---
title: "Miami Vice"
year: 1984
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/miami-vice"
fi1m_score: 81
critics_score: 79
critics_reviews: 4
published: "2026-09-16T20:04:00.144486+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-16T20:04:10.296452+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Miami Vice (1984)

Created by Anthony Yerkovich · 48m · MPA TV-14 · Crime, Drama

**Fi1m score: 81** · Critics 79 (early) from 4 reviews

*In a sentence:* Pastel clothes turn out to be a poor defence against a miserable working life

> We recommend *Miami Vice* for its compelling leads, expressive music and the sadness beneath the pastel clothes. The early seasons are the strongest; later episodes expose storytelling that cannot always match the care given to the images.

## Synopsis

Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and Rico Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) are the central figures in a police drama that follows crime and the strain of investigating it. Around them are Gina Calabrese (Saundra Santiago), Trudy Joplin (Olivia Brown) and Martin Castillo (Edward James Olmos). The cases unfold amid pastel clothes and music, with montages that pause the police business to dwell on the characters’ unease. Across five seasons, the series follows its leads through investigations while returning to their dissatisfaction with the work.

## Review

Created by Anthony Yerkovich, *Miami Vice* makes a persuasive case for taking the appearance of a police drama seriously. The pastel clothes and prominent music can look like distractions, but they help make the central men attractive before the stories start to trouble our pleasure in watching them. We recommend it, with a substantial allowance for uneven storytelling across its five seasons. The strongest stretches give their stylish leads enough unhappiness to make all that polish feel uncomfortable.

Don Johnson, as Sonny Crockett, and Philip Michael Thomas, as Rico Tubbs, make the attention paid to clothes and attitude worthwhile. We need to find these men compelling before their dissatisfaction can trouble us, and the performances make that investment easy. Edward James Olmos gives Martin Castillo a welcome gravity, without making seriousness look like an effort. There is a pleasure in simply spending time with this cast, which matters in a programme that so often lets the case wait.

The cinematography, with Oliver Wood and Robert E. Collins among those responsible, gives colour a proper dramatic function. Pastels encourage us to enjoy the surface before the grimmer police stories make that enjoyment uneasy; the visual choices keep affecting how we read the people. There are passages in which the clothes seem to have received more thought than the case. Even when an investigation fails to grip us, we keep watching for the colour and the way the people occupy the screen.

Editors including Douglas Ibold and Dov Hoenig help give the series room for its music-led passages, where the forward movement of a case can briefly stop mattering. Jan Hammer’s music is central to that experience, taking on some of the work that dialogue would otherwise have to do. We found the montages unexpectedly melancholy, because they allow the leads’ unease to linger instead of hurrying towards another piece of police business. The music can carry more feeling than the surrounding script has earned, but those pauses are also where the programme most often gets through to us.

The weaker later episodes expose how much the series depends on those resources. Once the visual approach becomes familiar, weak writing becomes harder to overlook, and a sombre mood can start to feel like an instruction to take ordinary material seriously. We prefer the early seasons, where the stories give the actors more convincing reasons to look so troubled. The writing needs to give these people enough to do; looking burdened cannot sustain every episode.

For a police series, the unusual pleasure is being allowed to sit with a mood after the plot has done its immediate business. We would not make grand claims for every story here, or treat visual influence as a substitute for good writing. There is enough feeling in the strongest episodes to make the commitment worthwhile. Start at the beginning and take it an episode at a time; its unevenness becomes harder to forgive when several cases run together.

*Fi1m score 81, published 16 September 2026.*

### Reviews we read (4)

- **Vulture**, Matt Zoller Seitz (90/100, inferred): The critic hails the 1984 pilot and series as the birth of cinematic television, praising its stylish postmodern neo-noir aesthetic, innovative production values, and cultural impact on TV visuals and music integration. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/why-was-the-miami-vice-pilot-so-good.html)
- **The Guardian** (80/100, inferred): The critic praises the series' grit beneath its flashy surface and its influence on modern TV, noting its cinematic style, anti-hero leads, and existential montages that helped pave the way for complex cable dramas. They single out the strong early seasons for their downbeat endings and guest-star cameos while noting weaker later episodes. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/mar/10/miami-vice-box-set)
- **Empire** (75/100, inferred): This season is the definitive Vice, where the pastel patrol really hit their stride with sharper and often funnier scripts than the first season. The camera and editing styles that would go on to influence MTV are cranked to the full, and the show still holds up as a decent and influential cop show. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/tv/reviews/miami-vice-series-2-review/)
- **The AV Club**, Phil Dyess-Nugent (70/100, inferred): The piece credits Miami Vice with giving television a flashy visual makeover through its MTV-inspired style and production values, while noting it was more successful at reinventing the medium's look than at consistent storytelling depth. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-mtv-cops-of-miami-vice-gave-television-a-facelift-1798272156)

