James Stewart, more affectionately known as “Jimmy” to his fans, was an Oscar-winning performer who became famous for his polite, gentle screen persona, often playing the aww-shucks boy next door. Yet he also showed his range with a series of performances that found him playing against type. Let’s take a look back at 25 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.
Born in 1908, Stewart earned his first Oscar nomination as Best Actor for playing an idealistic young senator in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (1939), which firmly established him as the patron saint of the common man. He clinched his one and only victory the very next year for “The Philadelphia Story” (1940), playing a tabloid reporter who stumbles into the marital strife of a high society couple (Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant).
After serving in WWII, Stewart returned home to play George Bailey, a businessman contemplating suicide on Christmas Eve, in “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946). Though not a runaway success when it first opened, the film found a second life with repeat showings on television during the holidays. The role brought him a third Oscar bid as Best Actor.
Stewart would contend twice more at the Oscars in the lead acting category (“Harvey” in 1950 and “Anatomy of a Murder” in 1959). He won a Golden Globe as Best TV Actor for “Hawkins” in 1974, competing again for “Harvey” and “Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation” (1962). His roles in “The Glenn Miller Story” (1954) and “Anatomy of a Murder” earned him BAFTA bids. He was awarded the Cecil B. DeMille prize in 1965, the SAG Life Achievement award in 1969, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983 and an Honorary Oscar in 1985. He died in 1997 at the age of 89.
As he grew older, Stewart sought to shed his nice guy image with a series of challenging roles, most notably in thrillers directed by Alfred Hitchcock (“Rear Window,” “Vertigo”) and westerns from Anthony Mann (“Winchester ’73,” “The Naked Spur”).
Tour our photo gallery of Stewart’s 25 greatest films, including the titles listed above, as well as “The Shop Around the Corner” (1940), “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” (1962) and more.
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25. SHENANDOAH (1965)
Image Credit: Universal/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Andrew V. McLaglen. Written by James Lee Barrett. Starring James Stewart, Doug McClure, Glenn Corbett, Patrick Wayne, Rosemary Forsyth, Phillip Alford, Katharine Ross.
This Civil War-era western casts Stewart as a widowed Virginia farmer who wants to keep his family out of the ensuing conflict. But when one of his sons is captured by Union soldiers who mistake him for a Confederate, he must venture onto the front to find him. Made at a time when America’s conflict in Vietnam was intensifying, the film asks some tough questions about the nature of war, with Stewart as its moral center. An Oscar nominee for its sound, “Shenandoah” was later adapted into a Broadway musical.
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24. THE GLENN MILLER STORY (1954)
Image Credit: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Anthony Mann. Written by Valentine Davies and Oscar Brodney. Starring James Stewart, June Allyson, Charles Drake, George Tobias, Henry Morgan.
Though they’re best remembered for creating a series of austere, allegorical westerns, Stewart and Anthony Mann also collaborated on this highly entertaining musical biopic. “The Glenn Miller Story” casts Stewart as the famous band leader, from his days as a struggling trombone player to his death over the English Channel in 1944. Though it’s far from historically accurate — with several facts either twisted or seemingly made up out of whole-cloth — Stewart makes up for it with his empathetic performance, which brought him a BAFTA nomination. Several musicians (including Louis Armstrong and Gene Krupa) show up in cameos.
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23. BROKEN ARROW (1950)
Image Credit: SNAP/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Delmer Daves. Screenplay by Albert Maltz, based on the novel ‘Blood Brother’ by Elliott Arnold. Starring James Stewart, Jeff Chandler, Debra Paget, Basil Ruysdael, Will Geer, Joyce Mackenzie, Arthur Hunnicutt.
Delmer Daves’s “Broken Arrow” was one of the first mainstream westerns to portray Native Americans sympathetically, a rarity for a genre that so often cast them as villains. Stewart stars as Tom Jeffords, an Indian scout dispatched to broker a peace deal with white settlers and the Apache tribe of an Arizona territory. He forms a bond with the tribe’s leader, Cochise (played by white actor Jeff Chandler in heavy makeup), which could lead to harmony. Though based on real people, the Oscar-nominated script by blacklisted writer Albert Maltz (working under the front of Michael Blankford) is highly fictionalized. The film earned additional bids for Chandler in Supporting Actor and for its color cinematography.
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22. THE STRATTON STORY (1949)
Image Credit: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Sam Wood. Screenplay by Douglas Morrow and Guy Trosper, story by Morrow. Starring James Stewart, June Allyson, Frank Morgan, Agnes Moorehead, Bill Williams.
There were few actors who could engender feelings of good will and exceptionalism quiet like Stewart, so it’s little wonder he’d play a true life inspirational figure. “The Stratton Story” casts him as baseball legend Monty Stratton, a pitcher for the Chicago White Sox whose promising career was almost cut short when he lost a leg in a hunting accident. Yet not one to be put down, he makes a huge comeback on the diamond. Sam Wood’s film portrays Stratton as being so saintly as to almost be uninteresting, but Stewart makes him an engaging character nonetheless. An Oscar-winner for its original story.
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21. THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS (1957)
Image Credit: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Billy Wilder. Screenplay by Charles Lederer, Wendell Mayes, and Billy Wilder, based on the book by Charles Lindbergh. Starring James Stewart, Murray Hamilton, Patricia Smith, Bartlett Robinson, Arthur Space, Marc Connelly, Charles Watts.
If you know nothing of Charles Lindbergh’s appalling views on race and eugenics, then “The Spirit of St. Louis” is a rousing cinematic experience. Directed by Billy Wilder, it stars Stewart as the legendary pilot, focusing on his historic flight across the Atlantic from New York to Paris. Stewart’s pretty much the whole show here, so it’s a good thing he’s always compelling to watch. The Oscar-nominated special effects, which convincingly portray Lindbergh’s historic journey, are equally impressive.
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20. THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (1952)
Image Credit: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Written by Fredric M. Frank, Theodore St. John, Frank Cavett, Barre Lyndon. Starring Betty Hutton, Cornel Wilde, Charlton Heston, James Stewart, Dorothy Lamour, Gloria Grahame, Lyle Bettger.
A huge success in its time, this big top melodrama from Cecil B. DeMille now regularly ranks among the worst Best Picture winners of all time. But by God, it’s still hokey, soapy fun, with Charlton Heston as the circus manager, Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde as the dueling trapeze artists, and Stewart as the clown with a dark secret. It all ends with a spectacular train crash that causes everyone to reevaluate their lives. Even in 1952, it’s Oscar victory over heavy favorites “High Noon” and “The Quiet Man” was a stunning upset; its only other trophy came in the now-defunct Best Motion Picture Story category.
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19. THE MORTAL STORM (1940)
Image Credit: Mgm/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Frank Borzage. Screenplay by Claudine West, Hans Rameau, George Froeschel, based on the novel by Phyllis Bottome. Starring Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Robert Young, Frank Morgan, Robert Stack, Bonita Granville, Irene Rich, William T. Orr, Maria Ouspenskaya, Gene Reynolds.
Though it was one of the first anti-Nazi films Hollywood made before the U.S. entered WWII, there’s nary a mention of the words “Jew” or “Germany” in “The Mortal Storm,” as studios were still worried about upsetting the German film market. Yet that doesn’t diminish the movie’s powerful message. Directed by Frank Borzage, it centers on a Jewish family that splits with the rise of the Third Reich. The patriarch (Frank Morgan), a professor, sees his life ruined, while his daughter (Margaret Sullavan) tries to run off with a young German man (Stewart) who resists Hitler’s reign. A powerful examination of bigotry with an ending that packs an emotional wallop.
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18. HOW THE WEST WAS WON (1963)
Image Credit: Mgm/Cinerama/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall. Written by James R. Webb. Starring Carol Baker, Walter Brennan, Lee J. Cobb, Andy Devine, Henry Fonda, Carolyn Jones, Karl Malden, Agnes Moorehead, Harry Morgan, Gregory Peck, George Peppard, Robert Preston, Debbie Reynolds, Thelma Ritter, James Stewart, Eli Wallach, John Wayne, Richard Widmark, narrated by Spencer Tracy.
