The best Josef Sommer’s crime movies

When a madman dubbed 'Scorpio' terrorizes San Francisco, hard-nosed cop, Harry Callahan – famous for his take-no-prisoners approach to law enforcement – is tasked with hunting down the psychopath. Harry eventually collars Scorpio in the process of rescuing a kidnap victim, only to see him walk on technicalities. Now, the maverick detective is determined to nail the maniac himself.

New York police detective John Shaft arrests Walter Wade Jr. for a racially motivated slaying. But the only eyewitness disappears, and Wade jumps bail for Switzerland. Two years later Wade returns to face trial, confident his money and influence will get him acquitted -- especially since he's paid a drug kingpin to kill the witness.

A sheltered Amish child is the sole witness of a brutal murder in a restroom at a Philadelphia train station, and he must be protected. The assignment falls to a taciturn detective who goes undercover in a Pennsylvania Dutch community. On the farm, he slowly assimilates despite his urban grit and forges a romantic bond with the child's beautiful mother.

Set in the year 1999 during the last days of the old millennium, the movie tells the story of Lenny Nero, an ex-cop who now deals with data-discs containing recorded memories and emotions. One day he receives a disc which contains the memories of a murderer killing a prostitute. Lenny investigates and is pulled deeper and deeper in a whirl of blackmail, murder and rape. Will he survive and solve the case?

Idealistic young attorney Adam Hall takes on the death row clemency case of his racist grandfather, Sam Cayhall, a former Ku Klux Klan member he has never met.

The complete innocent, Michael Jordon, is drawn into a web of secrecy and government secrets when a girl carrying a mysterious package gets into a taxi with him. When she is later murdered, Michael is the chief suspect and on the run.

One year ago on November 2, seven people sat down to dinner at the Luxembourg. One of them, Rosemary Barton, never got up. She was thought to have committed suicide due to post-flu depression.

A killer of Detroit clergy confesses to a priest, who turns sleuth because he cannot tell the police.

Jeff Fahey plays Raymond Graham, who for five years has lived on Death Row, awaiting execution for the murder of a store clerk. Having given up on any further legal delays, Graham wearily awaits the fatal injection. Joining the condemned man in his death watch are Graham's family and attorney, a crowd of anti-capital punishment demonstrators, and the inevitable TV crews. This drama concentrates on the final two hours of Raymond Graham's life, played out in "real time". Originally telecast November 17, 1985, The Execution of Raymond Graham was the ABC TV network's first live dramatic presentation in nearly 25 years. Inspiration for the Movie Dead Man Walking starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon.