8.3/103,942 votesLoading...#1 - Any Old Port in a Storm
Season 3 Episode 2 - Aired 10/7/1973
A wine connoisseur kills his half- brother to prevent him selling the family winery to a merchant company so he can pay off his gambling debts.
Director: Leo Penn
Writer: Stanley Ralph Ross
8.2/103,040 votesLoading...#2 - A Friend in Deed
Season 3 Episode 8 - Aired 5/5/1974
A police commissioner provides an alibi to a friend who has just killed his wife. Later the commissioner kills his own wife and gets the friend to repay the favour.
Director: Ben Gazzara
Writer: Peter S. Fischer
8.2/103,179 votesLoading...#3 - Try and Catch Me
Season 7 Episode 1 - Aired 11/21/1977
A writer of murder mysteries wreaks revenge on her nephew-in-law by blaming him for her niece's murder.
Director: James Frawley
Writer: Paul Tuckahoe, Gene Thompson
8.1/103,086 votesLoading...#4 - Now You See Him
Season 5 Episode 5 - Aired 2/29/1976
Master magician the great Santini is amazing audiences at the Cabaret of Magic. What they don’t know is that Santini hopes to pull of the grandest illusion of his career - making club owner Jesse T. Jerome disappear. The crude Jerome is the only person who knows that Santini was a Nazi death camp guard named Stefan Mueller, He has been blackmailing the magician since learning his dark secret.
Director: Harvey Hart
Writer: Michael Sloan
8.0/103,497 votesLoading...#5 - A Stitch in Crime
Season 2 Episode 6 - Aired 2/11/1973
Leonard Nimoy plays a heart surgeon whose talents turn to murder. Stung by jealousy, he's planning a surgical death for his brilliant but ailing associate. Will Geer plays the intended victim.
Director: Hy Averback
Writer: N/A
8.0/103,461 votesLoading...#6 - Swan Song
Season 3 Episode 7 - Aired 3/3/1974
A Country and Western singer kills his overpowering wife in a plane crash while he parachutes to safety.
Director: Nicholas Colasanto
Writer: Stanley Ralph Ross
8.0/103,124 votesLoading...#7 - Negative Reaction
Season 4 Episode 2 - Aired 10/15/1974
Brilliant photographer Paul Galesko plans to murder his domineering wife, Frances, and pin the crime on an ex-convict named Alvin Deschler. His plan is to make it look as if Alvin kidnapped his wife and killed her before picking up the ransom money.
Director: Alf Kjellin
Writer: Peter S. Fischer
8.0/103,270 votesLoading...#8 - Forgotten Lady
Season 5 Episode 1 - Aired 9/14/1975
A fading actress kills her husband when he refuses to back her comeback show.
Director: Harvey Hart
Writer: William Driskill
7.9/102,696 votesLoading...#9 - How to Dial a Murder
Season 7 Episode 4 - Aired 4/15/1978
A famous psychiatrist uses an appointment with his doctor as his alibi while he calls his house, where his dead wife's lover is. The call serves as the first step in a conditioning reflex on the psychiatrist's dogs. The other part is the word Rosebud as uttered by the victim. When Columbo arrives on the scene, the psychiatrist is very understanding when police say they may have to put his dogs to death. But Columbo notices how friendly the dogs seem, and then there's the telephone that's hanging from it's hook.
Director: James Frawley
Writer: Anthony Lawrence
7.8/102,831 votesLoading...#10 - Double Exposure
Season 3 Episode 4 - Aired 12/16/1973
A filmmaker kills one of his clients. in a break, during the screening of a new ad campaign
Director: Richard Quine
Writer: Stephen J. Cannell
7.8/103,055 votesLoading...#11 - By Dawn's Early Light
Season 4 Episode 3 - Aired 10/27/1974
The head of a military school kills one of the governors by sabotaging the gun which is used on founders day.
Director: Harvey Hart
Writer: Howard Berk
7.8/102,949 votesLoading...#12 - Troubled Waters
Season 4 Episode 4 - Aired 2/9/1975
While holidaying on board a cruise liner, Columbo helps capture the killer of the singer with the ship's band.
Director: Ben Gazzara
Writer: Jackson Gillis, William Driskill
7.7/105,518 votesLoading...#13 - Murder by the Book
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 9/15/1971
One member of a mystery-writing-team decides to kill his more talented partner when the better writer decides to go solo.
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Steven Bochco
7.7/103,992 votesLoading...#14 - Death Lends a Hand
Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 10/6/1971
A private investigator kills his client's wife after she threatens to expose his blackmail scheme. The client then hires the detective to assist Columbo in the search for the killer.
