History Main / TheProfiler

* The 2024 South African MiniSeries ''CatchMeAKiller'' is about real-life profiler Micki Pistorious (see below) and her role in a number of real-life cases in the 1990s there. It takes some mild liberties with the facts, like many of these shows.

* Robert Ressler is a contemporary of John Douglas, and another veteran of the Behavior Science Unit. He has written both fictional and real-life accounts of profiling work, and is credited with coining the term "serial killer". Ressler is responsible, in whole or part, for the foundation of the National Center for Analysis of Violent Crime, and the Violent Crime Apprehension Program.

* Saga Anderson in ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII'' has a knack for this, with Alex Casey pointing out that it's one of her best skills as an FBIAgent. While in her [[MemoryPalace Mind Place]], Saga can focus on the image of a person to see how they think, ask them questions, and get answers back. [[spoiler:It's actually a full-on psychic ability, one she got from her grandfather: Tor Anderson.]]

->''"It took him years to perfect it. Now he's gonna savor it. It's not just the killing he's into; he's into power. The intimacy of goin' ''inside'', where the heart still pumps; he's into feelin' the skin tighten like a canvas and the warm blood spraying, leaving masterpieces for us to marvel at. And he's gonna go on and on, creating masterpieces, unless I stop him. Because I know what drives him to it. So don't you dare think you understand a killer--or me."''

* In ''Manga/DeathNote''. L performs a remarkable feat of profiling early in the series, but credits it to his ability to recognize a personality similar to his own. His sketch of the [[spoiler: Second Kira is less complete, and he's completely beaten to the punch on the Third, though it's implied that he could've done better if he weren't so depressed and distracted]]. Not helping matters is they are all using a supernatural method of murder, which makes them much harder to predict or track down.
* Kogami of ''Anime/PsychoPass'', who learned from Saiga, a criminology professor that also gives Akane a crash-course. In the setting, profiling (rather than using Psycho Pass data and [[BigBrotherIsWatchingYou constant surveillance]]) is considered outdated because [[HeWhoFightsMonsters studying these cases or even criminology tends to increase your Psycho Pass]], but it still proves remarkably effective.

* ''Comicbook/TheFlash'': Rogue profiler Hunter Zolomon. And his wife, Ashley after his FaceHeelTurn.
* [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep The Profile]] from ''Comicbook/MoonKnight'' is a mutant who can look at various "tells" and instantly profile people to such an amazing degree that it's basically telepathy. He can predict what people will do to the "ninety ninth percentile". This is a less heroic example, as The Profile is a JerkAss who will [[OnlyInItForTheMoney work for anyone]].
* In ''{{Comicbook/Bookhunter}}'', "ALA's top profiler" shows up briefly, and identifies the book thief as a loner... and as a childhood bed-wetter with a speech impediment. The readers never find out how accurate or inaccurate this profile actually is.
* ''Bloodhound'' was a DC miniseries about Travis "the Bloodhound" Clevenger, ''the'' best profiler in the business when it came to metahuman offenders. His skills are so invaluable that police regularly consult him even as he does time for murder.

* Paul Giamatti's character in ''Film/ShootEmUp'' is a Profiler. Criminal retired coward with a gun profiler, but still a profiler.

** Will Graham in ''Film/{{Manhunter}}'' and its remake, ''Film/RedDragon''. This is the man who captured Hannibal Lecter.
** Hannibal Lecter offers his services as a profiler to Clarice Starling, freshly graduated FBI profiler, in exchange for a LuxuryPrisonSuite in ''Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs''. However, Lecter subverts the trope: He is able to offer an extremely accurate profile of Buffalo Bill because he'd met him and knew his personal history, not because of his own insight.
* Both played straight and [[InvertedTrope inverted]] in ''Film/{{Mindhunters}}'' - every person on the island is a profiler, and the murderer seems to know his victims quite well, enabling some particularly karmic deaths for the flawed criminologists. This makes sense, since the trainees figure out quite early on that the killer has to be one of their own.
* Although ''Film/WhileTheCitySleeps'' was made in the late-fifties when profiling was just in its infancy, it has a former cop perfectly estimate the age, habits, and attitudes of a killer through the evidence left behind by the killer.