There wasn’t a movie star alive in the early 1960s who didn’t make an appearance in “How the West Was Won,” a sprawling, lumbering epic tracing America’s Westward expansion. Divided into five sections — “The Rivers,” “The Plains,” “The Civil War,” “The Railroad,” and “The Outlaws” — it centers on a family through four generations from 1839 to 1889 who experience every landmark moment of history during that period. Stewart appears in “The Rivers” segment as Linus Rawlings, the family patriarch. More famous for its scope than its content (it was one of only two fictional films shot in the three projector Cinerama process), it’s an impressive feat nonetheless. Oscars went to its screenplay, sound and editing.
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17. THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX (1965)
Image Credit: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Robert Aldrich. Screenplay by Lukas Heller, based on the novel by Elleston Trevor. Starring James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Hardy Kruger, Peter Finch, Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen.
It’s survival of the fittest in “The Flight of the Phoenix,” Robert Aldrich’s rip-roaring adventure yarn. When a plane crashes in the Sahara Desert, one of the passengers (Hardy Kruger), a German engineer, devises a plan to build a new aircraft from the wreckage. But the oppressive heat threatens to destroy the group before they can get off the ground. The all-star cast features Stewart as the pilot, Richard Attenborough as the navigator, Ernest Borgnine as a fatigued oil worker, and Ian Bannen (in an Oscar-nominated turn) as an arrogant Scot. A 2004 remake followed, though there’s no competing with the original.
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16. CALL NORTHSIDE 777 (1948)
Image Credit: 20th Century Fox/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Henry Hathaway. Screenplay by Jerome Cady and Jay Dratler, adaptation by Leonard Hoffman and Quentin Reynolds, based on articles by James P. McGuire. Starring James Stewart, Richard Conte, Lee J. Cobb, Helen Walker, Betty Garde, Kasia Orzazewski, Joanne De Bergh, Howard Smith, Moroni Olsen, John McIntire, Paul Harvey.
“Call Northside 777” centers on an intrepid newspaper reporter (Stewart) who re-opens a decade-old murder case. Through his investigation, he comes to believe that the convicted cop killer (Richard Conte) is actually innocent. The film was based on the true story of Joseph Majczek (renamed Frank Wiecek here), who was accused of killing a Chicago police officer during the Prohibition era. Director Henry Hathaway shoots in a docudrama style that lends it a heightened reality, while Stewart relishes in playing a more tough and hard-edge character than he’s usually known for.
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15. BEND OF THE RIVER (1952)
Image Credit: Universal/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Anthony Mann. Screenplay by Borden Chase, based on the novel ‘Bend of the Snake’ by Bill Gulick. Starring James Stewart, Arthur Kennedy, Julie Adams, Rock Hudson, Lori Nelson, Jay C. Flippen, Stepin Fetchit.
Stewart reunited with director Anthony Mann for yet another exploration of the wild west. “Bend of the River” casts him as a former outlaw working as a trail guide for a group of Oregon-bound farmers with his friend (Arthur Kennedy), a reformed horse thief. When the settlers are cheated out of supplies, Stewart risks his life to bring the confiscated goods back to the homesteaders. But he’s soon betrayed by his thieving ally. Rock Hudson shows up as a slick San Francisco gambler, while Julie Adams makes a striking impression as a beautiful farmer’s daughter.
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14. ROPE (1948)
Image Credit: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Screenplay by Arthur Laurents, story by Hume Cronyn, based on the play by Patrick Hamilton. Starring James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Joan Chandler, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Constance Collier, Douglas Dick, Edith Evanson.
This adaptation of Patrick Hamilton’s play is best known for Alfred Hitchcock’s attempt to film it all in one apparently continuous shot. (It’s also notable for being the director’s first Technicolor picture.) Inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case, “Rope” stars John Dall and Farley Granger as a pair of university students who strangle a classmate and hide him in their apartment. Cocky in the extreme, they invite the victim’s friends and family to a dinner party to show off the perfection of their crime. But one guest (Stewart) just might outsmart them. While some of the attempts to fool the audience into thinking the film is taking place in real time are a bit obvious, you’ve gotta give Hitchcock credit for always being ahead of his time and paving the way for films like “Birdman” (2014) to attempt the same kind of stunt.
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13. YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1938)
Image Credit: SNAP/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Frank Capra. Screenplay by Robert Riskin, based on the play by George Kaufman and Moss Hart. Starring Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Edward Arnold, Mischa Auer, Ann Miller, Spring Byington, Samuel S. Hinds, Donald Meek, H.B. Warner.
Stewart teamed up with Frank Capra for the first time with this charming adaption of George Kaufman and Moss Hart’s hit play. “You Can’t Take It With You” casts him as an idealistic young man who works as a vice president at his rich father’s (Edward Arnold) company. He falls in love with his stenographer (Jean Arthur), whose large, eccentric family cares nothing for money, even when Stewart’s dad offers them a hefty sum to buy their home in order to help him secure a munitions monopoly. Everyone has a grand time with the screwball material, especially Lionel Barrymore as the patriarch. The film brought Capra his third Best Director Oscar and his second Best Picture victory.
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12. THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956)
Image Credit: Paramount/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Screenplay by John Michael Higgins, story by Charles Bennett and D. B. Wyndham-Lewis. Starring James Stewart, Doris Day, Brenda de Banzie, Bernard Miles, Christopher Olsen, Daniel Gelin, Reggie Nalder.
Alfred Hitchcock loosely remained his 1934 black-and-white thriller “The Man Who Knew Too Much” in glorious Technicolor, with a few other changes as well. Stewart and Doris Day play an American couple vacationing in Morocco who must take matters into their own hands when their young son is kidnapped by assassins planning to executive a foreign prime minister. Once again, Stewart’s everyman charms are used by the Master of Suspense to great effect. The film won an Academy Award for its original song “Whatever Will Be Will Be (Que Sera, Sera),” performed by Day in a pivotal scene.
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11. THE NAKED SPUR (1953)
Image Credit: Mgm/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Anthony Mann. Written by Sam Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloom. Starring James Stewart, Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan, Ralph Meeker, Millard Mitchell.
As he grew older, Stewart took on roles that challenged his polite, gentle screen persona, proving he had a range beyond just the boy next door. “The Naked Spur,” directed by his frequent collaborator Anthony Mann, casts him as a bounty hunter tracking a fugitive (Robert Ryan) who killed a local sheriff. Along the way, he picks up some new partners — a disgraced Union soldier (Ralph Meeker) and an aged prospector (Millard Mitchell) — both of whom become greedy when they learn of the massive reward for Ryan’s head. Mann makes great use of location filmmaking, providing striking Technicolor images of the Rockies with the help of cinematographer William C. Mellor. The film earned an Oscar nomination for its screenplay.
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10. WINCHESTER ’73 (1950)
Image Credit: Universal/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Anthony Mann. Screenplay by Borden Chase and Robert L. Richards, story by Stuart N. Lake. Starring James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea, Stephen McNally, Millard Mitchell, Charles Drake, John McIntire, Will Geer, Jay C. Flippen.
Perhaps the greatest film ever made centering on an inanimate object, “Winchester ’73” casts Stewart as a man who wins a pristine Winchester rifle in a shooting contest. When the gun is stolen by a rival (Stephan McNally), he tracks it down as it passes hands from one ill-fated owner to the next. When things come full circle, the nature of Stewart’s conflict with McNally becomes surprisingly clear. This was the first western Stewart made with director Anthony Mann, and it’s one of their best, with stunning black-and-white cinematography and a famous final shootout on a mountain precipice. Stewart has a grand time playing against type as a man willing to kill to satisfy a blood feud.
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9. HARVEY (1950)
Image Credit: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Henry Koster. Screenplay by Mary Chase and Oscar Brodney, based on the play by Chase. Starring James Stewart, Josephine Hull, Peggy Dow, Charles Drake, Cecil Kellaway, Jesse White, Victoria Horne, Wallace Ford.
This adaptation of Mary Chase’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play provides Stewart with one of his most memorable roles. He plays Elwood P. Dowd, an eccentric middle-aged man whose best friend is an invisible, six-foot tall rabbit named Harvey. His sister (Supporting Actress winner Josephine Hull) worries he might have lost his mind, but Elwood turns out to be wiser than everybody else. An uproariously funny comedy of errors with Stewart as its steady center. The film brought him an Oscar bid as Best Actor, which he lost to Jose Ferrer (“Cyrano de Bergerac”). Stewart reprised the role in a 1972 TV movie version opposite Helen Hayes.
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8. THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940)
Image Credit: MGM/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Screenplay by Samson Raphaelson, based on the play by Miklos Laszlo. Starring Margaret Sullivan, James Stewart, Frank Morgan, Joseph Schildkraut.
The “Lubitsch touch” dazzles again with this holiday classic. “The Shop Around the Corner” spawned a Judy Garland musical remake (1949’s “In the Good Old Summertime”) and an AOL romance from Nora Ephron (1998’s “You’ve Got Mail”), but there’s no topping the original, which is essential Christmastime viewing. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, it centers on two gift shop employees (Stewart and Margaret Sullivan) who hate each other. Little do they know they’ve actually fallen in love with one another via anonymous pen pal letters. Set in Budapest in the years leading up to WWII, the film mixes in some of the local politics of the time with the romance, making for a bittersweet comedy.
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7. THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (1962)
Image Credit: Paramount/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by John Ford. Screenplay by James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck, based on the short story by Dorothy M. Johnson. Starring James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Edmond O’Brien, Andy Devine, Ken Murray.
With this late-career masterpiece, John Ford created his most thoughtful and nuanced examination of the differences between myth and truth. It’s also one of the great American westerns, with Stewart and John Wayne finding new shades in characters they’ve often played. “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” centers on a U.S. Senator (Stewart) who became famous for killing an outlaw (Lee Marvin) returning to his hometown to bury an old friend (Wayne). But as the funeral gets underway, the facts about the legendary event that binds them become clearer though flashbacks. The film earned a lone Oscar nomination for Edith Head’s costumes.
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6. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)
Image Credit: Mgm/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by George Cukor. Screenplay by David Ogden Stewart, based on the play by Philip Barry. Starring Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Ruth Hussey, John Howard, Roland Young, John Halliday, Mary Nash, Virginia Weilder.
Stewart won his lone Best Actor Oscar for this pristine high society comedy, although he’s playing third fiddle to Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. “The Philadelphia Story” centers on Tracy Lord (Hepburn), a wealthy socialite whose plans to remarry are interrupted by the arrival of her ex-husband (Grant) and a tabloid reporter (Stewart). Smartly written by David Ogden Stewart and nimbly directed by George Cukor (both of whom Hepburn hand picked for the project), this is a glimmering, sparkling example of high-brow Hollywood entertainment. The film won an additional Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, competing in four other categories including Best Picture and Best Actress (Hepburn).
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5. ANATOMY OF A MURDER (1959)
Image Credit: Columbia/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Otto Preminger. Screenplay by Wendell Mayes, based on the novel by Robert Traver. Starring James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, Arthur O’Connell, Eve Arden, Kathryn Grant, George C. Scott.
The gold standard for courtroom dramas, “Anatomy of a Murder” caused a stir when it was released in 1959 for its explicit, envelope-pushing discussions of sexual violence. While it’s not as shocking today as it was back then, Otto Preminger’s films remains engrossing and enthralling. Stewart gives one of his best performances as Paul Biegler, an easy-going, cocksure attorney defending an army lieutenant (Ben Gazzara) who murdered a bar owner he believes raped his wife (Lee Remick). Wendell Mayes’s screenplay provides the cast with some scenery-chewing roles, including George C. Scott as a fiery prosecutor and Arthur O’Connell as Stewart’s drunken colleague. The film earned seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Stewart (he lost his bid to Charlton Heston in “Ben-Hur”).
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4. REAR WINDOW (1954)
Image Credit: Paramount/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Screenplay by John Michael Hayes, based on the short story ‘It Had to Be Murder’ by Cornell Woolrich. Starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr.
Throughout his career, Alfred Hitchcock proved a master not just of suspense but of making good use of cramped spaces. In “Rear Window,” he creates an entire world inside one apartment complex, as seen through the window of a photographer (Stewart) confined to a wheelchair who passes his time spying on his neighbors. When he becomes convinced that one of them (Raymond Burr) murdered his wife, he enlists his devoted girlfriend (Grace Kelly) and sarcastic housekeeper (Thelma Ritter) to uncover the truth. In many ways, this story of a nosy neighbor works as a metaphor for the voyeuristic act of filmgoing itself. Stewart has fun playing with his aww-shucks demeanor as a man obsessed with discovering the truth. The film earned four Oscar bids, including Best Director for Hitchcock.
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3. MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939)
Image Credit: Columbia/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Frank Capra. Screenplay by Sidney Buchman, story by Lewis R. Foster. Starring Jean Arthur, James Stewart, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold, Guy Kibbee, Thomas Mitchell, Beulah Bondi, Eugene Pallette, H.B. Warner, Harry Carey.
Frank Capra’s unique brand of populism was never more beautifully expressed than in this heartfelt political drama. “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” also made Stewart a star, firmly establishing him as the idealistic boy next door. He plays the titular Mr. Smith, a naive young man appointed to fill a vacant Senate seat. When he arrives in Washington, he’s shocked to discover corruption around every corner (welcome to Washington, Mr. Smith). But rather than give in, he stands up for what’s right, culminating in the famous filibuster scene where he speaks for 25 hours straight to delay a vote to expel him. The film earned 11 Oscar bids, including Best Picture and Stewart’s first nomination in Best Actor (he lost to Robert Donat in “Goodbye, Mr. Chips”).
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2. IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)
Image Credit: RKO/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Frank Capra. Screenplay by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, and Frank Capra, based on the story ‘The Greatest Gift’ by Philip Van Doren Sten. Starring James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Travers, Beulah Bondi, Ward Bond, Frank Faylen, Gloria Grahame.
It’s hard to believe this holiday classic wasn’t always so beloved, but such was the initial reaction when “It’s a Wonderful Life” opened in 1946. A flop in its time, it found a second life after falling into public domain, when it began its yearly showings on TV during Christmastime and became a cherished favorite. Made after Stewart and Frank Capra finished their service in WWII, it centers on everyman George Bailey (Stewart), who contemplates suicide when his life sinks into despair. His guardian angel (Henry Travers) shows him what life would be like if he’d never been born, proving that every person, no matter how ordinary, matters. The film earned five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor. (Stewart lost his bid to Fredric March in “The Best Years of Our Lives”).
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1. VERTIGO (1958)
Image Credit: Paramount/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Screenplay by Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor, based on the book ‘D’entre les morts’ by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore, Henry Jones.
It’s no small irony that the crowning achievement in Stewart’s career is a complete subversion of his everyman image. In “Vertigo,” he plays Scottie Ferguson, a police detective forced to retire after an accident leaves him with a crippling fear of heights. He is hired by an acquaintance to follow his wife (Kim Novak), and soon falls in love with the beautiful, mysterious woman. When she jumps off a bell tower, he decides to remake a strikingly similar lady (Novak in a dual role) in her image. Unapologetically perverse and weird, this might be Alfred Hitchcock’s most personal film, bringing forth his deepest, darkest fantasies and fetishes. It’s also, in many ways, an expose of movie directing itself, where a perfectionist shapes a piece of clay into an ideal image. Stewart has never been more sympathetic than as a man who realizes he’s been taken advantage of. Though overlooked in its time, the film has re-emerged as a true masterpiece, even displacing “Citizen Kane” on the latest “Sight and Sound” greatest films poll.
