Hitchcock's best film? (Pick three)

REAR WINDOW, DIAL "M" FOR MURDER, or THE 39 STEPS for me.

Notorious, Vertigo and North by Northwest for me.

North by Northwest, The Trouble wih Harry, and Rear Window

Seeing as the trend in this thread is to cite 3 films on purely subjective preference, my favourites are Sabotage, I Confess, and North By Northwest. Its been said over and over again, but the man was truly the master at directing thrillers; creating unbearable tension amid thoughtful plots that started debates after the end credits.

Frenzy ("Lovely. Lovely! LOVELY!"), Psycho and Saboteur (there would never have been a North by Northwest if it weren't for this one).

In order: Vertigo, Rear Window, the two that I consider to be his greatest films. They are both at the same time suspenseful, romantic, exciting and a little bit perverse. Hitchcock at his best! After that it gets hard... I guess I'd go with either Dial M for Murder or North by Northwest, I love them both.

Tough question, but I'd go with:

Notorious: Great suspense with an inspired love story where all main characters are stunted by their own doubts and fears. Also, Hitch had found his trademark style by this point and it shows in the shots - including the justifably famous key in the hand shot.

Vertigo: Hitch's most psychologically rich film - begins as a standard detective/love story and morphs into an examination of obsession.

Rear Window: Insightful commentary on voyerism and morbid imaginations. Really interesting in context of his own success.

Still, it's tough to leave out stuff like 39 Steps (the first of his wrongfully accussed themes to really gel), Rope, Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds.

For me it has to be Strangers On A Train, Rear Window, and Vertigo.

Strangers was the first Hitchcock I ever had the pleasure of seeing, and still holds a special place in my heart. From the first instant to the whirlwind (literally) conclusion, its one of the tightest films Hitch ever made. The 'trick' shot of reflecting the strangulation in the broken glasses is still one of my favorite images in cinema ever, and seeing Bruno sit still in a crowd of turning heads is the creepiest.

Rear Window is an accomplishment I don't think has ever been achieved since in film, of creating a suspense thriller without ever venturing into a frightening space, physically. It completely plays on the emotion of being an audience to the unknown, a reflection of our own experiences watching Thrillers.

Vertigo's been sucked off enough on this board, but I'll just mention the fact that the titles still remain my favorite of all time, the music my favorite score, and it still punches you in the face as an ending.

I'm with your picks exactly, IndianSummerSky. In particular, Vertigo and Psycho are ample evidence of how ahead of the curve Hitchcock was in his themes.

For people who haven't seen Vertigo, and think of Jimmy Stewart as that guy who made charming feel-good movies, this is relevatory. I don't think I've ever seen a classic movie star play anyone this tragically fucked up. It has to be the darkest thing he ever did, and it displays how much range the man really had.

Psycho is actually not only my favorite Hitchock, it's one of my ten favorite films of all time (my friends keep telling me that I've mentioned more than ten; I guess I'll actually have to write them down sometime). What modern audiences can't fully appreciate about that film is the supreme shock value of Janet Leigh's murder. Today, we all know about the shower scene, and that Norman Bates becomes the focus of the story. But imagine going into that theater in 1960 and following Marion Crane for half an hour, then watching her murdered by a character who was just introduced. That had to floor audiences. And the sheer artistry of that scene is incredible. Reputable critics wrote in their reviews that there was nudity, and that they saw the knife going in. Of course, neither is true; the editing is that masterful. My other favorite moment; when Norman is sinking the car with Marion's body in the trunk, and it stops; there's a moment of panic that forces the audience to sympathize with the killer, fearing he'll get caught. That simple moment demonstrates the genius of Hitchcock.

I pretty much agree with Indiansummersky' "Three way Tie".
If you put a gun to my head I would say "Vertigo"...it has his most complex ...and neurotic ...charecters. But "North by Northwest" is the best film he ever did from a pure excitement standpoint.and "Psycho" his scariest.
"Rear Window" is not too far behind.
My wife would kill me is I did not mention her favorite Hitchcock , "Rebecca", which ties with "North By Northwest" as his most imitated.
"Shadow of a Doubt" is his most underrated film.
And his two out and out comedies, "Mr. and Mrs Smith" and "The Trouble with Harry" are both very funny. BTW the plot of Smith has nothing to do with the recent Pitt/Jolie film.
"Trouble with Harry" is absolute delight. That Damn Dissapearing Corpse...

You pretty much can't go wrong with a Hitchcock movie starring Jimmy Stewart. Personally, Rear Window is without a doubt my favorite.

