Alfred Hitchcock Films Ranked
15. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
Whenever people have a go at Hollywood for only doing remakes now, they never seem to criticise the good ones. It’s only an awful trend when the films are awful. They certainly never bring up this film, a remake by Alfred Hitchcock of his own thriller from two decades earlier.
The plot is fairly much the same, with a man given information by a dying spy about an assassination attempt upcoming in London, with his child kidnapped to try and keep him silent until the killing has taken place.
Hitchcock described the first version as being made by a talented amateur, and this one by a professional filmmaker. People may agree or disagree which version is better, but Doris Day’s incredible performance outshines even cinematic powerhouse James Stewart, with an evocative and tear-stricken strength allowing her to carry the film almost by herself. The direction is slick, the humour wonderful, the change from a ski lodge to Marrakesh curious but not harmful.
It unfortunately now lacks Peter Lorre’s memorable villain, and the film is just a little too long, the right length for the film being somewhere between the two versions; but who really cares? It’s still an incredibly entertaining few hours, with Hitchcock managing to polish up some scenes and deliver a new, slightly better version of his first runaway international success.
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14. The 39 Steps (1935)
1934’s The Man Who Knew Too Much was Alfred Hitchcock’s biggest success to that date. The year after, he adapted John Buchan’s successful and influential novel, “The Thirty-Nine Steps”, into his next film, doubling down on the thriller genre as his wheelhouse of choice and cementing his status as the Master of Suspense.
With a secret agent murdered in his London flat, Richard Hannay (played by future Oscar-winner Robert Donat) must hurry to the Scottish highlands to solve the agent’s mysteries, evading the police and strange killers after him for what he might know about the mysterious 39 Steps.
Thrilling from the word go, the director pulls no punches. All of the trademarks are here, from the blend of suspense and comedy, the wrong man trope, the big set pieces, the woman with a secret; it’s a package of supreme skill and deftness. The expressionist moments of foggy mountains and dark, sinister hallways full of shadows are perfectly complemented by scenes of incredible humour.
Richard and Pamela’s time at the hotel, trying to disguise being handcuffed together, is a beautiful blend of tension and terrific humour. The main villain sets the template for all Bond villains to come, and the chase across the highlands with the biplane circling overhead would be brought out again in North by Northwest nearly 25 years later. The odd scene or two here and there might not be exactly correct, but The 39 Steps is still one of the all-time classics of action, adventure, spies and suspense.
13. Dial M for Murder (1954)
Judging some of Alfred Hitchcock’s films is an almost impossible task. To many, it would be their crowning achievement, but in Hitchcock’s vast oeuvre, many wonderfully made films are simply in the upper echelons of a second tier. Dial M For Murder is one of those films.
Grace Kelly makes her first appearance for Hitchcock as the wife of a former tennis star ready to murder her in this adaptation of Frederick Knott’s stage play – a film with a few niggling issues but still an absolute blast.
Taking place almost entirely in the rooms of a single apartment, the film received mixed reviews at the time for being simply what it is; a televised stage-play. And to their credit, there is an argument to be made for the film being incredibly un-Hitchcockian in the sheer volume of dialogue, with almost everything being given up by talking. It’s a very talky picture.
Yet there’s still an incredible score by Dimitri Tiomkin, great performances (especially from Grace Kelly, as would come to be expected), and the murder scene is so incredibly well-directed even all these years later that it still gets the hairs going up on the back of your neck. The issue with the numerous housekeys gets a bit back-and-forth near the end, but it doesn’t dent the film’s reputation too much.
Dial M for Murder is a flawed gem of a picture in this great film director’s extensive back catalogue.
12. Spellbound (1945)
“Our story deals with psychoanalysis, the method by which modern science treats the emotional problems of the sane.” So says the opening scrolling text to this influential but often-forgotten thriller, starring the inimitable talents of both Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. There are hidden identities, romances, dreams and nightmares, and a villain to be uncovered. It’s all top-class Alfred Hitchcock.
What separates this from the other films in Hitchcock’s oeuvre, however, is the incredible and influential dream sequence created by notorious surrealist artist, Salvador Dalí. It’s wacky and strange and bizarre, but it perfectly fits the strange world of the film.
Bergman and Peck are beautifully romantic in the way only the best stars of Hollywood’s golden age can be, despite all the shadows and menacing threats behind the scenes. Even if sometimes it slows down a little, Hitchcock even makes the slower sections entertaining.
Spellbound is not perfect, but it is certainly a spellbinding time.
11. Strangers on a Train (1951)
Before writing The Talented Mr Ripley and its sequels, Patricia Highsmith wrote a 1950 novel titled “Strangers on a Train”. Alfred Hitchcock adapted it, getting the rights for a lower fee by hiding his name from the bid, and it has gone on to be one of the best adaptations of Highsmith’s works.
Meeting on a train at the story’s beginning, tennis player Guy (Farley Granger) bumps into Bruno (played by Robert Walker in his second-to-last film role). With Guy in a public breakup with his wife, and Bruno disliking his father, Bruno offers to swap murders, each getting away with the other one. Guy doesn’t take it seriously, until the body turns up.
Hitchcock and Farley must be praised for some astonishing moments, including the murder reflected in the broken glasses, and the famous carousel finale. However, most of the weight of the praise must go to Walker’s portrayal of Bruno, one of the greatest psychopaths ever put to screen. Charming on the outside but utterly dead behind the eyes, he is one of the ultimate noir villains, completely chilling in his every mannerism and relentless in his pursuit of Guy. Cinematographer Robert Burks might have had the Oscar nomination for his stunning black and white photography, but the real crime is the lack of nomination for Walker.
Wonderfully thrilling right from its first moments, Strangers on a Train is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s best films; one that the hardcore noir fans know, but one that generally finds itself tucked away from the eyes of the masses.
I think this might be your magnum opus! Personally I’d put The Trouble with Harry Higher, but hard to argue with many in your top 10, particularly the criminally underrated Shadow of a Doubt.
About the top half are films that if they appeared in the top 10 you’d find it hard to argue, annoyingly for someone trying to rank them.