Top 10 Alfred Hitchcock films

1. Rear Window – In Hitchcock’s hands, homicide and high drama can unfold right across the courtyard. Only he could sustain it for almost two hours.

2. Vertigo – Greatest film ever? I don’t know about that. But it’s a mesmerizing and wholly unique work of popular art that has haunted me since my first viewing.

3. The Birds – Still widely misunderstood. Consider the audacity of unleashing an aviary plague on an unmarried couple’s minor transgressions. (It ain’t about birds).

4. North by Northwest – Of course the perfect cocktail of suspense and glamor has Cary Grant at its core.

5. Strangers on a Train – Masterful cross-cutting, sinister humor, and Robert Walker as the mother of all 

6. Notorious – Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant and a jagged tale of spycraft’s dark underbelly.

7. Psycho – Beneath the shock value lies a staggeringly disciplined method. The game-changer of horror movies

8. The Lady Vanishes – Minor? Maybe. But the chemistry between Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood is delicious. Hitchcock really knew his way around a train.

9. Shadow of a Doubt - Evil comes to small-town America in the form of Joseph Cotten’s merry widow murderer. Hitchcock has cited it as his personal favorite.

10. Blackmail – At the dawn of the sound era, Hitchcock already had wildly imaginative command of the new technology (see below).