It stars Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley, a street-smart Detroit detective who visits Beverly Hills, California, to solve the murder of his best friend.

Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Ronny Cox, Lisa Eilbacher, Steven Berkoff, Paul Reiser, and Jonathan Banks appear in supporting roles.

An immediate blockbuster, it received positive reviews and earned $316.3 million at the wordwide box office, making it the highest-grossing film released in the U.S. in 1984.

[5] Axel Foley is a plainclothes Detroit police detective whose latest unauthorized sting operation goes sour when two uniformed officers intervene, resulting in a high-speed chase through the city that causes widespread damage.

Axel's superior, Inspector Douglas Todd, reprimands him for his reckless behavior and threatens to fire him unless he changes his ways.

Mikey had done prison time for a car theft the pair had committed in their youth, but has since landed a job as a security guard in Beverly Hills thanks to mutual friend Jenny Summers.

As a result, Rosewood and Taggart do not get along with Axel at first, but the three begin to develop a mutual respect after they foil a robbery at a striptease bar.

When Axel mentions the possibility of setting up shop as a private investigator in Beverly Hills, Bogomil nervously agrees to wipe the slate clean for him.

In 1977, Paramount executive Don Simpson came up with a movie idea about a cop from East L.A. who transferred to Beverly Hills.

[6] Producer Jerry Bruckheimer claimed that the role of Axel Foley was first offered to Mickey Rourke, who signed a $400,000 holding contract to do the film.

[9] Stallone gave the script a dramatic rewrite, removing all the story's humor and turning the film back into a standard action movie.

[10][6] In one of the previous drafts written for Stallone, the character of Billy Rosewood was called "Siddons" and was killed off half-way through the script during one of the action scenes.

Stallone has said that his script for Beverly Hills Cop would have "looked like the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan on the beaches of Normandy.

Believe it or not, the finale was me in a stolen Lamborghini playing chicken with an oncoming freight train being driven by the ultra-slimy bad guy.

[14][15] Besides Stallone and Rourke, other actors who were considered for the role of Axel Foley included Richard Pryor, Al Pacino, and James Caan.

[17] The final shooting draft of the script, which was extensively revised with Murphy's input, was not completed until the day production began.

[22] For nearly two decades, Beverly Hills Cop held the record for having the highest domestic gross for an R-rated film until 2003, when it was taken by The Matrix Reloaded.

The site's consensus reads, "The buddy cop movie continues its evolution unabated with this Eddie Murphy vehicle that's fast, furious, and funny.

"[25] Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote "Beverly Hills Cop finds Eddie Murphy doing what he does best: playing the shrewdest, hippest, fastest-talking underdog in a rich man's world.

"[26] Richard Schickel of Time magazine wrote that "Eddie Murphy exuded the kind of cheeky, cocky charm that has been missing from the screen since Cagney was a pup, snarling his way out of the ghetto.

According to Christopher Hitchens, the British novelist and poet Kingsley Amis considered the film "a flawless masterpiece.

[39] On November 14, 2019, Deadline Hollywood announced that Paramount Pictures made a one-time license deal with an option for a sequel to Netflix to create the fourth film.