Miami Vice is an American crime drama television series created by Anthony Yerkovich and executive-produced by Michael Mann for NBC. It stars Don Johnson as James "Sonny" Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs, two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami, Florida. The series ran for five seasons on NBC from September 16, 1984, to June 28, 1989, airing on Friday nights.
Unlike traditional police procedurals, Miami Vice drew upon 1980s culture such as contemporary rock and pop music, fashion, and sports cars (such as the Ferrari Testarossa and Lamborghini Countach). Although the series explored a number of different approaches during its five-year run, it generally prioritized music and stylized visuals over elaborate writing.
USA Network began airing reruns of the series on cable in 1988. The series heavily inspired the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Mann directed a film adaptation, released in 2006. Another film adaptation, titled Miami Vice '85, was announced in 2025 to be directed by Joseph Kosinski and written by Dan Gilroy.
Conception
The conception of the show is unclear. One version of events states that the head of NBC's Entertainment Division, Brandon Tartikoff, wrote a brainstorming memo that simply read "MTV cops", and later presented it to series creator Anthony Yerkovich, formerly a writer and producer for Hill Street Blues. Yerkovich said he devised the concept after learning about asset forfeiture statutes allowing law enforcement agencies to confiscate the property of drug dealers for official use. The initial idea was for a movie about a pair of vice cops in Miami. While the first few episodes contain elements of a standard police procedural, the producers soon abandoned them in favor of a more distinctive style. Influenced by an Art Deco revival, no "earth tones" were allowed to be used in the production by executive producer Michael Mann. It is mixed in stereo for its entire run. Each episode of the series cost $2 million.
Casting
Nick Nolte and Jeff Bridges were considered for the role of Sonny Crockett, but since it was not lucrative for film stars to venture into television at the time, other candidates were considered. Mickey Rourke was also considered for the role, but he turned down the offer. Larry Wilcox, of CHiPs, was also a candidate for the role of Crockett, but the producers felt going from one police officer role to another would not be a good fit. After dozens of candidates and a twice-delayed pilot shooting, Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas were chosen as the vice cops. He asked to read the scripts of Johnson's work on those failed shows. He reported back that the scripts were the problem, not the actor, and NBC acquiesced.
Locations
Despite the Miami setting, the producers initially planned to film the series in Los Angeles. However, by the time production began, the decision had been made to shoot in Miami itself. Many episodes of Miami Vice were filmed in the South Beach section of Miami Beach, an area which, at the time, was blighted by poverty and crime, with its demographic so deteriorated that there "simply weren't many people on the street. Ocean Drive's hotels were filled with elderly, mostly Jewish retirees, many of them frail, subsisting on meager Social Security payments. ... They were filming all over Miami Beach. ... They could film in the middle of the street. There was literally nobody there. There were no cars parked in the street". In early episodes in particular, local elderly residents were frequently cast as extras.
Some street corners of South Beach were so run down that the production crew actually decided to repaint the exterior walls of some buildings before filming. The crew went to great lengths to find the correct settings and props. Bobby Roth recalled, "I found this house that was really perfect, but the color was sort of beige. The art department instantly paints the house gray for me. Even on feature films people try to deliver what is necessary but no more. At Miami Vice they start with what's necessary and go beyond it."
Miami Vice is to some degree credited with causing a wave of support for the preservation of Miami's famous Art Deco architecture in the mid-1980s to early 1990s;
Other places commonly filmed in the series include locations around Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Interior scenes were initially supposed to be filmed at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, but to simplify cross-country logistics, the decision was made to use the facilities of Greenwich Studios in North Miami instead, and only carry out post-production in Los Angeles. In a few scenes, particularly in earlier episodes, Greenwich Studios' rear loading dock is repeatedly used as the back room of the Gold Coast Shipping building, where the offices of the vice squad are located.
Music
Miami Vice is noted for its innovative use of stereo broadcast music, particularly rock and pop hits of the 1980s, and the distinctive, synthesized instrumental music of Jan Hammer. While other television shows used made-for-TV music, Miami Vice would spend $10,000 or more per episode to buy the rights to original recordings. Some newspapers, such as USA Today, would let readers know the songs that would be featured each week. Among the many well-known bands and artists, as well as underground or 'new wave' associated acts, who contributed their music to the show were: