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The "Buddy Cop" genre of films are action films with plots involving two men of very different and conflicting personalities who are forced to work together to solve a crime and/or defeat criminals.
Many consider the 1982 film 48 Hours, starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte, to have started the genre. In that film, a cop teams up with a convict to catch a murderer.
Frequently, although not always, the two heroes are of different ethnicities or cultures. Even if the two men have a similar ethnic background, one of them is often "wilder" than the other, a hot-tempered iconoclast paired with a more even-tempered partner.
Another frequent plot device of this genre is to have one of the men be removed from his natural element, usually by being forced to operate in a different country. When this is done, the other man acts as a guide to the unfamiliar.
As evidenced by 48 Hours, a "Buddy Cop" film need not always involve two policemen. Films that do not specifically involve two cops, but otherwise have many of the characteristics of a Buddy Cop film, are sometimes included as examples of the Buddy Cop genre, or are called members of a larger genre of Buddy films.
A subset of the Buddy Cop genre is the Buddy Cop-Dog movie, which uses the same element of unlikely partnership to create comedic hijinks. Examples include Turner and Hooch and K-9.
Examples of Buddy Cop films are: Beverly Hills Cop, Lethal Weapon, Red Heat, Black Rain, Rising Sun and Rush Hour.
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