Lethal Weapon (1987)

Lethal Weapon is a 1987 American buddy cop action film directed by Richard Donner. Mel Gibson stars as Martin Riggs, a Vietnam veteran and LAPD narcotics detective who has become genuinely suicidal after his wife's death, and Danny Glover as Roger Murtaugh, a by-the-book family man detective who is getting "too old for this" on the day he's paired with Riggs. Their investigation of a young woman's apparent suicide reveals a heroin smuggling operation run by former Special Forces operatives, but the film's real engine is the relationship between the reckless, death-seeking Riggs and the cautious, homebound Murtaugh.

Lethal Weapon essentially created the buddy cop action genre as it exists today — the mismatched-partners formula had existed before, but Richard Donner's combination of spectacular action with genuine emotional depth set a new standard. Mel Gibson's Riggs was genuinely disturbing in his early scenes, a man who puts a gun in his mouth and almost pulls the trigger, giving the character's eventual redemption through friendship real emotional weight. Lethal Weapon earned $120 million worldwide on a $15 million budget and spawned three sequels.