The Hofmann-Mislove theorem states that in a sober space, the nonempty Scott open filters of its open set lattice correspond bijectively to its compacts saturated sets. In this paper, the concept of $c$-well-filtered spaces is introduced. We show that a retract of a $c$-well-filtered space is $c$-well-filtered and a locally Lindelöf and $c$-well-filtered $P$-space is countably sober. In particular, we obtain a Hofmann-Mislove theorem for $c$-well-filtered spaces.