The 25 Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies

Critics, bloggers, and cultural talking heads are all prone to hyperbolic statements. Everyday, new people, products, and works of art are deemed the "best" and "the greatest." The following proclamation, however, although it sounds like hyperbole, is unquestionably true, if not also common knowledge for learned film buffs: Alfred Hitchcock is the most influential filmmaker of all time.

Born on August 13, 1899, and raised in London, Hitchcock made movies for over 50 years before his death in April 1980, from kidney failure. Over that half-century span, Hitch (as he's so often affectionately called) redefined cinema in multiple ways. Coined the "Master of Suspense," he routinely explored the themes of voyeurism (through distinct camera movements that provided viewers with first-person POV), mistaken identity, and cold-blooded murder, always concealing information from both his films' characters and the audience in order to raise the tension levels. Hitchcock was also responsible for what he called the "Macguffin," the word used to describe important plot elements that are crucial to the story but aren't entirely tangible to the audience (think the briefcase in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction).

Both on and off his movies' sets, Hitchcock also progressed the notion of directors as celebrities, frequently making wordless cameos in his films, releasing elaborate trailers in which he spoke directly to viewers, and regularly taking center stage for his freaky TV anthology series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. For as much as he put himself out there, though, Hitchcock's private life was also quite enigmatic, leading historians to endlessly speculate about his obsessions over blonde women (his films mostly star beautiful, fair-haired actresses) and the psychological motivations behind his preferred brand of dark, scandalous storytelling.

Some of that is playfully addressed in Hitchcock, a new biopic of sorts starring an unrecognizable Anthony Hopkins as the director dealing with domestic headaches (involving his wife and most trusted collaborator, Alma Reville (Helen Mirren). The film, which opens in limited release Friday, takes place during the making of Hitch's 1960 horror classic Psycho, one of his many masterful works and the catalyst for the following list of The 25 Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies. You've no doubt heard of his name—now, it's time see why it's arguably the most important one in the history of film.

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Written by Matt Barone (@MBarone)

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Stars: Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle, Peggy Ashcroft, John Laurie, Frank Cellier

All great filmmakers have those early, reasonably obscure gems that work as both evidence of their soon-to-mature gifts and solid movies in their own right. In Alfred Hitchcock's case, one such indicator of the genius to come was the 1935 espionage action-thriller The 39 Steps, starring Robert Donat as a secret agent trying to bring down a spy ring while also looking to clear his name against claims of being a murderer.

Though it was nowhere near the then-35-year-old director's first production, The 39 Steps can be appreciated as one of the first examples of Hitchcock fully owning his singular style. It's fast-moving, packed with twists, and punctuated by shrewd moments of dark, tongue-in-cheek humor.

Stars: Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich, Michael Wilding, Richard Todd, Alastair Sim, Sybil Thorndike, Kay Walsh

Stage Fright, admittedly, suffers from overfamiliarity within Hitchcock's movie catalog, covering murder and innocent people being falsely accused of the crime and a visual style that's a bit pedestrian compared to the director's better flicks.

Still, Hitchcock at his worst is always superior to the majority of other filmmakers' best offerings. Stage Fright—which focuses on a cute, young actress (Jane Wyman) trying to prove her friend's innocence—earns points for its opening, and infamously divisive, flashback sequence, a deceptive bait-and-switch that paved the way for the manipulative beginning scenes used to throw viewers of shows like AMC's Breaking Bad off.

Stars: Barbara Harris, Bruce Dern, Karen Black, William Devane, Cathleen Nesbitt, Ed Lauter, Katherine Helmond, Nicholas Colasanto

Released four years before Alfred Hitchcock's death in 1980, Family Plot was the prolific director's final movie, and, fortunately, he went out on a high note. Adapting author Victor Canning's novel The Rainbird Pattern, Hitch, despite being 77 at the time, clearly had a blast making his big-screen swan song, maneuvering around a somewhat convoluted and twisty plot—about a couple of con artists who cross paths with a pair of serial kidnappers—with a delightfully morbid sense of humor (a few of the film's funniest moments take place in cemeteries, for instance).

Stars: Sylvia Sidney, Oskar Homolka, John Loder

Made during his pre-Hollywood tenure in Britain, Hitchcock's daring, controversial 1937 thriller Sabotage follows a Scotland Yard detective (Oskar Homolka) who's tirelessly tracking down a terrorist with intentions to bomb London. Screenwriter Charles Bennett's nicely paced cat-and-mouse plot packs a few unexpected and brave explosions of its own, namely a suffocatingly tense sequence in which a little boy unknowingly carries a time bomb onto a crowded bus, a horrifying set-up that Hitchcock sees all the way through to its shocking end.