I'm a little stunned by the inclusion of Frenzy on this list. I F-ing hated it.

Vertigo, Rear Window, and North by Northwest for me. But I'll admit that these are tough choices to make.

Notorius, North by Northwest, Strangers on a Train

God damn, I got to go:
1) Vertigo
2) Marnie
3) North by Northwest
with Notorious and Rear Window painfully left behind.

Vertigo, Rear Window, Psycho, for me anyway.

Hitchcock flicks

Vertigo, Strangers on a Train and Shadow of a Doubt

Rear Window, Dial M for Murder, and Vertigo. That last spot is hard... close call between that film, North by Northwest, or The Thirty-Nine Steps. Vertigo wins out because of its privileged place in film history.

Let's see, North by Northwest and then, er, maybe The 39 Steps and The Man Who Knew Too Much ('56).

Vertigo is a good film and all, but I just found the plot a little too improbable.

North by Northwest, Psycho, and Shadow of a Doubt (surprised to not see it on other's lists).

Man, the guy was a genius. I think about the film's that didnt' make my top three, and I'm stunned. The 39 steps, the lady vanishes, notorious, vertigo, the birds, suspicion....wow.

I must be the only person that thinks Rear Window is highly over-rated. It just didn't do anything for me. It seemed ponderous.

In comparison with Hitch's great films, Frenzy does strike me as merely very good. That said, there's a murder scene in it that is as chilling as anything the man every filmed. A woman is being strangled and the camera pans out of the room, down the stairs, and into the busy street below - emphasizing that the world just keeps going, oblivious to the horrors committed behind closed doors. That scene alone makes the film worthy of inclusion in Hitchcock's cannon.

Phsyco
The Birds
Rope.

High Anxiety, Dressed to Kill, and Body Double.

Rope, Rear Window, and To Catch a Thief.

This is what I love when these favorites threads come up. People just pop in, list three movies, and leave. How about a little discussion of why these films are your favorites, guys? I thought these forums were about discussion. Or are we just supposed to be so fascinated with your opinions that just the titles should suffice?

I've always liked Rope, but I kinda think it's more interesting as an execise in form than as an overall film experience. But it is quite cool.

I'll probably never be a big Hitchcock fan, sadly. I think I had just heard too much about his work or seen his ideas referenced too much by other directors, so by the time I got to his stuff, it didn't have the punch and immediacy that it has for a lot of other people. He seems like a director who was profoundly disinterested in character except insofar as it might be employed to further the plot. I'm really character-centric, so that's a problem for me. Also, he usually seems to really call attention to some of his visionary shooting/framing. It comes off as ostentatious and showy, and pulls me out of the story. Or there's story elements that I can't suspend my disbelief long enough to appreciate. Even if Strangers on A Train was a literal re-telling of actual events I couldn't believe it. Cops shooting into a carousel full of children?? I don't think I would have bought that even in the fifties. And luring a man out into the middle of nowhere where he's all by himself, and then sending a plane after him, as opposed to just sending agents in a car to pick him up (posing as the guy he's supposed to contact) and then treating him like Abe Vigoda in the Godfather?. I love North by Northwest, but I just have to pretend that that scene didn't happen as soon as it's over, and then just imagine he'd been on the wrong street so the bad guys couldn't pick him up. The rest of the film is quite enjoyable though. Anyway....

Vertigo's probably my all time favorite; hardly surprising given that it's really a character study and not much else. Stewart is magnetic (definitely my favorite performance of his), and Barbara Bel Geddes is smoldering and commanding every second she's on screen, and I remember being a trifle irritated every time the story veered away from her and back to Novak. Also, the camera trickery didn't seem as obtrusive as it does in some films (that one shot in Notorious where the camera moves in from the corner of the room to the key in Cary Grant's hand yanks me inexorably from the film every time I see it). The cameras seemed to be serving the story in this film, to great effect. Finally, the characters' motivations are sensibly realized, whereas most of the time Hitchcock doesn't seem interested in letting us see why the characters do what they do (I remember once complaing to my brother, who is both older and wiser "So just how exactly does Ingrid Bergman fall in love with Cary Grant in the space of about five minutes? I've never seen that happen in real life." To which my brother dryly replied, "Well, you're no Cary Grant."). The only performance I really really like in Notorious is the bad guy husband (Claude Rains? I can't even remember).

