Janet Leigh in Psycho — Paramount Pictures

We Rank the 15 Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies of All Time

Here is the ultimate ranking of Alfred Hitchcock's movies.

Author:
Samuel R. Murrian
Updated:
Feb 26, 2024

Alfred Hitchcock was the Master of Suspense, and he was also a master of comedy, romance and horror—to name a few. Many great artists go unappreciated during their lifetimes, but audiences flocked to Alfred Hitchcock's movies for six decades, reveling in the excitement.

Hitchcock died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Bel Air in April 1980, leaving behind one of the most illustrious legacies in film history. To celebrate the filmmaker's incomparable career, we ranked the 15 best Alfred Hitchcock movies: These are ranked in ascending order.

Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies of All Time, Ranked

15. To Catch A Thief (1955)

Right after Rear Window, Hitchcock reunited with Grace Kelly for the breezier, enchanting To Catch a Thief. Based on the 1952 novel of the same name, the comedic caper also stars Cary Grant, as a reformed cat burglar attempting to catch an imitator as he woos the beautiful daughter of a wealthy widow. To Catch A Thief is lighter Hitchcock, but this is still the Master firing on all cylinders. To Catch a Thief is impossibly elegant, sexy and charming in a way that can simply never be replicated, due to the talent involved.

14. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

This is the one time in six decades that Hitchcock remade his own work. The Man Who Knew Too Much is a reworking of Hitch’s 1934 British film of the same name (both are genuinely great thrillers). In the remake, megastars James Stewart and Doris Day are riveting and sympathetic as desperate parents seeking their kidnapped son. They’re innocent people who unwittingly become entangled in an international assassination plot. “Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)” won an Oscar for Best Original Song. A splashy, emotional, music-driven and dialogue-free finale at the Royal Albert Hall is operatic in the best sense of the word.

13. Spellbound (1945)

Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman are characteristically spellbinding in an Oscar-winning mystery about a psychoanalyst who falls for an amnesiac who may or may not be a murderer.

Spellbound doesn't measure up to immediate successor Notorious, but it's still a must-see for any fan of the director, or classic films in general. It's a strange, uneven and often breathtaking film. Iconic artistic flourishes include a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali, and a climactic shot staring straight down the barrel of a loaded gun.

12. Rope (1948)

Rope stands out as the black sheep of Hitchcock's most famous films, and it's only gotten better with age. Farley Granger and John Dall star as preppy youths (overtly gay characters who just barely made it past the censor board) who commit a murder mainly for a thrill, and Jimmy Stewart plays the only man who can unravel their sick plan. The thriller is shot to resemble one long take (an exceptionally difficult feat in 1948), with a handful of obvious cuts, transpiring in real time. Rope is the Master of Suspenses's most underrated picture, a bold look at postwar morality. These days, Rope is looking damn close to masterpiece status.

11. Rebecca (1940)

Based on Daphne du Maurier’s bestseller, Rebecca is about a plain woman who wins the heart of a cynical widower. Rebecca’s romantic leads (Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine) are perfectly cast, and the story about a couple haunted by ghosts of the past is as riveting as ever more than 80 years later. Gone With the Wind mega-producer David O. Selznick was also part of the talent behind this gripping masterwork that satisfies as both a romantic and psychological thriller. It was Hitchcock’s first big Hollywood film, and it won the Academy Award for Best Picture. George Barnes’ deliciously Gothic cinematography also won an Academy Award; the film’s fiery climax provides just the right amount of payoff.

10. The Birds (1963)

At the zenith of his popularity and filmmaking craft, Hitchcock mined enormous thrills from a very slim Daphne du Maurier novella about nature gone to hell. If The Birds doesn’t have the psychological depth of some of the director’s other biggest hits, it’s a timeless showcase of his technical prowess. A mini masterpiece of tension sees a small army of birds gather on a climbing frame behind our unaware heroine. It makes you want to yell at the screen.

9. The 39 Steps (1935)

Though Hitchcock had been directing films for nearly a decade (his first film was The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog in 1926), The 39 Steps is his first masterpiece. Based on the 1915 adventure novel of the same name by John Buchan about an everyman civilian (Robert Donat) who is unwittingly entangled in an international espionage plot (wrongfully accused men forced to clear their names were a staple of Hitchcock's films), The 39 Steps was a smash hit in its day, and firmly established Hitchcock as the master of the thriller. In 1999, The British Film Institute ranked it as the fourth best British film of the 20th century.

8. The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Hitchcock’s penultimate film in his native Britain before a shift to Hollywood is the best work of this early period. Based on the 1936 novel The Wheel Spins, it’s a perfectly paced story about an English tourist (Margaret Lockwood) who stumbles into a conspiracy as she pursues a missing elderly travel companion. The Lady Vanishes blends humor, romance and suspense in even measure, comparable to North by Northwest. Hitchcock was always cognizant of the world around him, and The Lady Vanishes clearly depicts pre-war politics in the background.

7. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

The idea of pure evil hiding out in a small American town was novel in 1943—in Hitchcock’s favorite of his own films, co-written by Thornton Wilder. Shadow of a Doubt is still a deeply creepy film to this day, starring fresh-faced Teresa Wright as a young girl who slowly discovers her dear Uncle Charlie’s (Joseph Cotten) sinister past (spoiler: he’s a serial killer). It’s the most compelling hero-villain dynamic in all of Hitchcock’s work. Once again, Hitchcock freaks out the audience by getting a well-liked star to play against type as a twisted villain. Cotten is mesmerizing. Another innovation is the idyllic small-town American setting. This backdrop wasn’t exploited for horror until the slasher craze decades later, beginning with Halloween.

6. Strangers on a Train (1951)

A misunderstanding between a young tennis player (Farley Granger) and a charismatic psychopath (Robert Walker) leads to a swirling mess of murder and menace in one of Hitchcock's most stylish and perfectly paced thrill rides (the hair-raising finale, fittingly, takes place on an out-of-control carnival ride). Based on the 1950 Patricia Highsmith novel of the same name, Strangers had a somewhat mixed reception upon release, with some criticizing its sordid storyline, which was twisted even by Hitch's standards. It's also darkly hilarious. The film has aged beautifully, with Hitchcock's bold and dazzling stylistic choices picked apart in film schools across the world, and its edgy and morbid take on human nature has been reflected in more modern works like Fargo (film and TV series), A Simple Plan and Gone Girl.

5. Rear Window (1954)

In one of Hitchcock’s most influential fan favorites, Jimmy Stewart plays an injured photographer, who may or may not have witnessed a murder from his apartment window. Grace Kelly played many notable roles before an early retirement; this performance as fashionable socialite turned adventuress Lisa Carol Fremont is her most iconic. Thelma Ritter plays the scene-stealing visiting nurse. Hitchcock shot Stewart’s L.B. Jefferies spying on his neighbors in his signature POV style throughout the film. It’s a sometimes charming, sometimes chilling and uncomfortable look at voyeurism that essentially requires the audience to participate.

4. North By Northwest (1959)

Hitchcock often explored “wrong man” plots where innocent everymen accused of heinous crimes are racing to clear their names. The best of these is North by Northwest, a kinetic, set piece-laden precursor to the Bond series, with a hilarious, perfectly paced script by Ernest Lehman.

Adman Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) being trailed by a crop-dusting airplane in an open field is iconic—and so is Thornhill and Eve Kendall’s (Eva Marie Saint) foot chase down the crevices of Mount Rushmore. Jessie Royce Landis played Cary Grant’s mother in the movie, even though she was just eight years older than him. She also appeared with Grant in 1955’s To Catch a Thief.

3. Psycho (1960)

This is where modern horror begins. Based on the novel by Robert Bloch, Hitchcock’s most famous and most profitable thriller is about a young woman named Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) on the run with $40,000, who makes an unfortunate detour to the Bates Motel. Anthony Perkins delivers his most iconic role, the heartthrob playing against type as Norman Bates. Vera Miles plays Marion’s sister, Lila. The terrifying shower scene kills off our main character halfway through the film. It’s likely the most famous and analyzed sequence in film history. It’s even the subject of a feature-length documentary, 78/52.

2. Vertigo (1958)

If Psycho is Hitchcock’s most iconic film, Vertigo is perhaps his most critically admired, a work of layered genius. A tale of romantic obsession starred James Stewart—again against type—as a troubled private investigator, John “Scottie” Ferguson, who falls for a stunning blonde (Kim Novak) who’s obsessed with death. Barbara Bel Geddes plays “Midge,” Scottie’s best friend. Bernard Herrmann’s score heightens the atmosphere. Vertigo feels confessional, perhaps the master’s most personal picture. The “Vertigo effect” consists of moving the camera while zooming out—where the foreground stays in one position while the background grows or shrinks. It’s a Hitchcock method that’s used to this day.

1. Notorious (1946)

Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman are as radiant as movie stars can be in Hitchcock’s finest love story, an espionage picture about American spies infiltrating a ring of Nazi sympathizers in post-war South America. Notorious is more subtle than some of Hitchcock’s later work, but it’s as great a film as he ever made. Ben Hecht’s script presents a love triangle that’s just as compelling as the one in Casablanca, and far more sinister. Full of warm and gorgeous close-ups, innovative but never intrusive camera work, Notorious is pure cinema.

Hitchcock always had an appreciation for pushing the envelope—and the censors. An early scene gleefully skirts around the old censorship codes that banned on-screen kisses of more than three seconds, by having Grant and Bergman swap short smooches for nearly three minutes. Another remarkable crane shot takes the camera from a high ceiling directly into the palm of Bergman’s clenched hand (there’s an important key in that hand).