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, sometimes learning from each other in the process.

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.

Examples of films which fulfill almost all of the characteristics of Buddy Cop films except that the two protaganists are not policeman include Shanghai Noon.