In second place, would be Hitchcock's Rope. Most Hitchcock fans tend to push this aside as more of a technical exercise than a movie that tells a story. For me, most Hitchcock films come across more as technical exercises than anything else, so I don't see why that should be more the case for Rope than large chunks of his other movies. Still there's just an energy and flow to this film that really keeps me thoroughly engrossed in the story. It feels like you're watching a play, and everything just keeps moving forward. Hitchcock does something really great here, he puts himself in a position where he can't do a lot of his much-lauded "look at me, no one's ever thought to frame a shot like this before, white girls!!" shots, so he really forced himself into a corner where the actors have to do the heavy lifting. And when he does let the camera hold sway, it's in an understated and masterful way (like the shot from the dining room into the kitchen through the swinging door, where we see the murderer gleefully holding the murder weapon aloft above a kitchen drawer. The door then swings shut, then swings back open as we see the villain, now empty-handed, smugly closing the kitchen drawer. The door swings shut again. To my mind, that's an example of the camera really giving you insight into character. The guy is so smug and self-satisfied with himself that getting away with it would never be enough of a charge for him. He needs an audience to see how good he is, to understand that he could have gotten away with it, even though they were dining on the coffin. He's a killer, but it's really only an extension of his narcisism. Everything -- the performances, the camera moves, the plot, is economical, tight, and lean. Sure, maybe the movie was marketed on the gimmick of the one camera/no cuts thing, but this film feels like less of a technical exercise to me than any other Hitchcock film I've ever seen. Oh, I also love the cut-out skyline in the background. What a frigging great movie. I imagine if Hitchcock hadn't been constrained by the gimmick, I wouldn't like the film nearly as much.

Third place would almost certainly go to Lifeboat, another Hitchcock film that probably could have been a play, and definitely benefits enormously from the severe constraints in terms of set and camera positions, if I had never seen The Lady Vanishes. Again the protagonists are in a confined environment, and the film is very tightly plotted. Also, the performances seem to just breathe better than in a lot of Hitchcock's films, the tension between the male and female leads seems less forced and more natural (who have the typical love/hate romance thing going on), and the characters don't just come off as plot engines. I don't want to say too much about this one just in case some people here haven't seen it yet, as it's not as well known as some of his films (not like it's a secret or anything, but whatever).

Sorry this is so long.

I'm so glad to see The 39 Steps getting some love here.

The why.

Notorious is absolutely beautiful in it's cinematography and has a very tight and compelling story line. In addition the acting, especially, Bergman's and Rain's is full of great texture and nuance. The theme of a man encourages a woman to sleep with another man for information and then despising her morality is a fascinating recurring theme in Hitchcock and mainstream cinema archetypes.

Strangers on a Train is a much more raw film, yet the story line is very tight. It is a fine example of the efficiency of story telling...though Notorious is probably the best example. In addition the sexual tension and conflict between Guy and Bruno was exquisitely done due to great filmmaking and excellent actors.

North by Northwest many have commented on already, basically it reflects the mastery of the eternal theme of an "ordinary" man and how close to the edge of chaos all lives are...and the fine line between the absurd and the reasonable. Hitchcock revisits the 39 Steps in this piece.

Another absolute favorite is A Shadow of a Doubt, where we have a very strong female character, in contrast to Hitchcock’s many uses of women as objects rather than fully developed characters.

Rear Window.
Hitchcock's films are always hindered by wooden performances. Window has the most natural dialogue of any of them. I suppose that's because the entire movie is people talking to each other in a single room. The actors were probably afforded a better opportunity to act and not just hit their marks.

Vertigo, Rear Window, and Notorious, in that order.

Veritgo's one of my flat-out favorite movies, period. It's the apotheosis of Hitchcock's motif of remaking a women in some image.

I feel similarly about Notorious, and while it has more of a timeless old-Hollywood film because of it's look and the cast (I was smitten with Ingrid Bergman from a very young age), I feel it is a lesser film. But that crane shot from the top of the staircase down to the key in Bergman's hand is gorgeous. It also pivotal in miy girlfriend and I getting together.

Rear Window is simularly the prime example of Hitchcock's exploration and use of voyuerism in his career.

I'm in the lonely camp that thinks North by Northwest is overrated in its value in Hitchcock's canon (but not in its value to the rest of film, obviously).

Hit it on the nail.

Have to go with Rear Window, Rebecca and To Catch a Thief.

Criterion made love to Rebecca...fantastic DVD.

Expensive as hell though too.

True. The Criterion set of Wrong Men & Notorious Women - Five Hitchcock Thrillers 1935-1946 is going for $225 on Amazon.

I have yet to see 39 Steps, but with the Criterion treatment I think it could be a blind buy.