* Creator/ThomasHarris is the TropeCodifier of the super-compotent criminal profiler in his Franchise/HannibalLecter series of books.
* Outlaw PrivateDetective Literature/{{Burke}} has this ability, based on his studying such people while he was an inmate in prison.
* Cassie Maddox, secondary main character of Tana French's ''In the Woods'', is a murder-squad detective who is unofficially consulted as a profiler by the rest of the squad because she studied a bit of psychology in college. Despite her lack of training, her observations help pinpoint an important aspect of the killer's psychology.
* Literature/HerculePoirot deduces the truth behind the murders by matching the psychology of the crime to the psychology of the criminal/suspects.
* Literature/SherlockHolmes is always profiling both clients and adversaries, usually based on tiny details he observes with the SherlockScan.
* John Wayne Cleaver of ''Literature/IAmNotASerialKiller'' and the subsequent books tries to use profiling to track down the demons. He keeps coming back to a fundamental principle of trying to figure out "What does the killer do that he doesn't have to do?". His accuracy varies, but the police that he talks to over the course of the series tend to be impressed by his insights.
** Agent Foreman from ''Literature/MrMonster'' is a more straightforward example, [[spoiler:but is actually the killer he's "tracking"]]
* Variant from the Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse: the ever-popular [[TheStrategist Grand Admiral Thrawn]] is able to profile a [[PlanetOfHats given species']] psychological makeup (and from there, [[AwesomenessByAnalysis their tactical vulnerabilities]]) by looking at, of all things, their ''[[WickedCultured art]]''. He's also seen using the technique on individuals, including his rival Garm bel Iblis, from time to time. While not infallible (he once referred to a NoodleIncident where he was unable to read a particular species, and had to [[CuttingTheKnot wipe them out by brute force]]), it was highly reliable and absolutely unique; no other character, past or present, Chiss or otherwise, not even Jedi, has displayed such a knack for understanding their enemies from so little. It's actually treated fairly realistically; race x is so orderly an unstructured attack makes them react stupidly, race y panics when seeing something "impossible" which makes them great targets for a trickery aided bluff, that kind of thing.
** In the new canon, Thrawn once faced off against General Yiv the Benevolent, who himself displayed a small measure of this talent, except his passion was architecture rather than art.
* The first literary detective who ''professionally'' worked as a profiler - or at least something like it - may be Helen [=McCloy=]'s Dr. Basil Willing, a forensic psychologist who worked with the New York Police Department. The first novel in the series appeared in 1938.
* ''Literature/{{Dexter}}'': Dexter Morgan is pretty good at understanding the minds of serial killers, mainly because he ''is'' one, but also because his "Dark Passenger" (a spirit with whom he shares his body) clues him in when he's on the right track.

* In one of Fazil Iskander's stories, an old woman was found murdered in an Abkhazian village. The local AmateurSleuth heard that she was found lying the way she fell down, the skirt exposing her legs. For him, that was enough to narrow the number of suspects considerably and instantly; a properly raised villager might have been mad enough to murder a lady, but he would have never left her lying without rearranging her clothing properly. Therefore, it must be either an outsider or a spoiled Abkhazian. It was some city hooligan visiting his relatives; turns out the lady caught him having an affair with her granddaughter.

