Alfred Hitchcock ~ The Master of Suspense
Hitchcock directed over fifty films, so reducing them down to just a few favorites is a difficult task in itself. However, this page sets out those movies which I consider to be his best and most influential.
You may agree or disagree with my choices, and I give you the opportunity to voice your opinion below.
Alfred Hitchcock: The Contents
- Alfred Hitchcock in Brief
- My Top Five Best Hitchcock Movies Ever
- Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho
- Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest
- Great Alfred Hitchcock Inspired Gifts
- Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M For Murder
- Great Alfred Hitchcock Deals
- Strangers On A Train
- Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds
- More Great Movies From Alfred Hitchcock
- Your Chance to Voice Your Thoughts
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents....
- Love This Lens?
- What Are Your Thoughts About Alfred Hitchcock?
Alfred Hitchcock in Brief
Hitchcock was the son of William and Emma Hitchcock and grew up with his older brother and sister, William and Ellen Kathleen in Leytonstone, an area of London's East End.
He was educated at St. Ignatius College, but left school at 16 to study engineering and navigation at the University of London.
Hitchcock's interest in cinema helped him with a job opening at Paramount studios in London. By the age of 22, he had progressed to assistant director.
With The Pleasure Garden (1925), Hitchcock debuted as a director. His next film, The Lodger (1926), was a success and launched his career. He soon became the most successful director in England.
As World War II loomed over Europe, Hitchcock emigrated to the U.S. to direct Rebecca (1940). While the film won an Oscar, Hitchcock did not win for Best Director.
The 1950s was a richly productive decade for Hitchcock. He made several films that would become minor classics (Dial M for Murder, To Catch a Thief, Strangers on a Train) and four masterpieces: Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho.
In 1955 Hitchcock became a US citizen and began Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the TV show that became a regular feature in the television schedule. His visibility was increased by the uproar over Psycho, which upon its initial release sparked endless debate about the film's onscreen violence.
Hitchcock wrote, produced and directed films up until 1979. His best-known later works include The Birds, Marnie, and Family Plot. In the final year of his life, Hitchcock received the American Film Institute's lifetime achievement award and was knighted in England. He died in 1980 in Los Angeles.
My Top Five Best Hitchcock Movies Ever
Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho
Trailer Presented By Alfred Hitchcock

Psycho
(Special Edition)
(Universal Legacy Series)

More than just a first-rate shocker full of thrills and suspense, Psycho is also an engrossing character study in which director Alfred Hitchcock skillfully seduces you into identifying with the main characters, then pulls the bathmat out from under you.
Anthony Perkins is unforgettable as Norman Bates, the mama's boy proprietor of the Bates Motel; and so is Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, who makes an impulsive decision and becomes a fugitive from the law, hiding out at Norman's roadside inn for one fateful night.
Psycho trailer (Alfred Hitchcock)
The best Hitchcock movie trailers were the ones that had him personally pitch the plot to the audience!
curated content from YouTube
Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest
The Trailer
Which is not to say that this is just "Hitchcock Lite"; seminal Hitchcock critic Robin Wood (in his book Hitchcock's Films Revisited) makes an airtight case for this glossy MGM production as one of The Master's "unbroken series of masterpieces from Vertigo to Marnie."
It's a classic Hitchcock Wrong Man scenario: Grant is Roger O. Thornhill (initials ROT), an advertising executive who is mistaken by enemy spies for a U.S. undercover agent named George Kaplan. Convinced these sinister fellows (James Mason as the boss, and Martin Landau as his henchman) are trying to kill him, Roger flees and meets a sexy Stranger on a Train (Eva Marie Saint), with whom he engages in one of the longest, most convolutedly choreographed kisses in screen history.
And, of course, there are the famous set pieces: the stabbing at the United Nations, the crop-duster plane attack in the cornfield (where a pedestrian has no place to hide), and the cliffhanger finale atop the stone faces of Mount Rushmore. Plus a sparkling Ernest Lehman script and that pulse-quickening Bernard Herrmann score.
North by Northwest trailer (Alfred Hitchcock)
A gem in movie history. Hitchcock uses his sardonic wit to describe his 1950s suspense classic.
curated content from YouTube
Great Alfred Hitchcock Inspired Gifts
Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M For Murder
The Trailer
Knowing former school chum Captain Lesgate is involved in illegal activities, Tony blackmails him into conspiring to kill Margot. When she kills Lesgate in self-defense, Tony implicates her as being guilty of premeditated murder. Halliday must out-stratagize Tony to save Margot's live.
This may not be one of Hitchcock's deepest films, but it's a thoroughly engaging movie. It features Grace Kelly at her loveliest, the same year she made Rear Window with Hitchcock.
Dial M for Murder was filmed in the briefly trendy 3-D process, and Hitchcock shot some scenes to bring out the depth of the 3-D field; it's especially good for the nail-biting attempted murder of Kelly, and her desperate reach for a pair of scissors that seems to be just outside her grasp.
Also stars Ray Milland and Robert Cummins.
Dial M for Murder Trailer
This is the original Dial M for Murder movie trailer.
curated content from YouTube
Great Alfred Hitchcock Deals
Find a Hitchcock Bargain
Fetching new data from eBay now... please stand byStrangers On A Train
The Carousel Scene
Actually, it's doubly fascinating. Hitchcock left behind two versions of Strangers on a Train. The original version is an all-time thriller classic. A recently found longer prerelease British print offers "a startling amplification of Bruno's flamboyance, his homoerotic attraction to Guy and his psychotic personality," according to Bill Desowitz of Film Comment.
The laying bare of Bruno's hidden nature, along with the great set pieces (head-turning tennis match, disintegrating carousel) and suspense as only Hitchcock can deliver, makes for a first-class trip.
Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds
The Trailer With Hitchcock

The Birds
(Collector's Edition)

The Birds follows a chic blond, Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), as she travels to the coastal town of Bodega Bay to hook up with a rugged fellow (Rod Taylor) she's only just met.
Before long the town is attacked by marauding birds, and Hitchcock's skill at staging action is brought to the fore. Beyond the superb effects, however, The Birds is also one of Hitchcock's most psychologically complicated scenarios: a tense study of violence, loneliness, and complacency.
What really gets under your skin are not the bird skirmishes but the anxiety and the eerie quiet between attacks. The director elevated an unknown model, Tippi Hedren (mother of Melanie Griffith), to being his latest cool, blond leading lady, an experience that was not always easy on the much-pecked Ms. Hedren. Still, she returned for the next Hitchcock picture, the underrated Marnie.
Treated with scant attention by serious critics in 1963, The Birds has grown into a classic and, despite the sci-fi trappings, one of Hitchcock's most serious films.
More Great Movies From Alfred Hitchcock
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The Best Hitchcock Movies Ever?
I've chosen what I believe to be the best and most influential Hitchcock movies ever. Now it's your turn.
Did I get them right, or do you have a different opinion? Let's see what you have to say!
Are These the Best Hitchcock Movies Ever
Fetching blurbs now... please stand byYes, You Have Them Right!
Joan4 says:
The Birds was so terrifying! I still remember that terror and even when I see it on television, I am taken aback! what a thriller!
Posted October 03, 2008
ParChaser says:
Ask 100 people and you'll probably get 100 different answers. The way I look at it, they're all correct! After all, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. How can anyone say that someone's personal list of favourites is incorrect? It's simply a matter of personal preference. I like so many Hitchcock films for different reasons, that I find it difficult to rank them. Some of the lesser known films are my favorites, including Saboteur, Stage Fright, I Confess, and Foreign Correspondent.
Posted September 25, 2008
No, I'll Name My Own!
gideon43 says:
You can`t go wrong with Alfred Hitchcock, he NEVER made a boring film.
My personal faves, Shadow of a doubt, North by Northwest, Vertigo, The Birds and Rear window.
Posted October 09, 2009
choehn says:
'Psycho' is definitely his most enjoyable work and, I think, the pinnacle of his career. But you're forgetting 'Vertigo' (his richest film), 'Rope' (his most experimental film), and 'Shadow of a Doubt' (his personal favorite film). 'Rear Window' is also excellent.
I've seen 'The Birds' a few times, and I'm still trying to figure out why so many people regard it so highly. The motifs are interesting, but I can't help but think it's a goofy film.
Posted May 28, 2008
Alfred Hitchcock Presents....
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What Are Your Thoughts About Alfred Hitchcock?
Your thoughts on the Best Hitchcock movies ever
Let's hear your thoughts on the works of Alfred Hitchcock. If you have a favorite Hitch movie, please tell us about it.
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- Waxing-Lyrical Waxing-Lyrical Feb 6, 2010 @ 6:47 pm
- Alfred Hitchcock is one of my favorite movie directors. Enjoyed your choices :)
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- gideon43 gideon43 Oct 9, 2009 @ 12:02 pm
- Excellent Lens about one of the true masters of film
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- MikeMac MikeMac Apr 5, 2009 @ 10:49 pm
- Great lens. Movies and television shows from a time when you didn't need explosions and carnage or the camera changing angles every three seconds. Thanks.
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- JaguarJulie JaguarJulie Dec 8, 2008 @ 10:28 am
- Do you know, I do believe people are just beginning to realize today what a genius Alfred Hitchcock really was! He was really ahead of his time.
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- RichLeigh RichLeigh Sep 24, 2008 @ 7:56 pm
- You know what? As big a fan of 'Psycho' as I am; I think that's the only one of Hitchcock's films that I've ever seen! I was going to get a Hitchcock boxset the other month but decided against it in the end (can't quite remember why); your lens has made me reconsider and next time I'm out at the shops I may have to invest in it this time! Excellent lens there, and I think I just found a new 'Lens of the Week' for Horror Movies Central. :)
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