How to Use private eye in a Sentence

private eye

noun
  • Sally pauses her work as Marty holds court, sharing war stories from his decades as a private eye.
    — Amanda Whiting, Vulture, 5 Nov. 2025
  • Inspired by her father’s work as a private eye, Eliza (Phillips) has spent the last six seasons breaking the glass ceiling while solving countless mysteries.
    — Denise Petski, Deadline, 4 Mar. 2026
  • One Battle, like his other recent movies, is based on a book by Thomas Pynchon, the James Joyce of private eye novelists.
    — Peter Bart, Deadline, 9 Oct. 2025
  • Oddball comedies, private eye film noir superheroes, tense kidnapping thrillers and much, much more all make their way onto this weekend’s friendly neighborhood weekend streaming guide.
    — Erik Kain, Forbes.com, 29 May 2026
  • The film written by Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke stars Margaret Qualley as a small-town private eye working a case of strange deaths at a mysterious church.
    — Jill Goldsmith, Deadline, 24 Aug. 2025
  • The new second season takes the unlikely private eye to a college campus to suss out a blackmail scheme, and TV critic Kelly Lawler writes in her ★★★ review that the show has found its way a bit more.
    — Brian Truitt, USA Today, 21 Nov. 2025
  • Brendan Fraser is on hand as well, playing a jerky LAPD detective who keeps stepping on Diamond’s toes, thwarting the private eye’s shrewd attempts to crack the case.
    — Jordan Mintzer, HollywoodReporter, 20 May 2026
  • The Palladino Files – When legendary private eye Jack Palladino is murdered, one of his old targets, Ronan Farrow,takes up the case.
    — Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire, 21 Apr. 2026
  • Krysten Ritter plays Jessica Jones, a former superhero battling PTSD and working as a private eye.
    — David Faris, TheWeek, 20 Apr. 2026
  • On Friday, the network added a comedy, a private eye show from Brooklyn Nine-Nine alumni Dan Goor and Luke Del Tredici.
    — Rick Porter, HollywoodReporter, 16 Jan. 2026
  • Rockwell plays the titular Raymond Gunn, a private eye drawn into a case involving murder, aliens, and Johansson’s multimedia star Venus Nova.
    — Wilson Chapman, IndieWire, 9 Apr. 2026
  • The untitled half-hour is a workplace comedy set in the world of private detectives, which continues the proud tradition of Los Angeles private eyes that began with Philip Marlowe and will end with this show.
    — Nellie Andreeva, Deadline, 10 Mar. 2026
  • The untitled half-hour project is a workplace comedy set in the world of private detectives, which continues the proud tradition of Los Angeles private eyes that began with Philip Marlowe and will end with this show.
    — Matt Grobar, Deadline, 16 Mar. 2026
  • Somewhere in the middle of this Los Angeles neo-noir, Colin Farrell’s quiet, well-dressed, cinema-loving private eye was revealed to be a blue-skinned alien — then the show just kept going, missing-persons mystery intact.
    — Savannah Salazar, Vulture, 19 June 2026
  • That private investigator role set Boreanaz up well to next star in the pilot for NBC’s The Rockford Files remake as private eye James Rockford.
    — Etan Vlessing, HollywoodReporter, 3 Sep. 2019
  • In Metropia, a gigantic city in an alternate future as seen from 1939, private eye Raymond Gunn is drawn into a case involving aliens, murder and a multimedia star named Venus Nova.
    — Rick Ellis, Forbes.com, 25 June 2026
  • That one is set in Metropia, a gigantic city in an alternate future as seen from 1939, where private eye Raymond Gunn is drawn into a case involving aliens, murder and a multimedia star named Venus Nova.
    — Max Goldbart, Deadline, 7 May 2026
  • Princess Lilibet and her brother, Prince Archie, 6, are often kept out of the private eye by their parents, but the siblings have recently been featured in a number of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's photos — and some of their philanthropic work.
    — Charlotte Phillipp, PEOPLE, 17 Jan. 2026
  • Brian Albert, former Boston cop and now Brockton private eye extraordinaire, will hold a press conference to announce the hiring of his two newest very ethical crack sleuths – Michael Proctor and Kelly Dever.
    — Howie Carr, Boston Herald, 31 Dec. 2025
  • Hicks McTaggart, a reluctant private eye riding the industry’s transition from strikebreaking (labor suppression was once a major part of the private-detective business) to investigating cheating spouses, gets swept up in a case concerning the bombing of a bootlegger’s hooch wagon.
    — Jack Denton, Vulture, 6 Oct. 2025
  • The novel sometimes reads like a prequel to Gravity’s Rainbow; the private eye, Hicks McTaggart, moving through a universe already vibrating with the same febrile harmonics that will later detonate in the Second World War.
    — Literary Hub, 10 Dec. 2025
  • Because this is a Jean-Luc Godard film, only Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine), a rumpled American private eye who seems to have stepped straight out of one of the classic Hollywood noirs Godard loved.
    — Keith Phipps, Vulture, 23 Apr. 2026
  • Nicolas Cage, in his first live-action television role, plays Ben Reilly, a down-at-the-heels private eye, spiking his morning coffee with whiskey helpfully provided by his knowing secretary, Janet (Karen Rodriguez), and barely scraping by on the occasional divorce case.
    — Television Critic, Los Angeles Times, 25 May 2026
  • Garcia plays Joe Diamond, a private eye whose entire existence — down to his speech patterns, omnipresent fedora, 1940s convertible, and visible disdain for Waymo and TikTok — is a painstaking homage to the era of Bogart and Bacall.
    — Rachel Handler, Vulture, 20 May 2026
  • Set in 1979, the series follows Leila, a 19-year-old Pakistani-Canadian young woman with a love of film and pulp novels who travels to California to reconnect with her estranged uncle – a semi-retired private eye once celebrated for having married the starlet he was originally hired to find.
    — Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 20 May 2026
  • Daniel was with Caron from the very beginning of Moonlighting, which starred Shepherd as Maddie Hayes, owner of the struggling Blue Moon Detective Agency, and Bruce Willis as David Addison, the playful private eye who goes to work for her.
    — Mike Barnes, HollywoodReporter, 28 May 2026
  • Set in Metropia, a gigantic city in an alternate future inhabited by aliens and humans as seen from a 1939 perspective, the film revolves around private eye Raymond Gunn (Rockwell) who is drawn into a case involving murder and a multimedia star named Venus Nova, voiced by Scarlett Johansson.
    — Melanie Goodfellow, Deadline, 24 June 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'private eye.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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