History Main / TheProfiler

** In the second season, when the corpses of Dexter's victims are discovered, FBI special agent Lundy is brought in to locate the killer, and repeatedly shows insights into Dexter himself.

* 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 very few non-[[BlondesAreEvil evil blonde]] roles..

* Ally Walker as "Dr. Sam Waters", the title character of ''Series/{{Profiler}}''.

* In the first season of ''{{Dexter}}'', 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.

* 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profiling (rather than using Psycho Pass data and [[BigBrotherIsWatchingYou constant surveillance]]) is considered outdated because [[HeWhoFightsMonsters studying these cases tends to increase your Psycho Pass]], but it still proves remarkably effective.

* 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profiling (rather than using Psycho Pass data and [[BigBrotherIsWatchingYou constant surveillance]]) is considered outdated because [[HeWhoFightsMonster studying these cases tends to increase your Psycho Pass]], but it still proves remarkably effective.

* ''Bedlam'' features Fillmore Press, alias Madder Red, a former mass-murdering supervillain who reformed after a stay in a psychiatric institution. He knows ''exactly'' how the criminally insane mind operates, and offers his services to the local police when they're stumped by a string of serial murders. The police, especially detective Ramira Acevedo, have no idea what to make of him -- since Madder Red is believed dead and Press has no actual criminal record, he comes across as a weird guy with bizarrely in-depth knowledge of how crazy killers think.

Naturally, the public hasn't listened for the most part. Thus Profilers in TV-land are far more effecient, accurate and almost ''never'' wrong.

* In the prequel/reboot series ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'', Will Graham is an FBI special investigator and lecturer on forensic psychology at the FBI academy. Like his [[Literature/RedDragon literary]] and [[Film/RedDragon film]] counterparts, Graham is a rare non-psychic example of TheEmpath[[note]]He's described as having "pure empathy" and "an imbalance of mirror neurons"[[/note]]: when he mentally reconstructs a crime scene, he not only thinks like the killer, he ''sees himself committing the murders'' and ''feels'' the way they did. This ability alone makes him anti-social and decidedly odd, not to mention a bit mentally fragile (he's a "special investigator" because he was deemed too unstable to pass the FBI's psychological screening process), and that's ''before'' he starts using it to mimic the pathology of serial killers. Much of the first season centers on Graham being made to believe he's unable to shake the pathology of a killer he hunted and was forced to shoot dead in the pilot, and becoming unhinged as a result.

A character -- generally a psychologist -- who has the ability to discern the characteristics of a criminal from the attributes of the crime. In some cases, TheProfiler uses a special form of AppliedPhlebotinum by way of WriterOnBoard, taking unerringly correct leaps of reasoning. In others, the [[AppliedPhlebotinum phlebotinum]] is more literal, with the character having psychic abilities that let them see into the past or read the minds of criminals.

From the name of the specialty in law enforcement. Also a series of the same name, with a profiler as its main character, naturally enough. The {{ITV}} series ''WireInTheBlood'' employs TheProfiler.

* Dutch from ''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 ''TheInside'', along with most of the main cast.

* Francis York Morgan of ''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.

* [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep The Profile]] from 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]].

* Sam Nixon in ''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]].

* [[PropheticName John Edward Douglas]], founder of the FBI's Criminal Profiling Program and inspiration for several of the trope examples listed above, has written several professional and true-crime books about profiling and his personal experiences with its use. His near-fatal bout of viral encephalitis, while pursuing the Green River Killer case, surely contributed to this trope's assumption that a profiler's work is both emotionally and physically exhausting.

** 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.

* In ''Series/{{The X-Files}}'', 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.

* Played for laughs: On ''TheWire'', [=McNulty=] goes to the FBI to have a profile made of a serial killer (whom [=McNulty=] has fabricated in order to increase police funding), only to have the FBI develop of profile of the killer which matches [=McNulty=] himself to a T. It's a perfect sum-up of every character trait that we saw in [=McNulty=] for the past five seasons.

* Will of ''{{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.

Real-life profilers try to stress that profiling will never be a replacement for old-fashioned police work, and their work is better used as a tool to exclude suspects who don't fit the profile as opposed to fingering the guilty party by describing them to a "T" right down to the color of his/her shoes. It doesn't help that the very first profiler -- Dr. James Brussel, an eminent psychologist who consulted on the New York City "[[MadBomber Mad Bomber]]" case in the 1950s -- ''did'' correctly predict what kind of suit the bomber would be wearing when arrested (and [[http://www.gladwell.com/2007/2007_11_12_a_profile.html almost nothing else]]). [[hottip:*: Note also that Brussel's profile had been made public, so it's possible that the bomber's choice of clothing had been unconsciously influenced by it.]]

* In the prequel/reboot series ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'', Will Graham is an FBI special investigator and lecturer on forensic psychology at the FBI academy. Like his [[Literature/RedDragon literary]] and [[Film/RedDragon film]] counterparts, Graham is a rare non-psychic example of TheEmpath[[hottip:*:He's described as having "pure empathy" and "an imbalance of mirror neurons"]]: when he mentally reconstructs a crime scene, he not only thinks like the killer, he ''sees himself committing the murders'' and ''feels'' the way they did. This ability alone makes him anti-social and decidedly odd, not to mention a bit mentally fragile (he's a "special investigator" because he was deemed too unstable to pass the FBI's psychological screening process), and that's ''before'' he starts using it to mimic the pathology of serial killers. Much of the first season centers on Graham being made to believe he's unable to shake the pathology of a killer he hunted and was forced to shoot dead in the pilot, and becoming unhinged as a result.

* Before he was known as Hagrid from HarryPotter, Robbie Coltrane was best known for playing the criminal psychologist Eddie "Fitz" Fitzgerald in the TV show ''{{Cracker}}''. A US remake starring Robert Pastorelli was known as ''Fitz'' in territories who had already seen the original.

* John E. Douglas, founder of the FBI's Criminal Profiling Program and inspiration for several of the trope examples listed above, has written several professional and true-crime books about profiling and his personal experiences with its use. His near-fatal bout of viral encephalitis, while pursuing the Green River Killer case, surely contributed to this trope's assumption that a profiler's work is both emotionally and physically exhausting.

* In the prequel/reboot series ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'', Will Graham is an FBI special investigator and lecturer on forensic psychology at the FBI academy. Like his [[Literature/RedDragon literary]] and [[Film/RedDragon film]] counterparts, Graham is a rare non-psychic example of TheEmpath[[hottip:*:He's described as having "pure empathy" and "an imbalance of mirror neurons".]]: when he mentally reconstructs a crime scene, he not only thinks like the killer, he ''sees himself committing the murders''. This ability alone makes him anti-social and decidedly odd, not to mention a bit mentally fragile (he's a "special investigator" because he was deemed to unstable to pass the FBI's psychological screening process), and that's ''before'' he starts using it to mimic the pathology of serial killers. Much of the first season centers on Graham being unable to shake the pathology of a killer he hunted and was forced to shoot dead in the pilot, and becoming unhinged as a result.

* Rebecca Locke in the TooGoodToLast series ''TheInside'', along with most of the main cast.

* Paul Giamatti's character in ''Shoot 'em Up'' is a Profiler. Criminal retired pussy with a gun profiler, but still a profiler.
* Will Graham in ''Manhunter'' and its remake, ''Red Dragon''. This is the man who captured Hannibal Lecter.
** Of course we would be remiss if we didn't mention [[RedDragon the original novel]]. It's so much easier to get into a character's head that way.
* Both played straight and [[InvertedTrope inverted]] in ''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.