Rope. I love how the film keeps the tension in real time, and the whole thing is virtually one friggin shot!

The Birds. Hitchcock keeps the tension with absolutely NO MUSIC!

North by Northwest. Just an incredibly fun film.

I agree. The movie just ran too long. I think it would have been an absolutely stunning seventy minute movie. I also thought that the "flashing lightbulbs to slow down the murderer" plot-device was slightly ludicrous.

I chose the movies I did, in part, because of their influence on cinema. North by Northwest is a template for the modern spy or action-adventure movie. Shadow of a Doubt, to me, is practically a horror movie, and the storyline of small-town life concealing an amiable monster has become its own genre. Psycho is, in a word, brilliant on every level. The plot twists are as shocking as the violence (which I still find disturbing), the performances are mesmerizing, and it is one of the leanest, crispest movies ever put to celluloid.

We need to start discussing under-rated Hitchcock movies. How do "The Wrong Man", or some of the other less known flicks, stack up.

No shit. That was the whole point.

Yeah, that's called an opinion. If it were a cut-and-dried case, there wouldn't be much point to the thread, would there?

I saw Rope recently, and it was very good, though I thought Jimmy Stewart went a little overboard at the end. The killers were both great in their own ways, particularly Brandon, who is smart enough to get away with murder if he could just rein in his ego. However, I must confess that my enjoyment of the film was compounded by the fact that it was on at about 3 in the morning, when the channel was apparently dedicated to programming for deaf insomniacs. So for the entire running time, there was a guy standing in the bottom corner of the screen translating the dialogue into sign language. The best part was that when there were moments without dialogue, he would look up at the screen like he was watching the movie on my TV.

It's from Once Upon a Time in the West, which I've only just recently seen, and declared one of the coolest movies ever made.

-Saboteur is unbelievable. This is movie is as sick as Touch of Evil, clearly plays in the same area of being "too much before their time". I can`t believe this was even allowed to get made. But I thought the final was too ovbious. What was more compelling to me was this secret cabal of evil thse depraved aristocrats that the hero as to go up against.

-Rear Window shows how much of a master Hitch was, how to take a simple idea of voyeurist and being forced to watch something, and shooting a whole film around a gimmick and making the most of it. In fact turning it into something more powerful than any epics.

-Psycho remains the most iconic and most brutal and for that it gets you in a more visceral way wich the others would not dare venture. Films like Vertigo and North by Northwest are exilrating and pure candy, and something like Stranger on a Train(and may others) is a nice exercise in filmaking(again the gimmick) but when it`s time to come to the plate and make it counts, Psycho is beyond and above the rest. You forget any "wow how did he do that", and any "that was clever", you completly lose yourself in it. And that`s not just because of the fear but because you`re totally played by Hitch BECAUSE of his inventiveness. How about killing your lead character without warning?

This thread is like trying to choose only three of your favorite foods. How can Lasagna get left out and yet it is?

-Vertigo. The best as has been well summarized here. His best use of the supernatural world (or human perception of it, rightly or wrongly) intruding on the natural world we all live in. Makes San Francisco look much more romantic then it actually is too...

-Rear Window. The most enjoyable "exercise" ever put to film, far more interesting than Rope IMHO. Grace Kelly might have been the perfect woman; she was certainly shot like that in this movie.

-The 39 Steps. My favorite from his British period. Crackles with suspense and fun puzzles.

(Looking at the IMDb listing I see how many of Hitch's films I haven't seen. Yikes!)

Regarding Frenzy... I think the problem I have with these films is that, to me, it seems like Hitchcock is sort of torn between "you mean we can show that on film now rather than hiding it with editing or panning away" and "my strength is letting the audience see what they want to see rather than straight up tell's." Makes those seventies films a little bit schizophrenic.

Only having seen 14 of his films (so, I'm not including The Birds, Saboteur, and Strangers on a Train...among others), I'd say...

- North by Northwest
- Rear Window
- Dial M For Murder

I guess where I differ from most people is that I think Vertigo and Shadow of a Doubt are both overrated (not bad, mind you). Maybe I just couldn't buy Jimmy Stewart falling so obsessively hard for Kim Novak. *ech* And Shadow of a Doubt was somewhat boring and predictable, and the ending is just lazy. I have liked the last two thriller/comedy ones I've seen (The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes), and thought Notorious was just decent, so maybe I just tend to like his "fun" ones more.

Shadow of a Doubt, Rope, Psycho.

If you subscribe to Vongo, they're carrying a lot of his films right now too. Vongo is an offshoot of Starz, and I'm guessing there's an association.