Detective Conan Movie Tier List: My Honest 2026 Ranking
A longtime fan ranks all 29 Detective Conan movies from S to D tier, from Phantom of Baker Street to 2026's Fallen Angel of the Highway.
Gavin 10.5 min read
Why I Finally Sat Down and Ranked Every Detective Conan Movie
My Tier List Overview
Here's the quick version before I get into why:
- S Tier: The Phantom of Baker Street, The Raven Chaser, The Crimson Love Letter, Zero the Enforcer, The Scarlet Bullet
- A Tier: Countdown to Heaven, The Lost Ship in the Sky, Dimensional Sniper, The Fist of Blue Sapphire, The Bride of Halloween, Black Iron Submarine, Fallen Angel of the Highway
- B Tier: The Last Wizard of the Century, Captured in Her Eyes, Requiem of the Detectives, Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure, Sunflowers of Fire, The Million-Dollar Pentagram, One-Eyed Flashback
- C Tier: The Timebombed Skyscraper, Crossroad in the Ancient Capital, Magician of the Silver Sky, Private Eye in the Distant Sea, The Darkest Nightmare
- D Tier: The Fourteenth Target, Strategy Above the Depths, Full Score of Fear, Quarter of Silence, The Eleventh Striker
Now let's actually go through them one by one.
S Tier: The Ones I'd Show a New Fan First
The Phantom of Baker Street still amazes me on rewatch. Trapping the entire main cast inside a full-dive VR game called "Cocoon," modeled after Sherlock Holmes' London, is such a strange swing for a mystery franchise, but it commits fully — the "one player is secretly a killer" hook works because the game world has real rules, and Haibara gets one of her best early moments figuring out the system from the inside.
The Raven Chaser is the one I recommend when someone asks if this series ever gets genuinely dark. It pulls Akai Shuichi and the Black Organization storyline directly into the movie continuity instead of keeping it TV-only, builds an actual siege/hostage situation with real stakes, and ends on a note that made me sit through the credits the first time just to process it. This is the film that convinced me Conan wasn't "just" a kids' mystery-of-the-week show.
The Crimson Love Letter is my pick for best Heiji-and-Kazuha entry, and I don't think that's controversial. Setting the mystery around a karuta (competitive poetry card) tournament in Kyoto gives it a genuinely different rhythm from the usual "closed room, dead body" formula, and the emotional beats between the two of them land because the movie earns them instead of just teasing.
Zero the Enforcer turned Amuro Tooru/Furuya Rei into a franchise-defining character almost overnight, and rewatching it, the structure holds up better than I remembered — it splits time cleanly between a police-procedural bombing investigation and a classic locked-mystery, and both halves actually pay off instead of one carrying the other.
The Scarlet Bullet gets some pushback from purists for leaning hard into action — the maglev train sequence in the third act is basically a different genre — but the emotional payoff for the Akai family, plus Jodie Starling and the FBI-versus-Public-Security tension finally coming to a head, is exactly the kind of long-running arc payoff that makes sticking with this franchise worth it.
A Tier: Great Movies, Just Not My Absolute Top
Countdown to Heaven uses Osaka's real twin high-rise towers as its centerpiece and builds a genuinely tense bomb-countdown structure around them, plus it's the movie where Sato and Takagi's relationship gets real momentum — the ring subplot alone makes it worth the rewatch.
The Lost Ship in the Sky puts the cast on a hijacked airship with a bioweapon subplot, and while the science is very "movie logic," the airship setting itself is one of the more visually distinct backdrops in the series.
Dimensional Sniper is underrated for how it ties a present-day sniper case to a decades-old cold case involving young Inspector Megure — it's one of the better "the past and present crime are connected" structures in the franchise.
The Fist of Blue Sapphire takes the cast to Singapore, the series' first overseas setting, and stages a genuinely fun heist-adjacent plot around a legendary sunken sapphire with Kaito Kid and karate fighter Kyogoku Makoto both involved — it's messier on the mystery-logic side than my S tier picks, but it's a blast to watch.
The Bride of Halloween brings back undercover cop Wataru Date for a Shibuya hostage standoff during Halloween, and the tension of "is this cop still undercover or not" carries the whole runtime.
Black Iron Submarine finally digs into Kudo Yusaku's backstory and drops real lore about the Black Organization's origins, which longtime fans had been waiting years for — it's a little heavier on exposition than action, but the payoff matters.
Where the 2026 Movie Lands
I'm putting Fallen Angel of the Highway, the newest film, in A tier for now. It leans into motorcycle-chase spectacle with Kanagawa police rider Chihaya Hagiwara, known online as the "Goddess of the Wind," at the center of the mystery, and it became one of 2026's biggest anime successes, clearing ¥10 billion at the Japanese box office and drawing some of the franchise's best reviews in years. It's also a bittersweet one for longtime fans — it marks Wakana Yamazaki's final performance voicing Ran Mōri before her passing. I might bump it up after a rewatch, but on a first watch, A tier feels both fair and respectful to what the film is doing.
B Tier: Solid, But I Won't Pretend They're Essential
The Last Wizard of the Century was my introduction to Kaito Kid on the big screen, chasing a Fabergé egg, and it's a fun heist-mystery hybrid — but the mystery itself is thinner than later Kid entries.
Captured in Her Eyes has a genuinely creepy premise (a Hollywood-style actress with a hidden past connected to a string of murders around a stage play), but the pacing drags in the middle act.
Requiem of the Detectives traps the Detective Boys in a snowbound mansion, which is a great setup for a classic locked-room mystery, though the resolution leans a bit too heavily on coincidence for my taste.
Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure is mostly memorable for bringing Suzuki Sonoko back into the spotlight after over a decade and quietly introducing Okiya Subaru — a character who turns out to matter a lot more than the treasure-hunt plot around him.
Sunflowers of Fire centers on an art-forgery case tied to a Van Gogh-style painting, and while the reveal is satisfying, it's one of the more "by the numbers" entries visually.
The Million-Dollar Pentagram sends Heiji and the gang chasing a legendary five-pointed treasure map tied to old Kansai folklore — a fun scavenger-hunt structure, but the actual whodunit is one of the weaker links in a recent, otherwise strong run of films.
One-Eyed Flashback takes the cast to the UK and connects back to Akai and Amuro's shared past, which is great for long-time viewers, but it assumes a lot of prior knowledge and isn't the easiest entry point.
C Tier: Watchable, But Nothing I'd Prioritize
The Timebombed Skyscraper is historically important — it's the very first movie, and it's where Vermouth quietly makes her first appearance — but as a standalone mystery, the bombing plot is fairly straightforward by the standards the series later set for itself.
Crossroad in the Ancient Capital is a decent early Heiji spotlight built around a Kyoto fortune-telling shrine and a string of murders, but the killer's motive is one of the more forgettable ones in the franchise.
Magician of the Silver Sky sets its mystery on a hijacked airship with an illusionist as the central suspect, and the "magic trick as murder method" angle is clever in theory but doesn't fully land in execution.
Private Eye in the Distant Sea gives Heiji another romance-adjacent outing tied to a sunken ship off the Osaka coast, but it recycles beats from earlier Heiji-focused films without adding much new.
The Darkest Nightmare puts a lot of focus on Amuro/Bourbon and Public Security's side of the Black Organization conflict, which is great lore-wise, but the actual present-day murder case feels like an afterthought next to the spy-thriller half.
D Tier: I Wouldn't Actively Recommend Starting Here
The Fourteenth Target has an interesting premise — a sniper picking targets connected by playing cards — but the pacing between kills is slow, and the eventual motive doesn't hit as hard as it should.
Strategy Above the Depths puts the cast on a cruise ship built around a submarine-warfare game show, and while the setting is unique, the mystery gets buried under the gimmick.
Full Score of Fear leans on an orchestra-and-phantom-of-the-opera atmosphere that sounds great on paper, but the culprit's reveal is one of the more predictable ones in the series.
Quarter of Silence builds its case around a dam and a village legend, and the atmosphere is genuinely eerie, but the mystery mechanics feel thin stretched across a full runtime.
The Eleventh Striker ties its murders to a soccer team and match-fixing, and even as a soccer fan myself, the sports angle never quite fuses with the mystery plot the way the Halloween or karuta entries manage to blend their themes in.
Making My Ranking Into an Actual Graphic
Once I had my list sorted in my head, I wanted something I could actually post instead of a wall of text, so I used a free drag-and-drop tier list tool called TierMakerPro — no sign-up, just open the Detective Conan movie template, drag each poster into a row, rename the tiers if you want, and export a PNG when you're done. It already has all 29 movie posters loaded, and you can swap in your own images too if you want a cleaner look.
How Would You Rank Them?
That's my list, built from way too many late-night rewatches. I know S tier especially is going to get some pushback — I'd love to hear where you'd move things around, or which movie you think is criminally underrated. Drop your own ranking in the comments, or make your own version with the tier list template and share it — I'm genuinely curious how much overlap there is.
FAQ
How many Detective Conan movies are there?
As of the 2026 release of Fallen Angel of the Highway, there are 29 Detective Conan (Case Closed) theatrical films, released almost every year since 1997.
What's the best Detective Conan movie to start with if I'm new?
The Phantom of Baker Street, The Crimson Love Letter, and Zero the Enforcer are the three I'd hand to a newcomer — they don't require deep knowledge of the Black Organization arc and still show off what the franchise does best.
Is Zero the Enforcer better than The Scarlet Bullet?
They do different things well — Zero the Enforcer is a tighter procedural mystery, while The Scarlet Bullet leans into the Akai family's emotional arc and bigger action. Both land in my S tier, and fans genuinely split on which one they prefer.
Is the TierMakerPro tier list maker free to use?
Yes — TierMakerPro is free, requires no account, and lets you drag and drop images, rename and recolor tiers, upload your own pictures, and export your finished tier list as a PNG.