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 successful 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, whose salons are not yet fully profitable, 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.