Director: Bernard L. Kowalski
Writer: William Link, Richard Levinson
7.7/103,815 votesLoading...#15 - Suitable for Framing
Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 11/17/1971
An art critic, Dale Kingston, kills his uncle for his valuable collection of paintings. All the clues lead to the dead man's first wife. Can Columbo correct the Lieutenant's error before it is too late?
Director: Hy Averback
Writer: Jackson Gillis
7.7/103,844 votesLoading...#16 - Étude in Black
Season 2 Episode 1 - Aired 9/17/1972
The mistress of a conductor becomes a target for murder after threatening to tell all to her lover's wife.
Director: Nicholas Colasanto
Writer: William Link, Richard Levinson, Steven Bochco
7.7/102,927 votesLoading...#17 - Double Shock
Season 2 Episode 8 - Aired 3/25/1973
A wealthy man is murdered; his twin nephews stand to inherit, but which one committed the crime?
Director: Robert Butler
Writer: William Link, Richard Levinson, Steven Bochco, Peter Allan Fields
7.7/102,918 votesLoading...#18 - Candidate for Crime
Season 3 Episode 3 - Aired 11/4/1973
A Senate Candidate running for office kills his campaign manager by making it look like he was the target for the killer's bullet.
Director: Boris Sagal
Writer: Dean Hargrove
7.7/102,622 votesLoading...#19 - Murder Under Glass
Season 7 Episode 2 - Aired 1/30/1978
A famous food critic is threatened by a restaurant owner, and so the critic leaves. Soon after, the cook dies. Columbo's involvement is welcomed by all the other chefs in the area, but Columbo wonders why the dead restaurant owner slammed the drawers before he died. And how could the poison that killed him enter an unopened bottle without the killer even being in the room? Could it have been suicide? But then there's the cheques to a mysterious society, and the victim's calender. Can Columbo's cooking skills really match the food critic's taste?
Director: Jonathan Demme
Writer: Robert Van Scoyk
7.6/103,268 votesLoading...#20 - Blueprint for Murder
Season 1 Episode 7 - Aired 2/9/1972
An architect kills his business partner and deliberately lets Columbo suspect him, leading Columbo to think that he's hidden the body in the foundation of a building under construction. He plans to let Columbo dig up the site and find nothing, knowing that its the perfect place to hide the body since Columbo would never look in the same place twice.
Director: Peter Falk
Writer: N/A
7.6/102,665 votesLoading...#21 - Publish or Perish
Season 3 Episode 5 - Aired 1/18/1974
A publisher hires a Vietnam vet to kill his star author and thus give himself an alibi before the writer can defect to another publisher.
Director: Robert Butler
Writer: Peter S. Fischer
7.6/102,702 votesLoading...#22 - Playback
Season 4 Episode 5 - Aired 3/2/1975
An inventor video tapes his mother-in-law's death, and then replays it back to the security guard, to give himself an alibi.
Director: Bernard L. Kowalski
Writer: Booker Bradshaw
7.6/102,641 votesLoading...#23 - The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case
Season 6 Episode 3 - Aired 5/22/1977
Two former college friends, now partners in an accounting firm, become enemies when one realizes the other has embezzled funds. The reason for his embezzling ways is his wife, she demands nothing but the best.
Director: Sam Wanamaker
Writer: Robert M. Young
7.6/1020 votesLoading...#24 - It's All in the Game
Season 10 Episode 7 - Aired 10/31/1993
Nick Franco is a violent, two-timing gigolo and his current paramour, Laura Stanton, has had enough. With the help of a young woman named Lisa, she murders her lover and sets herself up with an airtight alibi. When Columbo starts sniffing on her trail, Laura quickly works to seduce the married detective, hoping that her sex appeal will throw the usually stubborn Lieutenant off the scent.
Director: Vincent McEveety
Writer: Peter Falk
7.5/103,015 votesLoading...#25 - The Most Crucial Game
Season 2 Episode 3 - Aired 11/5/1972
The manager of a football team kills the team's owner, disguising himself as an ice cream vendor as a cover. He then uses a recording of a faked phone call as an alibi to prove he was elsewhere at the time of the murder.
Director: Jeremy Kagan
Writer: John T. Dugan
The Best Episodes of Columbo
Every episode of Columbo ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Columbo!
Columbo is a friendly, verbose, disheveled-looking police detective who is consistently underestimated by his suspects. Despite his unprepossessing appearance and apparent absentmindedness, he shrewdly solves...
Genres:CrimeDramaMystery
Best Episodes Summary
"Any Old Port in a Storm" is the best rated episode of "Columbo". It scored 8.3/10 based on 3942 votes. Directed by Leo Penn and written by Stanley Ralph Ross, it aired on 10/7/1973. This episode scored 0.1 points higher than the second highest rated, "A Friend in Deed".