Hercule Poirot is a fictional Belgian Detective created by British writer Agatha Christie. He is Agatha's most famous and longest-running character, appearing in 33 novels, two plays and 51 short stories published between 1920 and 1975.
In the novels, Hercule is a former police detective for the Belgian Police before being forced to move to Britain after his country was invaded by Germany during World War I. After settling in his new home country, Poirot becomes a private detective who offers his services to solve cases and murders throughout Britain and abroad. Other recurring characters in the novels include Captain Arthur Hastings, a former British Army officer and Poirot's companion, Mrs Ariadne Oliver, a detective novelist whose a humorous self-caricature of Agatha herself, Miss Felicity Lemon, Poirot's secretary and Chief Inspector James Harold Japp of Scotland Yard, who often hires Poirot in difficult cases.
The Poirot novels has been adapted many times with the most famous being the ITV series Agatha Christie's Poirot, which ran from 1989 to 2013 with David Suchet as Poirot, whose portrayal as the character being the most well received. A 39 episodes anime adaptation of the novels, Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, aired from 4 July 2004 to 15 May 2005 on NHK. Currently there is a Hercule Poirot film series directed by Kenneth Branagh with Poirot portrayed by Kenneth himself. As of 2025, Kenneth has directed three Poirot films, Murder on the Orient Express (2017), Death on the Nile (2022) and A Haunting in Venice (2023).
