This whodunit series based on Dame Agatha Christie's crime novels and short stories, was named after its star sleuth, Hercule Poirot (David Suchet), a famous former Belgian Policeman, who settled for good in London after the war, soon so famous as an infallible private detective that he becomes a society figure in his own right. In each episode, Poirot gets to solve a crime mystery, mostly murder(s), for a paying client or otherwise catching his attention, generally along with his faithful English sidekick Captain Hastings (Hugh Fraser) and/or his Scotland yard "friendly rival" Chief Inspector Japp (Philip Jackson).

Hercule Poirot's (Sir Peter Ustinov's) assistant, Captain Arthur Hastings (Jonathan Cecil), calls him down to Acapulco, Mexico, where he can write his memoirs, but Hastings drags him to a party populated with Hastings' new friends. There's Janet Crisp (Concetta Tomei), the writer, Daisy Eastman (Marian Mercer) and her daughter "Egg" (Emma Samms), Ricardo Montoya (Fernando Allende), Dr. Strange (Dana Elcar), Miss Milray (Frances Lee McCain) the housekeeper, and Charles Cartwright (Tony Curtis) the famous American actor. But at the party another guest, Reverend Babbington (Philip Guilmant), dies from poisoning and when Dr. Strange also dies from poisoning, Poirot must swing into action before the serial killer strikes again.

Emily Boynton (Piper Laurie), stepmother to the three Boynton children, and mother to Ginevra (Amber Bezer), blackmails the family lawyer, Jefferson Cope (David Soul), into destroying the second will of her late husband, which would have freed the childern from her dominating influence. She takes herself and the children on vacation to Europe and the Holy Land. In Jerusalem, Hercule Poirot (Sir Peter Ustinov) meets up with a woman friend, Dr. Sarah King (Jenny Seagrove), who falls in love with Raymond Boynton (John Terleskey) to Emily's disapproval. Lady Westholme (Lauren Bacall), her secretary, and Cope are following them too. The children learn about the second will, and Emily succeeds in rubbing the rest the wrong way, causing much hatred towards her. At a dig, everybody wonders about the camp, and Emily is found dead, poisoned. Poirot investigates.

Hercule Poirot (Sir Peter Ustinov) is called in to investigate a case for an insurance company regarding a dead woman's body found on a moor, and then an important diamond sent to the company to be insured, turns out to be a fake. Poirot discovers that the diamond was bought for Arlena Marshall (Dame Diana Rigg) by Sir Horace Blatt (Colin Blakely), and Arlena is on her honeymoon with her husband and stepdaughter on a Mediterranean island hotel. He joins them on the island and finds that everybody else starts to hate Arlena for different reasons, refusing to do a stage show, stopping a book, and for having an open affair with Patrick Redfern (Nicholas Clay), another guest, in full view of his shy wife. So it's only a matter of time before Arlena turns up dead, strangled, and Poirot must find out who it is.

The first class compartment of the December 1935 departure of the Orient Express from Istanbul is full, unusual for this time of the year. Regardless, famed and fastidious Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, who needs to get back to London immediately, is able to secure last minute passage in the compartment with the assistance of his friend, Signor Bianchi, one of the directors of the train line who is also making the trip. Some of the first class passengers seem concerned about Poirot's presence on the train. At least one of them has reason to be concerned, as later, another first class passenger, who earlier in the trip asked Poirot to provide protection for him due to several death threats, is found murdered in his stateroom by multiple stabbings. At the time the victim is found, the train is unexpectedly stopped and delayed due to snow in remote Yugoslavia, which may be problematic for the murderer in getting away now that Poirot is on the case, which he is doing as a favor to Bianchi as not to get the Yugoslav police involved. Poirot quickly learns that the victim was not who he presented himself to be and has a connection to a five-year-old American kidnapping and murder case of infant Daisy Armstrong, murdered in spite of the fact that her parents had paid the requested ransom. The murderer in that case has long been convicted and executed but the ransom moneys were never recovered, a known accomplice never captured, and both the Armstrong parents have since tragically died. As Poirot questions the train's valet, the victim's accompanying staff, and the other primarily well off first class passengers and their accompanying servants, who are all on the surface more than cooperative, he finds that many had opportunity and motive, the latter which may not be obvious. There is also a great deal of evidence discovered on the train, which pulls his thoughts in many directions. These pieces of information may complicate the deduction of who is the murderer.

Despite not knowing him, the world's most famous detectives can't pass up the offer of a "dinner and murder" invitation from wealthy Lionel Twain (Truman Capote). Each has no idea until their arrival at Two Two Twain who else will be in attendance. Those detectives are: amateur sleuths and New York City socialites Dick (David Niven) and Dora Charleston (Dame Maggie Smith), accompanied by their pet terrier, Myron; Belgian detective Monsieur Milo Perrier (James Coco), accompanied by his chauffeur, Marcel (James Cromwell); Shanghainese Inspector Sidney Wang (Peter Sellers), accompanied by his Japanese adopted son, Willie Wang (Richard Narita); frumpish Brit Miss Jessica Marbles (Elsa Lanchester), accompanied by her invalid nurse, Miss Withers (Estelle Winwood); and San Francisco gumshoe Sam Diamond (Peter Falk), accompanied by his femme fatale sidekick, Tess Skeffington (Eileen Brennan). The dinner part of the invitation runs into problems due to the non-communication between Twain's blind butler, Jamesir Bensonmum (Sir Alec Guinness), and Twain's new deaf-mute and non-Anglophone cook, Yetta (Nancy Walker). On the murder side, the guests initially believe Twain will try to kill each of them. However, Twain eventually announces his rationale for the gathering: that one of the people at the dinner table will be murdered before midnight, and that Twain will consider himself the greatest detective if his guests, who are now trapped in the house until dawn, cannot figure out who committed the murder, that person also at the dinner table. If one does figure out who committed the crime, he or she will be the recipient of one million dollars and the exclusive rights to the story. So the guests anxiously await the stroke of midnight, with those still alive after that time trying to figure out motive and the opportunity to murder before the rise of dawn, and before the murderer has the opportunity to strike again on one or all of them.

A strange and mysterious group of strange, mysterious people gathers in the old dark house of the Cavinder Estate for the reading of the will of the late Sinas Cavinder. Strangest and most mysterious of this group is the unseen psychopathic killer who is psychopathically killing the gatherees one by one.

This is a movie about seven guests, a butler, and a maid, who are all involved in a series of murders. The guests all meet at Hill House, where you learn that Professor Plum (Christopher Lloyd) works in Washington, D.C., where everyone else lives. Colonel Mustard (Martin Mull) is a client of Miss Scarlet (Lesley Anne Warren), who is the ex-employer of Yvette (Colleen Camp), the maid, who had an affair with the husband of Mrs. White (Madeline Khan), et cetera. Blackmailer Mr. Boddy (Lee Ving) gives each guest a weapon and tells him or her to kill butler Wadsworth (Tim Curry) to avoid being exposed. Add in Mrs. Peacock's (Eileen Brennan's) craziness and Mr. Green's (Michael McKean's) clumsiness, and meet a whole group tangled in a web of murder, lies, and hilarity.

whodunit - murder mystery

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