Stars: Carl Brisson, Lillian Hall-Davis, Ian Hunter, Forrester Harvey, Harry Terry, Gordon Harker

Before he mastered the art of sound in his later, universally adored classics, Hitchcock spent seven years working in the silent film format. While only 28-years-old, he wrote (atypically for the predominantly visually minded artist) and directed The Ring, a dangerous love story about a woman (Lillian Hall-Davis) torn between equally passionate connections to two boxers.

A simple, restrained character study, this early Hitch effort shows the director's already-sharp eye for detail, as in how Hall-Davis' character casually hides her side-piece's gift to her (a serpentine bracelet), whenever she's in the presence of her husband.

Stars: Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, Shirley MacLaine, Mildred Natwick, Mildred Dunnock, Jerry Mathers, Royal Dano

Mostly known for straight-faced suspense, Hitchcock switched things up a bit in 1955 with The Trouble with Harry, a black comedy that covers familiar territory with atypically outright humor. It's a classic whodunit premise: The dead body of Harry Worp is found on the outskirts of Highwater, VT, causing the townsfolk to ponder what happened to him, and, more importantly, if Harry was the victim of murder.

The laughs throughout The Trouble with Harry come from the multiple characters' visible annoyances with the newfound corpse. Screw compassion for the deceased—Harry's body is ruining their daily routines. The fact that their neighbors keep burying the body, digging it back up, and re-burying it over and over again doesn't help matters. Nor does the little boy who plays with a lifeless rabbit as if it's a stuffed animal.

Stars: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams, Charles Vanel, Brigitte Auber

To Catch a Thief should be viewed by every modern-day filmmaker who hopes to make a commercially viable but also credibly adult motion picture. Adapting David Dodge's 1952 novel, Hitchcock and screenwriter John Michael Hayes crafted an accessibly light thriller that's ripe with romance, action, and raw suspense. And the fact that its leads were played by Cary Grant and Grace Kelly (two of Hollywood's all-time greatest movie stars) certainly helped its cause.

Grant anchors To Catch a Thief as a former jewel snatcher looking to totally clean up his act when he's suspected of reverting back to his criminal ways. Once again dabbling in the frightening downsides of mistaken identity, Hitchcock wisely emphasized the story's stunning locations (the scenes set against the French Riviera are breathtaking) and the strong, playful chemistry between Grant and Kelly.

To Catch a Thief is everything that a film like 2010's insufferable megastar vehicle The Tourist (starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie) wants to be, and more.

Stars: Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle, Harold J. Stone

The Wrong Man is unique within Hitchcock's filmography: It's based on a true story, which represented a fascinating departure for a filmmaker who'd previously worked with fictional screenplays. It's easy to see why he was so attracted to author Maxwell Anderson's non-fiction book The True Story of Christopher Emmanuel Balestrero, which captured the same kinds of suspense and fearful identity issues that Hitch's films so often addressed.

In The Wrong Man, sticking as close to the real-life incidents as possible, Balestrero (played by Henry Fonda) is a New York City musician who, unfortunately, looks a lot like a bank robber. Witnesses accuse him of being the culprit, and, from there, The Wrong Man plays out as a much more subdued Hitchcock thriller, though no less tense. Key to the whole thing is Fonda's first-class performance, an adroit balance of vulnerability, desperation, and endearment.

Stars: Jon Finch, Alec McCowen, Barry Foster, Billy Whitelaw, Anna Massey, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Bernard Cribbins, Vivien Merchant

Most veteran filmmakers dwindle in their later years, churning out some of their weakest movies before their careers quietly end. Not Alfred Hitchcock, though, whose final flicks, while not all commercially successful, displayed an artist very much on top of his game—even if, as in the case of 1972's Frenzy, he was 73-years-old.

Heading back home to England after decades working in Hollywood, Hitch also went back to the kinds of stories he told throughout the 1940s, tackling screenwriter Anthony Schaffer's tale of a London serial killer who strangles ladies with a necktie and the wrongfully apprehended, innocent suspect who's trying to clear his name.

Emboldened by the changed standards of acceptance in 1970s cinema, Hitchcock delivered a more hardcore picture than ever before, filling Frenzy with the amounts of sex and nudity he'd previously kept hidden. Ever the tasteful visionary, however, he maintained the film's sense of dignity throughout.

Stars: James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Douglas Dick, Joan Chandler

The premise behind Rope—as well as its source material, Patrick Hamilton's stage play Rope's End—is incredibly ghoulish: Two college buddies (played by Farley Granger and John Dall) murder someone just for kicks, stash his body in their apartment, and promptly throw a party there, complete with the victim's family and friends as guests, just to see if they can get away with it.

Of course, the killers' twisted plan doesn't go off smoothly. Fortunately, the same can't be said for Hitchcock's film as a whole, which is presented as one long, continuous 80-minute take, once again showing how far ahead of his time the man was (it predates this year's Elizabeth Olsen-led horror flick Silent House by 64 years). His superbly handled trick: expertly concealed edits, stitching together single shots that Hitch let play out on set for upwards of 10 minutes apiece.

Stars: Marie Ault, Arthur Chesney, June, Malcolm Keen, Ivor Novello

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, an early Hitchcock silent film clearly inspired by German expression (see: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), was the director's first commercial success. In it, a Jack the Ripper-esque serial killer is butchering women in London, which, unluckily for Jonathan Drew (Ivor Novello) is timed with his arrival to the city—shortly after Drew arrives, his landlady thinks he's the murderer.

It's not full-on horror, but The Lodger definitely shows Hitchcock finding himself in that macabre arena. Much like his future classics Dial M for Murder, Psycho, and Rebecca, it's an exploration of the relationship between sex and death, though demonstrated without showing much of either.

Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll, John Emery, Steven Geray

Spellbound is Alfred Hitchcock at his most audacious. Ingrid Bergman stars as a psychiatrist working extra hard to help an amnesiac (Gregory Peck) recover his true identity, instead of the doctor one he's been posing with. Using psychoanalysis as his driving force, Hitchcock went trippy and avant-garde for Spellbound's centerpiece dream sequence, hiring surrealist painter Salvador Dali to design the scene's bizarre, disorienting imagery: faceless men, blank playing cards, a person falling from a building, scissors, and close-ups of eyes, amongst other odd cues.

Stars: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce, Dame May Whitty, Isabel Jeans, Auriol Lee, Reginald Sheffield

When watching Suspicion, it's important to keep one thing in mind: The disappointingly upbeat "Hollywood" ending wasn't Alfred Hitchcock's call. Retaining this information is crucial, since most of the largely sinister film's duration thrives on insidious intentions and the constant threat of murder.

Joan Fontaine, who won an Oscar for her performance, plays a kind woman who ignores warnings about her new hubby, which peg him as a cold-hearted gold digger, and marries him, but then gradually starts to think that he's plotting to off her and run away with her riches. Somehow, Hitchcock convincingly makes audiences believe that the usually debonair and likable Cary Grant (playing Fontaine's untrustworthy beau) could, in fact, be a ruthless murderer.

And, if Hitchcock had been able to fully make Suspicion as he saw fit, Grant's against-type performance would've followed through on that subversion. Luckily, everything that comes before the film's unfittingly happy conclusion is strong enough to make Suspicion richly compelling.

Stars: James Stewart, Doris Day, Brenda De Banzie, Bernard Miles, Ralph Truman, Daniel Gelin

Before he made his mark in Hollywood, Alfred Hitchcock successfully thrived as Britain’s premier creator of suspenseful cinema. One of his best works of that pre-America period is The Man Who Knew Too Much, a 1934 potboiler about a vacationing couple who witness an assassination and discover that their daughter has been abducted by those behind the murder plot. At only 75 minutes in length, it’s to the point and tense as hell.

Twenty-two years later, Hitchcock took a creative risk and opted to remake his own movie, giving The Man Who Knew Too Much another go-round. Only this time, he expanded upon the story, adding 45 extra minutes to flesh out his characters, add new ones, and pull off the set-pieces with an increased budget and a more seasoned touch.

If nothing else, it’s confirmation that Hitchcock, widely regarded as the master of suspense, could sustain tension for two hours just as well as he could 75 minutes.

Stars: Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Veronica Cartwright, Suzanne Pleshette, Ethel Griffies

Three years after successfully dabbling in horror tropes for 1960's Psycho, Hitchcock further explored ways to subvert the genre's expectations with The Birds, an adaptation of author Daphne Du Maurier's 1952 novelette.

It's essentially a monster movie, centered on swarms of angry, homicidal pigeons and other winged, airborne assailants that terrorize a remote Southern California town. But what puts The Birds several cuts above its creature feature peers are the numerous ways that Hitch does what he does best: ratchet up the suspense.

Before the flying attackers violently swoop down upon the townsfolk, Hitch subtly places them in the backgrounds of otherwise quiet scenes of dialogue and character development. And since the movie's title is The Birds, after all, you know that those scenery-fillers aren't just there to check out gorgeous model turned actress Tippi Hedren. Rather, they're there to peck the ever-living hell out of her, as seen in the film's scariest moment, a claustrophobic attack sequence where the birds pulverize Hedren in a confined bedroom setting.

