in Venice’ (2023)

French movies about Hercule Poirot:

1. ‘Le Coffret De Laque’ (1932)
2. ‘Le Grand Alibi’ (2008)

Where to watch above-mentioned movies?

Seeing that all of these movies are part of separate series spanning almost a century, you can’t really find a platform where you can stream all of them together. However, most – if not all – of these movies are available to buy/rent on the usual platforms like Amazon, Google Play, Apple TV, etc.

As for the newest Poirot trilogy by Kenneth Branagh, you can watch the entire trilogy on Hulu or Max right now, depending on where you live. The latest film, ‘A Haunting in Venice,’ came out in theaters in September and came to Hulu on October 31, just in time for Halloween.

Will there be more movies featuring Hercule Poirot?

While the fourth Branagh-led Poirot film hasn’t officially been announced, it is in talks already and is probably a matter of time before it’s confirmed. We don’t know when it will come out if it is confirmed, but it likely won’t be anytime before 2025 or 2026.

Now, even if Branagh decides not to go through with a fourth film, I wouldn’t be surprised to see another adaptation made in the future. If history since the 30s had taught us anything, it’s that people can never get enough of the insufferable, genius Belgian detective.

Have something to add? Let us know in the comments below!