## Details

- **Created by:** Anthony Yerkovich
- **Creator:** Anthony Yerkovich
- **Director:** John Nicolella, Richard Compton, Leon Ichaso, Vern Gillum, Colin Bucksey, Jim Johnston, David Jackson, Virgil W. Vogel, Don Johnson, James Quinn, Aaron Lipstadt, Paul Michael Glaser, Rob Cohen, Jan Eliasberg, Michelle Manning, Georg Stanford Brown, Alan Myerson, Mario DiLeo, George Mendeluk, David Anspaugh, Abel Ferrara, Lee H. Katzin, Russ Mayberry, Gabrielle Beaumont, Paul Krasny, Michael O'Herlihy, Craig Bolotin, Eugene Corr, Tony Wharmby, James A. Contner, Christopher Crowe, Donald L. Gold, Robert Iscove, Bobby Roth, David Soul, Tim Zinnemann, Alan J. Levi, Richard A. Colla, Harry Mastrogeorge, Randy Roberts, Dan Attias, John Llewellyn Moxey, Ate de Jong, Michael B. Hoggan, Chip Chalmers, Bill Duke, Dick Miller, Edward James Olmos, Thomas Carter, Stan Lathan, Fred Walton
- **Screenplay:** Joel Surnow, Julia Cameron, Paul Diamond, Terry McDonell
- **Writer:** Daniel Pyne, Joel Surnow, Chuck Adamson, Maurice Hurley, Dennis Cooper, Peter McCabe, Dick Wolf, Michael Duggan, John Schulian, Peter Lance, John Mankiewicz, Edward di Lorenzo, Jack Richardson, Craig Bolotin, Raymond Hartung, David Jackson, Allan Weisbecker, Alfonse Ruggiero, Ken Solarz, David Black, Robert Ward, Robert Palm, Scott Shepherd, Jim Trombetta, Marvin Kupfer, Julia Cameron, Shel Willens, Paul Diamond, Rob Bragin, Anthony Yerkovich, James Becket, Robert Goethals, Eric Estrin, Ed Zuckerman, Robert Crais, Michael Mann, Alan Moskowitz, Rex Weiner, Michael Piller, Joseph Gunn, Gustave Reininger, Pamela Norris, Michael B. Hoggan, Richard Lourie, Michael Berlin, W.K. Scott Meyer, Philip Reed, Frank Military, Vladislavo Stepankutza, Thomas M. Disch, John Leekley, Edward Tivnan, Miguel Piñero, Allison Hock, Michael Eric Stein
- **Story:** Dick Wolf, Robert Ward, Scott Shepherd, Dennis Cooper, Ken Solarz, Joel Surnow, David Black, Peter McCabe, Michael Duggan, Jim Trombetta, Marvin Kupfer, Daniel Sackheim, Shel Willens, Frank Coffey, Carl Waldman, Ted Mann, Gillian Horvath, Charles Leinenweber, Frank Holman, Ken Edwards, Leon Ichaso, Reinaldo Povod, John Milius, Wendy Cozen, Manuel Arce, Priscilla Turner, Nelson Oramas, Harold Rosenthal
- **Teleplay:** Michael Duggan, Robert Palm, Ken Solarz, John Schulian, Dick Wolf, Peter Lance, Peter McCabe, Maurice Hurley, William T. Conway, Dennis Cooper, David Black, Daniel Pyne, Scott Shepherd, Jim Trombetta, Marvin Kupfer, Daniel Sackheim, Frank Coffey, Carl Waldman, Ted Mann, Rob Bragin, Terry McDonell, David Assael, Jonathan Polanski, David J. Burke
- **Cinematography:** Oliver Wood, Tom Priestley Jr., Duke Callaghan, James A. Contner, Michael McGowan, Robert E. Collins, William Cronjager, Victor Hammer
- **Editor:** Michael D. Ornstein, Robert A. Daniels, Michael B. Hoggan, Douglas Ibold, Steve Shultz, Jack Horger, Barry B. Leirer, Eric Sears, Buford F. Hayes, Gene Foster, Robert L. Sinise, David Solomon, David Rosenbloom, Dov Hoenig, Kevin Krasny, Joel Goodman, Sidney Wolinsky
- **Music:** Jan Hammer, Tim Truman, John Petersen, The Reds
- **Producer:** Mel Swope, Liam O'Brien, George E. Crosby
- **Cast:** Don Johnson as Sonny Crockett; Philip Michael Thomas as Rico Tubbs; Saundra Santiago as Gina Calabrese; Olivia Brown as Trudy Joplin; Michael Talbott as Stan Switek; Edward James Olmos as Martin Castillo; John Diehl as Larry Zito; Jeroen Krabbé as Klaus Herzog
- **Runtime:** 48m
- **Certificate (MPA):** TV-14
- **Release (the US):** 16 September 1984
- **Genres:** Crime, Drama
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWQX0avgnlM

## Where to watch in the US

- Tubi: free, hd

*Checked 2026-09-16.*

Also available in: AT, ES, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *To Live and Die in L.A.* (1985): Sunlit police work and a taste for danger that makes the investigators suspect
- *The Long Good Friday* (1980), Fi1m 88: A crime boss’s confidence unravels amid money, development and mounting unease — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-long-good-friday.md)
- *Sonatine* (1993): For the stretches when waiting around becomes stranger and sadder than the violence
- *The Shield* (2002): Another police series where charisma makes bad conduct harder to dismiss
- *Gomorrah* (2014): Crime television with a colder palette and fewer comforting distinctions between its characters

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/miami-vice