Stars: Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotton, Henry Travers, Patricia Collinge, Macdonald Carey, Wallace Ford, Hume Cronyn

In eyes of many, Shadow of a Doubt gave Hitchcock his first indisputable cinematic classic when it hit theaters in January 1943. And, 21 years later, the man himself didn't disagree: In a 1964 on-air interview for the Canadian program Telescope, Hitchcock concurred with host Fletcher Markle's statement that critics often praise this small-town thriller as his "finest film."

Co-written by Hitchcock's wife, Alma Reville, Shadow of a Doubt mines tons of fear and unease from Joseph Cotten's marvelous performance as "Uncle Charlie," who visits the home of her niece, Charlotte (Teresa Wright). She's a teenager whose affections for her uncle get tested when it's revealed that he's under suspicion of being the "Merry Widow Murderer," a serial killer known for seducing widows before killing them and taking their money.

Typical of Hitchcock's best movies, Shadow of a Doubt builds distrust in its viewers' minds through the littlest, most meticulously placed clues, from torn newspapers seen on the frame's edge to characters' vocal inflections and quickly changing demeanors.

Stars: Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, John Williams, Anthony Dawson, Patrick Allen

Some critics regard Dial M for Murder as second-tier Hitchcock, due to its adherence to earlier Hitchian tropes and the simplistic handling of them. But such an evaluation seems unfair once you revisit the bare-bones 1954 thriller, about a professional athlete (Ray Milland) who arranges to have his beautiful wife (the radiant Grace Kelly) murdered on suspicions that she's committing infidelity.

Based on playwright Frederick Knott's stage production (Knott also wrote the film's screenplay), Dial M for Murderis lean, mean, and packed with narrative surprises, particularly during the midway homicide attempt, a dynamite sequence that's a real tour-de-force for Ms. Kelly.

The film is also noteworthy for being the only time Hitchcock shot with 3D technology, a move that, unsurprisingly, angered his most passionate fans. He also struggled with the bulkier camera while shooting, efforts that, in his lifetime, were for naught, since Dial M for Murder was eventually released "flat" into theaters.

Stars: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Martin Landau, Leo G. Carroll

If North by Northwest isn't Hitchcock's all-around greatest movie, it's arguably his most entertaining. Paced excellently, the 1959 action-thriller stars Cary Grant—one of Hitch's go-to leading men—as an advertising executive who's wrongly identified as a government operative by a group of spies. Without a chance to explain himself, Grant's Roger Thornhill goes on a cross-country run for survival, dodging bullets and even a dive-bombing airplane.

A box office success upon its July release, North by Northwest preceded the litany of like-minded Hollywood blockbusters that've achieved hardly half of its thrills with much larger budgets and CGI trickery. The aforementioned plane sequence alone, set in a wide open desert field, is a master's class in taut, nitty-gritty action shot practically.

Stars: Hume Cronyn, Mary Anderson, William Bendiz, Tallulah Bankhead, Walter Slezak, John Hodiak, Henry Hull, Heather Angel, Canada Lee

Films don't get much simpler than Lifeboat: It's literally about people stuck on a floating dingy, one of whom is part of the group that sunk their boat. And for the majority of Lifeboat's 100-minute running time, Hitchcock's camera never leaves the tiny vessel.

For lesser-talented directors, having to find multiple ways to derive tension from such closed quarters over a long period of time would prove overwhelming, but not for the always resourceful Hitchcock. Fully confident in his characters, he constantly shifts sympathies and alliances with every extended exchange of dialogue, so much so that by the film's third act, you're left unsure who to root for but also know that Lifeboat more than deserves your unending deliberations.

Stars: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Leopoldine Konstantin

Want to fall in love with a classic Hollywood beauty? Find the nearest DVD copy of Hitchcock's exceptional espionage drama Notorious, starring the inimitable Ingrid Bergman as the daughter of a man accused of turning on his country in WWII. After her dad's suicide, Bergman's Alicia Huberman is hired by a government agent (Cary Grant) to go undercover, infiltrate a group of Nazis, and find a deadly supply of uranium before it's used to kill innocent people.

Playing a confident, sexy woman who's known for her promiscuity, Bergman radiates sexuality in every frame, and Hitchcock, unable to overtly show sex due to the era's Production Code restrictions, generates plenty of steaminess merely from conversations, facial expressions, and a relatively tame love scene that's nonetheless provocative.

