“Poirot was an extraordinary looking little man. He was hardly more than five feet, four inches, but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache was very stiff and military. The neatness of his attire was almost incredible. I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint, dandified little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police. As a detective, his flair had been extraordinary, and he had achieved triumphs by unravelling some of the most baffling cases of the day.”
That’s how Agatha Christie, through the voice of her narrator Captain Arthur Hastings, first describes Hercule Poirot in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Christie’s first mystery novel, originally published in 1920. With that rather eccentric description, Christie introduced readers to the man who would become one of the most enduring sleuths in the annals of detective fiction.
(How to pronounce Hercule Poirot? It’s pretty close to how it looks. “Her-cule, with the ‘u’ sound as it ‘cute,’ Pwa-row.”)
Who is Hercule Poirot?
“Why not make my detective a Belgian?” Christie wrote in her autobiography, inspired by “a fit of patriotic fervor during the First World War,” and possibly by her own experience with Belgian refugees in England during that time.
“I could see him as a tidy little man, always arranging things, liking things in pairs, liking things square instead of round. And he should be brainy — he should have little grey cells of the mind.”
Since then, Poirot has been the star of more than 30 novels and over 50 short stories all written by Christie, between 1920 and 1975, not to mention two plays, as well as an ongoing series of continuation novels authorized by Christie’s estate and written by Sophie Hannah, and dozens of appearances in film and television.
He was the “Queen of Crime’s” most prolific and popular character, and while Christie herself eventually grew tired of Poirot, calling him “insufferable” and a “detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep,” the public never did, and Christie continued to write Poirot until her death, saying that it was her duty to give the audience what they wanted.
(The LA Review of Books called Christie’s famous description of her beloved detective “a string of adjectives so often quoted it’s difficult to find their original source” — in 2022, the screenwriters of Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Death on the Nile put the words in the mouth of Rosalie Otterbourne, played by Letitia Wright.)
How many Hercule Poirot books are there?
Agatha Christie wrote 33 Hercule Poirot novels and more than 50 short stories, several of which were collected into books of Poirot stories, either during Christie’s lifetime or posthumously. From her first detective novel to what was very nearly her last, Poirot was always there.
Besides Christie’s nearly three-dozen novels, two plays, and innumerable short stories, Sophie Hannah has been writing “continuation novels” starring Poirot and authorized by Christie’s estate since 2014.
So far, that amounts to half-a-dozen new Poirot books, starting with The Monogram Murders in 2014 and continuing through 2025’s The Last Death of the Year.
Along the way, Poirot has been the detective for many of Agatha Christie’s most famous mysteries, including such iconic stories as The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Lord Edgware Dies, Murder on the Orient Express, and Death on the Nile – many of which have been adapted to television and film, often several times.
Where to watch Hercule Poirot movies and TV?
As many Hercule Poirot books as there are, there are seemingly even more adaptations to other media.
Besides the two plays (one written by Christie herself), the little Belgian detective has appeared in dozens of films, television shows, even anime, manga, and video games. And if your next question is “who played Hercule Poirot,” the answer is “just about everybody.”
Legendary actor Charles Laughton may have been the first to ever play Poirot, in a 1928 stage production of the play Alibi, adapted from Christie’s novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. A 1931 film adaption of the play would mark the first time Poirot appeared on screen, this time played by Austin Trevor.
Since then, Poirot has been portrayed by the likes of Tony Randall, Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov, Ian Holm, Alfred Molina, and John Malkovich. Hugh Laurie played the character in a brief scene in the 1997 movie Spice World.
Since 2017, Kenneth Branagh has portrayed Poirot in a series of star-studded film versions also directed by Branagh, adapting Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and Hallowe’en Party (as A Haunting in Venice).
For many viewers, however, Hercule Poirot is synonymous with a single actor. For a quarter of a century, classically trained actor David Suchet played Poirot in all 70 episodes of ITV’s Agatha Christie’s Poirot.
“For the past 25 years,” the LA Review of Books wrote after the series aired its final episode in 2013, “viewers have watched an actor and character grow and change together, episode by episode, year by year: a time-lapse detective.” In 2015, Entertainment Weekly named Suchet the “Best Poirot.”
With so many adaptations of the fastidious Belgian detective’s adventures, the answer to where to watch Hercule Poirot movies and TV is “all over the place.”
Most of the Kenneth Branagh movies are currently streaming on Hulu, while ITV’s Agatha Christie’s Poirot can be watched in its entirety on Britbox.
Does Hercule Poirot die?
Though Agatha Christie — or possibly Christie’s publishers, depending upon who you ask — resisted killing off Hercule Poirot for much of her career, the legendary detective does, in fact, die in Christie’s final novel, Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case, originally written in the 1940s and not published until 1975, shortly before Christie’s own death.
Curtain sees an aging Poirot, now seemingly confined to a wheelchair and suffering from arthritis and a weak heart, reunited with Arthur Hastings and back at the scene of their first case together, as Poirot attempts to catch one of his most dastardly foes, a killer who can seemingly prompt others to do their dirty work for them.
In one of Christie’s trademark twists, Poirot perishes before the book is over, but manages to crack the case nonetheless. “Goodbye, cher ami,” he writes to his longtime friend and chronicler Hastings. “They were good days.”
On August 6, 1975, Poirot’s fictional demise was marked by a real-life obituary, which appeared on the front page of the New York Times, making it “the only obituary of a fictional character printed in the Times, and certainly the only one to make the front page.”
For readers, watchers, and mystery fans all over the world, however, the little Belgian detective may be dead, but his stories live on — and probably always will.
Featured still via 20th Century Fox.