* In one episode of ''Series/TheWire'', Detectives [=McNulty=] and Greggs consult the FBI's profiling unit at Quantico to try and catch "The Red-Ribbon Killer", who has been preying on the homeless of Baltimore. [[spoiler: Since the "killer" is in fact an invention of [=McNulty=], who has been taking the bodies of homeless people who ''hadn't'' actually been murdered, and dressing them up to look like they had been killed by a serial killer, all as part of a scheme he had cooked up to get funding for a major drugs/corruption investigation]], the profile ends up describing ''him'' perfectly:
-->''"The suspect is likely a white male in his late twenties to late thirties, he likely is not a college graduate but feels superior to those with advanced education, and he is likely employed in a bureaucratic entity, possibly civil service or quasi-public service from which he feels alienated. He has a problem with authority, and a deep-seated resentment of those he feels have impeded his progress professionally. The minimized sexual activity suggests this is not a primary motive for the killings, in fact the lack of DNA or saliva in the bite-marks of the last-found victim indicate to us possible postmortem staging. The suspect has trouble with lasting relationships, and is possibly a high-functioning alcoholic, with alcohol being used as a trigger in his crimes. His resentment of the homeless may stem from a personal relationship with someone who was in that cohort, or his victimization of them may simply provide an opportunity for him to assert his superiority and/or intellectual prowess."''
* Vincent D'Onofrio's character Robert Goren in ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent'' would fit here. From the main ''Series/LawAndOrder'' series, one of the early seasons had the NYPD work up a profile of a suspect who was randomly targeting and shooting African-Americans. The profile seems to net them their killer, but the suspect's attorney uses all the ways his client ''doesn't'' match it, along with the lack of non-circumstantial evidence, to get a Judge to release him. Turns out, the police were right, he ''was'' the killer, and he manages to strike again after his release. Fortunately, his would-be victim guns ''him'' down instead.
* Ally Walker as "Dr. Sam Waters", the title character of ''Series/{{Profiler}}'', was able to reconstruct killer flashbacks in her head. One of Walker's rare non-evil blonde roles.
* ''Series/Millennium1996'': Lance Henriksen stars as ex-FBI agent turned FBI consultant Frank Black, who would frequently share his thoughts on elusive killers with his old colleagues. The first season was ambiguous whether Frank's insights [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane were just a keen sense of intuition or were actually supernatural in origin]]. Later seasons make these visions unambiguously psychic, however.
* ''Series/TheXFiles'':
** Mulder's original forte before he found the title case files and went onto the supernatural tangent that made up his career from then on.
** In "[[Recap/TheXFilesS03E14Grotesque Grotesque]]", he finds himself up against his own former mentor, who ''has'' gone off the deep end and started imitating the criminal he's after.
* The entire premise of ''Series/CriminalMinds'', with its main cast except for JJ, who is the media liaison, and Garcia, who is the technical analyst (read: computer person), though JJ becomes one in the 7th season and Garcia in the 6th inherited some of her media work. Some of their leaps of logic are still quite far-fetched though, especially in later seasons and ''especially'' when they accurately profile unique or bizarre psychoses. They also go on arrests and conduct interrogations, which real life profilers ''do not do''. Profiles is more or less used to rule out suspects as well as find them, although they can advise detectives and prosecutors how to conduct interrogations. They ''can'', however, testify in court, although they were originally barred from doing so.
* Emil Skoda, George Huang, and Rebecca Hendrix of ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit''.
** One episode has the rare case of noting how profiling can be wrong. When a TV producer is stalked, she argues about a suspect and is told he doesn't "fit the profile." She fires back by noting how the Washington State Snipers were supposed to be one middle-aged angry white man when it was a pair of young black men or how the BTK Killer was "a quiet, reserved loner" when he was actually a happily married family man.
* Before he was known as Hagrid from ''Film/HarryPotter'', Robbie Coltrane was best known for playing the criminal psychologist Eddie "Fitz" Fitzgerald in the TV show ''{{Series/Cracker}}''. A US remake starring Robert Pastorelli was known as ''Fitz'' in territories who had already seen the original.
* Tony Hill in ''Series/WireInTheBlood'' functions in this capacity, though he has often made a point of correcting people who refer to him as a "profiler".
* Megan Reeves on ''Series/{{NUMB3RS}}''.
** Terry Lake was this in Season 1, before being [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute replaced by Megan]] in Season 2.
* A rather ridiculously accurate profiling is done on ''Series/{{Angel}}'', which not only describes the killer, but Angel himself (mind you, he's a vampire that Angel sired).
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. Willow tries this in a couple of episodes where the MonsterOfTheWeek is human. It never works out.

'''[[HeroWithBadPublicity Buffy]]:''' Okay, most of those were not my fault. Somebody else started 'em. I was just standing up for myself.
* Dutch from ''Series/TheShield'' wasn't officially a profiler but a Homicide Detective, but this didn't stop him from categorizing the killers he was looking for by psych profile based on the evidence he saw at the scenes.
* Rebecca Locke in ''Series/TheInside'', along with most of the main cast.
* Anne Fortier in ''Fortier'' does profile serial killers but does so without the supernatural prescience of many fictional profilers. Instead her greatest strength is her ability to talk and to get other people to talk.
* In the first episode of ''Series/{{Life On Mars|2006}}'', Sam brings in psychologically-trained Annie to play this role on a stalled murder investigation; naturally, Gene Hunt is a tad skeptical of its merits.
* From the sequel series ''Series/AshesToAshes2008'', Alex Drake herself is this and she's adamant about using her skills in investigations, to [[OldFashionedCopper Hunt]]'s dismay.
* ''Series/{{Bones}}'':
** Dr. Sweets on is initially brought on to mediate the Brennan/Booth relationship, but also works with them as a occasional forensic psychologist. In one episode he details his extensive education, including multiple doctorates, one of which probably gave him the training for this kind of work. Unlike a typical TV profiler, Sweets also almost never goes in the field. He also doesn't usually question suspects but merely stands on the other side of the one-way mirror to give suggestions to Booth in the interrogation room via an earpiece. In his first episode as a profiler, he visits the Jeffersonian forensic anthropology lab and is excited to be "in the field". When they point out that this isn't "the field", he tells them that it is for him, since he spends most of his time in an office.
** In the first season, Agent Booth asks Dr. Goodman, an anthropologist, to look over a series of crime scene photographs and photos of their suspect's home to help the FBI figure out where to focus their search for evidence on a short timeline. Goodman is notably hesitant to do this, since his specialty is studying the ''remains'' of people to learn about how they lived, rather than the still-living. That said, rather than trying to identify the suspect based on forensic evidence and hunches, he used the suspect as a starting point to help the FBI figure out how he would have done something, working in reverse of the typical trope.