Stars: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr, Judith Evelyn

One of the many genius strokes at work in Rear Window is how deftly Hitchcock turns the viewer into a wholehearted participant, complete with a partner-in-paranoia: L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart). Jeffries is a photojournalist who's recently broken leg has relegated him to people-watching through his apartment's window, which gives him a nice view of the building across the way. One night, he sees what, in his eyes, appears to be a murder, and you're right there alongside him for the rest of Rear Window, trying to uncover the truth. Unfortunately, you're not able to also canoodle with the stunning Grace Kelly.

The film sharply dissects the simultaneous excitement and dangers associated with voyeurism, and, as a result, Rear Window makes viewers question themselves: "Am I like L.B. Jeffries when I'm watching movies about murder? Why don't I just turn away?" It's fair to assess that, while shooting the picture, Hitchcock was working out his own personal feelings toward analyzing images of death and deception through his trusty camera's distancing lens.

Stars: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson, Nigel Bruce, Reginald Denny, C. Aubrey Smith, Gladys Cooper

One year after adapting Daphne du Maurier's novel Jamaica Inn, Hitchcock returned to the English author's bibliography and emerged with Rebecca, a psychologically creepy yet tender look at a newly married woman (Joan Fontaine) who's plagued by the spirit of her husband's deceased first wife. For his first American production, Hitch respectfully translated du Maurier's brilliant text into a haunting character study, one that intimately watches a naive, childlike, and well-meaning person descend into a basket case tormented by unseen forces of sexual bewilderment and the uncertainty of mortality.

Stars: Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker, Leo G. Carroll, Patricia Hitchcock, Laura Elliot

As a story, Strangers on a Train (based on Patricia Highsmith's 1950 novel) disturbingly exposes the combustibility of combining one man's weaknesses with another guy's purely evil sensibilities. Tennis pro Guy Hained (Farley Granger) casually meets Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) on a locomotive, where the two new acquaintances eventually agree to fix the other's biggest problem through murder: Guy will kill Bruno's father while Bruno will off Guy's cheating wife. What Guy doesn't initially realize, however, is that Bruno's a total nutjob with deep, dark secrets.

With that intriguing narrative at his disposal, Hitchcock emphasizes the inherent thrills via a series of bravura visual set-pieces, a few of which rank up there with Psycho's shower scene and North by Northwest's airplane attack as the director's all-time best. One of them, seen in the image above, presents a heartbreaking, tragic murder through the victim's fallen glasses, and another, taking place during Strangers on a Train's rousing climax, shows hand-to-hand combat against a malfunctioning, unstoppably out-of-control merry-go-round.

Stars: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore, Fred Graham

Widely considered to be the greatest movie ever made, Vertigo is a two-hander that appeals to two factions of movie lovers typically separated by a large difference in preference: fans of psychological horror and those who appreciate a good romance.

Jimmy Stewart plays John "Scottie" Ferguson, a detective who's stricken by an overpowering fear of heights, and whose fragile psyche gets put into a tailspin as he begins a close investigation into an old pal's young, beautiful wife (knockout Kim Novak). The love story comes from Ferguson's tender interactions with Novak's Madeleine, all delicately handled by Hitchcock to evoke genuine compassion for both characters.

As for Vertigo's darker side, the film's second half—loaded with clever twists and startling reveals—effectively transposes Ferguson's crumbling sanity onto the viewer. Employing some unsubtle visual aids, Hitchcock manifests the character's internal paranoia through a kaleidoscopic effect that's both dizzying and hypnotic.

Stars: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, Martin Balsam, John Gavin

Up until 1960, Alfred Hitchcock was known as the "master of suspense," but his brand of white-knuckle tension was reserved for thrillers and noir mood pieces. With Psycho, his adaptation of author Robert Bloch's popular novel of the same name (based on real-life serial killer Ed Gein), Hitch was a man on a mission: Responding to critics who'd been saying he was past his prime, the defiant filmmaker wanted to scare the hell out of them. In turn, he also defined the modern horror film as we all know it.

The bloodshed is barely visible, yet Psycho's mentally imbalanced themes chill more than any amount of gore could. Anthony Perkins, a rather unimposing-looking guy, plays Norman Bates, the proprietor of a roadside motel where the doomed Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) checks in one night and interferes with Bates and "mother's" lifestyle. Knives come out, composer Bernard Hermann's shrieking score kicks in, and Psycho stabs its way into the history books.

Amongst its many first-rate elements, Psycho is notable for its brilliant sense of audience manipulation. At the time, Leigh was a big-time movie star, so offing her so early into the picture was a ballsy, ingenious move (one suggested by Hitch's wife and close collaborator, Alma Reville). It's a tactic that set the standard used by subsequent horror directors like Wes Craven and John Carpenter to find new ways to truly, deeply shock audiences.