a rogues' gallery

rogues' gallery

1. old-fashioned A collection of photographs of known criminals and suspects kept and used by police to identify people taken into custody. The constable recognized the shady character from the rogues' gallery back at the station.
2. By extension, any collection of unsavory, unpleasant, or undesirable people or things. Often used humorously or ironically. The film is a veritable rogues' gallery of bad cinema—bad direction, bad acting, bad cinematography, bad everything. The new studio calls is something of a rogues' gallery of developers that used to work for the biggest video game publishers in the industry.
See also: gallery
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

a ˌrogues’ ˈgallery

(informal, humorous) a collection of photographs of criminals: Have you seen these photos of the new teachers? What a rogues’ gallery!
See also: gallery
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • rogues gallery
  • rogues' gallery
  • fashion
  • Do you know the Bishop of Norwich?
  • an old fogey/fogy
  • anon
  • ye olde
  • (butter and) egg money
  • a stuffed shirt
References in classic literature
Reader, if you had come to spend the night in the lonely castle of a perfect stranger with a shifty eye and a rogues' gallery smile, and on retiring to your room had found the door kick-proof and the window barred, and if, immediately after your discovery of these phenomena, a white-faced young lady had plunged in upon you and urged you to immediate flight, wouldn't that jar you?
The Man Upstairs and Other Stories
Poor Palpatine seems to have been overlooked, which is the only flaw in this otherwise entertaining and funny journey through a rogues' gallery from a galaxy far far away.
CHILDREN'S book of the week
Video explorations of completed buildings are on display here and the office personnel - which now includes language teachers - is represented by a rogues' gallery of mug-shots stretching all along one wall.
Jean Nouvel Storms Pompidou. (View)
A POLICE force posted a rogues' gallery of its 10 most-wanted men on its website yesterday.
Rogues' gallery.com
A set of volcanic chimneys that scientists pulled up from the ocean floor last summer is yielding a rogues' gallery of microbes, including what may be some of the toughest forms of life ever discovered.
Life gets extreme in seafloor chimneys
Police have compiled a rogues' gallery of mugshots to help Devon shopkeepers beat the pilfering pensioners.
Blue rinse bandits hit town
There'll be a rogues' gallery of prisoner photographs dating back to the 1850s and visitors can delve into archive records to discover whether any ancestors spent time in the police cells.
Find out more at museum
A rogues' gallery of prolific thieves is being used by store bosses to smash shoplifting in a Teesside town.
There's NO place to hide