** In the first season, the Miami PD finds a woman's corpse and Debra (believing it the work of a serial killer) attempts to write up a profile of the killer. When she shows it to Dexter, he says it seems rather basic and uninformative [[spoiler: to hide the fact that the profile does contain a few accurate assumptions about the killer, who is himself]]. Dexter also occasionally shows degrees of this (even though his actual job is forensic blood splatter analysis) when he adds his opinion of what was motivating a killer based off the types of wounds caused by the blood splatter.

* Sam Nixon in ''Series/TheBill'' took a profiling course. The show had another profiler brought in for one case, who [[spoiler:then proceeded to sleep with, then later kidnap Sam's daughter]].
* Subverted in ''Series/{{Monk}}'', where a group of investigators use advanced technology to profile a killer and come up with a completely incorrect solution (the killer knew their methods and was playing them). Another episode had a criminal profile come in and Captain Stottlemeyer rattled the whole thing off from memory without looking at it; they give the same profile for every case.
-->"Let me guess. The killer is: between thirty and forty-five years old, white, male, does not work in an office, probably spent time in the military, and definitely hates his mother."
* Will of ''Series/{{Sanctuary}}'' is a Criminal Psychologist, and uses this knowledge of the mind to assist him in his work in the Sanctuary, in fact, it's exactly this skill which interested Magnus.
** Later on, we learn another possible reason why she recruited him. His grandfather Captain Jack Zimmerman saved her life during UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo at the cost of his own.
* Lightman from ''Series/LieToMe'' takes this role, thought he's actually a social psychologist by training.

* Pathologist Ducky Mallard in ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' adds profiling to his extensive list of other talents in later seasons. In season 15 the Navy Yard gets a permanent on-staff forensic psychologist in the form of Jacqueline "Jack" Sloane, who transferred in from the San Diego office at Director Vance's request.
* Will Graham again in ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'', the TV adaptation of the [[Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Hannibal Lecter series]]. Notably, Graham was ''already'' emotionally unstable before he started profiling work, which is why he's only a Special Investigator instead of a fully-fledged FBI Special Agent, and he's already quit field work and become a lecturer on forensic psychology at Quantico at the beginning of the series. Furthermore, Graham has a condition that's described as "pure empathy" and caused by an imbalance of mirror neurons, making him a rare non-psychic example of TheEmpath: when he reconstructs crime scenes, he sees ''himself'' committing the murders and thinks and feels how the killer did. Much of the first season revolves around Graham becoming unhinged when he can't shake off his reconstruction of a particularly nasty serial killer's pathology, [[spoiler:not helped by a case of encephalitis (''a la'' John Edward Douglas) and the manipulations of Dr. Lecter.]]
* Although never described as one, Patrick Jane of ''Series/TheMentalist'' uses profiling tactics routinely to play criminals- and everyone else, for that matter- into his hands.
* Elizabeth Keen of ''Series/TheBlacklist'' is explicitly described as this, although she doesn't seem to use her talents as often as she should. It could be understandable since she's still new to the job in Season One.
** Raymond "Red" Reddington, who assists Keen in her investigations, does do a lot of profiling and exhibits a lot of the characteristics of this character. Which would make sense because Red is a [[CardCarryingVillain criminal mastermind]] offering his services to help Keen and the FBI catch other criminals.
* Anson Fullerton in ''Series/BurnNotice'' is a psychologist employed by the CIA to help agents deal with their job. He's also [[spoiler:one of the founders of the organization that burned Michael, using his knowledge of the spies' innermost secrets to his advantage]]. In one episode, Michael asks Anson to help him with a case by becoming this trope. Anson is reluctant ([[spoiler:because Michael is supposed to be working for him, not the other way around]]) but eventually agrees just so that he can see how Michael handles himself in the field.
* ''Series/MurdochMysteries'':
** Dr. Roberts is a psychiatrist who runs an insane asylum in Toronto. Murdoch sometimes consults him when he needs to know about the psychology of a killer
** Later in the series, Dr. Ogden studies psychiatry and provides Murdoch with psychological perspective on criminals and witnesses.
* ''Series/ProdigalSon'': Malcolm Bright (née Whitly) is a gifted criminal psychologist, using his twisted genius to help the NYPD solve crimes and stop killers. His father Dr. Martin Whitly, also known as the Surgeon, was a serial killer who invited Malcolm to find out why.
* [[SmugSnake Weyoun]] from ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' claims to be this -- except he sucks at it, especially when it comes to [[TheCaptain The Sisko]]. Highlights include failing to pick up on Sisko's hatred for him and his AffablyEvil act and acting like Sisko would accept an offer to be installed as absolute ruler of TheFederation, even though this is the same man who months earlier saved President Jaresh-Inyo from a coup-d'état by an InsaneAdmiral. And it's not just Sisko that he screws up with -- he also fails to predict that Cardassia's PuppetKing Damar would get fed up with the Dominion and form LaResistance.

