Sleuth is a 1972 mystery thriller film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine. The screenplay by playwright Anthony Shaffer was based on his 1970 Tony Award-winning play. Both Olivier and Caine were nominated for Academy Awards for their performances. This was Mankiewicz's final film. Critics gave the film overwhelmingly positive reviews.

Plot

Andrew Wyke, a crime fiction author, lives in a country manor house filled with elaborate games and automata. He invites his wife's lover, Milo Tindle, the owner of two hair salons, to his home and says he would like Milo to take his wife, Marguerite, off his hands so he can be with his more desirable mistress, Téa. To provide Milo the means to support the high-maintenance Marguerite, Andrew suggests that Milo steal valuable jewellery from the house, with Andrew recouping his losses through an insurance claim. Milo agrees, and Andrew leads him through an elaborate scheme to fake a robbery. At the conclusion, Andrew pulls a gun on Milo and reveals that the bogus theft was a ruse to frame Milo as a burglar so he can kill him. Berating Milo's profession as a hairdresser and background as the "un-English" son of an Italian immigrant, Andrew cannot accept that his wife left him for such an "unworthy" rival. He puts the gun to Milo's head; there is a gunshot, and the screen cuts to black.