Columbo Episode Rating Graph

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.

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.

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.

Lt. Columbo is invited as guest speaker in a Criminology course and squares off against two cunning students, who are confident they have duped the lieutenant with various leads, when their professor is found murdered.

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.

Lt. Columbo is pitted against an equally brilliant, nationally recognized criminal defence lawyer who murders his rock star girlfriend when he discovers she is seeing another man.

Columbo is asked to investigate the disappearance of Dian Hunter, director of a men's magazine. Naturally, the prime suspect is her lover and co-editor Sean Brantley, who spends lots of time with the young girls he works with.

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.

A writer of murder mysteries wreaks revenge on her nephew-in-law by blaming him for her niece's murder.

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.

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.

A Senate Candidate running for office kills his campaign manager by making it look like he was the target for the killer's bullet.

Columbo unwittingly becomes part of a deranged woman's diabolical plot to destroy the two men she believes responsible for her husband's death in prison. After murdering one, she moves in on the other, Columbo, to kill the person closest to him, his wife.

A filmmaker kills one of his clients. in a break, during the screening of a new ad campaign

While holidaying on board a cruise liner, Columbo helps capture the killer of the singer with the ship's band.

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.

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.

While investigating the death of a popular actor, Columbo must outwit a cunning dentist, who has set up his wife for a murder in order to keep up his image and expensive lifestyle.

One member of a mystery-writing-team decides to kill his more talented partner when the better writer decides to go solo.

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?

Columbo attends the wedding of his police officer nephew. While her husband takes a shower, the bride disappears from the bridal suite. The groom enlists Uncle Columbo's help in unraveling the case. Seems she has been kidnapped by a psychopath who intends to kill her once he consummates "their" marriage.

Graham McVeigh, a thoroughbred ranch owner, kills his brother, and frames a local mob bookie. Then, under the guise of making good on his brother's debt, he kills the bookie as well, claiming self-defense. Mob boss Vincenzo Fortelli starts to exert pressure on McVeigh. To solve the crime Columbo must work with the gangster.

Hollywood film composer and conductor Findlay Crawford has been mentor to a talented young composer who has been ghostwriting most of Crawford's work for the last few years, and penned Crawford's entire last movie score, which won an Oscar. When the protege wants to venture out on his own, Crawford, whose own talent seems to have run dry, concocts the perfect murder, made to look like a suicide.

The family and friends of brilliant naval architect Commodore Otis Swanson have gathered for the company’s annual party. The commodore, however, has become increasingly discontented with the way his son-in-law, Charles Clay, has developed the shipbuilding firm into a vast, impersonal corporation. He is tired of being surrounded by freeloaders like his alcoholic daughter, Joanna, his irresponsible nephew, Swanny, and of course, Charles. The only man he respects is Wayne Taylor, the head of the boatyard. In fact, the Commodore intends to sell the company. That night, Charles is wiping clean the belaying pin used to bash the Commodore’s skull.

The owner of a bull ranch in Mexico gives his workers the day off, and then talks his number one man into fighting the bull who nearly killed his son. But instead he shoots him with a tranquilizer gun, and lets the bull kill him. Colombo, who is on vacation in Mexico, gets dragged into this case by an admiring colleague, but he has trouble convincing the Mexicans that the accident is really homicide. And how do you prove that the bull is a murder weapon?

The final Columbo story starring Peter Falk, Los Angeles rave promoter Justin Price helps his girlfriend Vanessa get rid of the corpse of her ex-husband, who was backing Price's new club, after he drops dead in Vanessa's apartment. When an investigative reporter pieces the crime together and threatens to blackmail Justin, Justin kills him.

Wade Anders, a former security expert, hosts the show Crime Alert. A rival host, news reader Bud, discovers Wade was in a porno movie and plans to tell the world then take over his show.

The female head of a museum hires one of the guards to rob the museum to collect the insurance money. But during the robbery she kills him and her own brother, and makes it look like they killed each other. The guard/robber's brother reports a strange message on his answering machine, that makes it seem that he has been killed. And Columbo gets the case. When Columbo first comes to the crime scene, he notices that the lights are off, a gold medallion in the robber's pants, and signs that pointed to the fact that he was going abroad after the heist. And he concluded that these clues mean that someone else was involved.

The director of a government institute that employs various scientific geniuses commits a clever murder. But another kind of genius is on the case: Lt. Columbo.

After winning a $30 million lottery, photographer Freddy Brower, who wishes to keep the money a secret from the wife who is divorcing him, arranges with his uncle, wealthy jeweler Leon Lamarr, to pretend the lottery ticket is Lamarr's, until the divorce is final. Little does Brower know his uncle is having an affair with Brower's wife. Lamarr kills Brower in order to keep the lottery winnings for himself.

Viveca Scott, the founder of Beauty Mark Cosmetics, is being threatened by her rival David Lang. When he finds out that her revolutionary cream formula actually removes wrinkles, he has the formula pirated.

An ambitious womanizer, rejected by the romance novelist he planned to marry, ends the story she was writing with a gun and makes the murder look like robbery gone awry.

A famous general kills a business associate, then woos a neurotic female witness to thwart Columbo's investigation.

While on a work trip to London, to learn the techniques of the British police, Columbo gets involved with the murder of Roger Haversham, a rich old businessman who is financing the careers of two rundown theater stars. When Sir Roger threatens to end their careers, because he felt betrayed, he's killed. A short while after, his butler figures out the motives for his master's murder, and blackmails the actors, who have no other choice than to kill him and make it look like he commited suicide due to remorse, because he murdered his employer. Columbo stills manages to catch both the murderers, with the help of a pearl and a new umbrella.

A sex therapist catches her boyfriend with another woman when he thinks she is out of town. She then disguises herself and manages to kill him while in disguise, not realizing that a potential suitor saw her enter the bathroom as a dark-haired woman and exit as a blonde.

A chess grandmaster disposes of the champion, who keeps coming back on him.

A famous artist, Max Barsini, lives with his wife Vanessa and a beautiful live-in model named Julie at his beach house/studio. Max's ex-wife Louise lives in the beach house next door. Together, these women comprise Max's own little harem. He loves them all in different ways, but, more importantly, likes to control them. In fact, Max derives a great deal of satisfaction from the fact that they all fight for his attention and are reliant upon him financially and emotionally. The competitive jealousy between the women reaches a head at the dinner table one night when Max asks each of them what they think of the other. Their answers prove the intense rivalry between the women.

A photograph is the only clue for Columbo when two dead men and a seven year old mystery with $4 million dollars involved as well as an obnoxious insurance investigator come into play.

A fading movie star tries to murder a writer who is attempting to blackmail her, but accidentally kills her P.A.

Given a deadline to pay his debts or else, chronic gambler Harold plants a bomb under the Rolls Royce of his uncle, sports magnate Big Fred. However, Big Fred is killed by a hit-and-run driver while jogging that very morning, and the Rolls Royce explodes when Fred's gardener tries to move it out of the way of the TV camera crews. Just when Columbo thinks he has the goods on Harold, it is Harold who turns up dead.