* In the ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' episode "The Deductionist", a profiler being brought in to revisit a serial killer leads to Sherlock spending much of the episode articulating a distaste for a "snake oil" science, "super geniuses" relative to screwed-up people he claims they'll have you believe are themselves geniuses... but this turns out to be motivated by a personal history where she got into his head and, following an actual romantic relationship, wrote an extremely unflattering article about an anonymous "deductionist" on a fast track to substance abuse and other dooms he worries she'll be proven right about. In the case at hand, her skill is portrayed as legitimate, but [[spoiler:the book she wrote about him ruined his family with what he insists were false allegations concerning ''his father'']].

* Psycho Mantis from ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' took it up a notch in his backstory by being a criminologist ''psychic''. Unfortunately he looked into a few too many evil minds and it turned him psychopathic himself.
** Of course, if his story about [[spoiler:burning down his village as a child]] is true, he was probably fairly unhinged beforehand.
* Francis York Morgan of ''VideoGame/DeadlyPremonition'' does this often, which is shown as him digging around for sufficient evidence, at which point a mini-movie of the scene plays in his head as a EurekaMoment.
* In ''VideoGame/CriminalCasePacificBay'', psychological evidences are handled by criminal psychologist Dr. Russell Crane, who would sometimes assist the coroner, Roxie, and the forensics expert, Yann, in some of their analysis if psychological aspects of the killer is involved. He is also responsible of giving reports on certain killers' mental health to the Judge to help him assign sentences.
* Saga Anderson in ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII'' has a knack for this, with Alex Casey pointing out it's one of her best skills as an FBI agent. While in her [[MemoryPalace Mind Place]], Saga can focus on the image of a person to see how they think, ask them questions, and get answers back. [[spoiler:It's actually a full-on psychic ability, one she got from her grandfather: Tor Anderson.]]

* Kazusa Hanai in ''VisualNovel/MetroPDCloseToYou'' is the 2nd Unit's profiler, although in his case it's more of a side talent than his main role in the unit, and - much as in real life - it's only occasionally helpful.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* One of these does quite well during his first and last appearance in ''Webcomic/TheUnspeakableVaultOfDoom''. He determines that a SerialKiller is old, but physically strong and mentally sharp, a [[ImAHumanitarian habitual cannibal]] and [[AGodAmI self-considered god]], and wants his victims to worship him. However, he believes the killer forces his victims to write out a particular phrase, and fails to realize that this phrase ''[[SpeakOfTheDevil summons]]'' the killer (who is, in fact, [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Cthulhu]].)

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''Literature/ShadowUnit'': The majority of the main cast apply. They work in conjunction with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, covering cases that the normal feds won't touch.
[[/folder]]

* Frank Bishop from ''WesternAnimation/{{Fillmore}}'', a retired profiler brought on to find a serial shredder.
* D.A.V.E. from ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'' is an AI supposedly designed to do this, apparently created by combining the brainwaves of Batman’s entire rogues gallery. When told about break-ins at a chemical plant and a pillow factory on the same night, it immediately figures out that the Joker is going to bombard Gotham with chemically-laced feathers to “tickle” everyone to death. When it inevitably turns rogue, it uses the same skills to uncover Batman’s secret identity.

* ''Literature/ShadowUnit'': the majority of the main cast.

* Saga Anderson in ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII'' has a knack for this, with Alex Casey pointing out it's one of her best skills as an FBI agent. While in her [[MemoryPalace Mind Place]], Saga can focus on the image of a person to see how they think, ask them questions, and get answers back. [[spoiler:It's actually a full-on psychic ability, one she got from her father: Odin Anderson.]]