It’s possible to spend an entire lifetime trawling the works of Alfred Hitchcock. The master of suspense made almost 70 films and TV shows across his staggering, more-than-half-a-century-long career, graduating from black-and-white, silent British potboilers to full-blown, Technicolor Hollywood blockbusters. Among them were countless era-defining releases that are still among the best movies ever made—of any genre—from the haunting Rebecca to the gripping Rear Window, and the ravishing Vertigo to the hair-raising Psycho.
It’s a crime, then, that the auteur never won a competitive Oscar for his efforts, despite five nominations. When he was eventually awarded a lifetime achievement award, in true Hitchcock fashion, he accepted the consolation prize with one of the shortest Academy Award speeches in history, simply saying, “Thank you… very much indeed,” before walking off the stage.
His films had the same winking sense of humor, as well as copious twists, remarkable performances, dazzling visuals, and sensational costuming—elegantly sported by icy blondes including Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint, and Tippi Hedren—much of which was crafted by industry legend Edith Head.
As spooky season approaches, there’s no better time than now to revisit these classic nail-biters—and revel in their impeccable period styling.
The Lodger (1927)
The true marker of Hitch’s genius? That he could terrify you with something as lo-fi as this silent, black-and-white thriller, only his third feature film, made at 27. It casts the prolific Ivor Novello as a man suspected of being a notorious murderer terrorizing blondes in London, and June Tripp as the model who falls for him regardless. Also featuring the director’s first onscreen cameo—soon to be a regular occurrence—it put him firmly on the map.
Blackmail (1929)
A sophisticated young Londoner (Anny Ondra)—all cloche hats, golden ringlets, and sumptuous coats—commits an unspeakable (but perhaps necessary?) crime in this highly tense follow-up, which also happens to be the first British sound film ever made. From its use of allusive shadows to the intensely creepy music, and a frantic, British Museum-set denouement to the delicious final shot, it’ll leave your nerves in tatters.
The 39 Steps (1935)
The director’s most widely seen early work is this charming crowd-pleaser—a fleet-footed crime caper, in which Robert Donat is another prototypical Wrong Man™ on the run in the misty Scottish Highlands. He soon makes an unwilling accomplice of Madeleine Carroll’s stylish, sharp-tongued love interest, who with her wit, grit, and intelligence is more than his match.
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
My favorite Hitchcock heroine is not one of the icy-blonde glittering objects of the filmmaker’s later years, but Margaret Lockwood’s spunky, no-nonsense, good-time gal Iris in this quintessentially British romp. She befriends a kindly elderly woman (May Whitty) on a train, only to find later that she’s vanished—and the other passengers all deny ever seeing her. Exempt from this mass gaslighting is Michael Redgrave, as a musicologist who becomes the Watson to her Sherlock and falls for her in the process. It’s a riot that caught the eye of Hollywood and sent Hitch stratospheric. The rest, as they say, is history.
Rebecca (1940)
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” So begins one of the greatest books (the Daphne du Maurier novel of the same name) and literary adaptations of all time, the latter starring a captivatingly delicate Joan Fontaine as our unnamed heroine, who marries Laurence Olivier’s emotionally turbulent widower. Now ensconced in his grand Cornish country pile, she’s tormented by her terrifying housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers (an extraordinary Judith Anderson), George Sanders’s conniving distant relative, and the legacy of the charismatic titular first wife whose shoes she must now fill. Rebecca rightfully won the Oscar for best picture—the first and only one of Hitchcock’s films to do so.
Suspicion (1941)
Fontaine returns to play another shrinking violet who grows a backbone, this time opposite Cary Grant’s reckless playboy, in this slippery portrait of an heiress who becomes convinced that her husband is trying to murder her. The scene in which he comes upstairs to deliver a glass of milk, which she suspects is poisoned, is alone enough to give you nightmares.
Spellbound (1945)
Best remembered for its trippy dream sequence—designed by Salvador Dalí, no less—this Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck romance finds Hitch in a softer, more sentimental mode, though no less effective. She is a psychoanalyst, he the troubled colleague she’s in love with—despite the fact that he’s suffering from amnesia and convinced that he’s killed a man. Cue a perilous race to uncover the truth before their world collapses around them.
Notorious (1946)
Then it’s Bergman and Grant who team up, for this spy saga following a secret agent who recruits the razor-sharp daughter of a German war criminal to infiltrate a circle of Nazis hiding out in Brazil in the wake of World War II. Their chemistry is electric and her undercover wardrobe of embellished suiting, ball gowns, and extravagant jewelry simply stunning.
Stage Fright (1950)
From the elaborately feathered robes, tulle showstoppers, bejewelled strapless gowns, and wasp-waisted suiting to the incredibly chic mourning gear, Christian Dior himself outfitted a doll-like Marlene Dietrich for this twisty noir. A flamboyant West End singer accused of killing her husband, she’s every bit as glamorous as you’d expect.
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Guy Haines (Farley Granger), an unhappily married tennis star, meets smooth-talking stranger Bruno Antony (Robert Walker), who proposes a pact: the latter will kill the former’s wife (Kasey Rogers), freeing him up to marry his new love (Ruth Roman), if Guy murders Bruno’s hateful father (Jonathan Hale) in exchange. Bonus points for the eerie amusement park sequence, a very stressful tennis match, and Hitchcock’s daughter, Pat, providing some welcome comic relief.
Dial M for Murder (1954)
This single-location chamber piece is the best kind of Hitchcockian stage play. Grace Kelly, in her first collaboration with the director, is resplendent in red lace, prim suiting, and, in the film’s most crucial scenes, an air-light white nightgown as a moneyed socialite in the midst of an illicit affair. Her husband (Ray Milland) has cottoned on, though, and arranged to have her strangled in their flat while he’s out. However, he underestimates her at his peril.
Rear Window (1954)
Kelly’s Lisa Carol Fremont, a fashion obsessive who sports big-skirted ball gowns, black silk organza, slinky white halter necks, and silk negligees straight off the Paris plane, is easily one of Hitch’s most elegant heroines. Dressed by the formidable Edith Head—and never in the same look twice—she also makes her comparatively low-key, off-duty uniform of loafers, rolled-up jeans, and a crisp shirt look highly desirable by the end. It’s almost enough to distract you from the drama masterfully playing out around her: her photojournalist boyfriend (James Stewart) is convinced he’s seen a murder being committed from the window of his Greenwich Village apartment.
To Catch a Thief (1955)
The most fashionable Hitchcock film of all time, however, is probably this sun-soaked sojourn to the South of France. Kelly returns as another bored socialite, in more of Head’s brilliant designs: a white strapless showstopper, blue chiffon, giant hats, printed dresses worn for cliffside picnics, and a gold lamé number for the finale. In Breton stripes and red neckerchiefs, her screen partner Cary Grant, in turn, is perhaps the most conspicuous cat burglar on the planet.
Vertigo (1958)
Kim Novak’s dual role as the ghostly Madeleine Elster and, later, working girl Judy Barton required her to float from gray skirt suits, cream coats, and a black silk opera gown to more brightly colored ’50s prep (and back again) in Hitch’s greatest masterpiece. Deeply atmospheric, enchanting, and then shocking, there’s still nothing quite like it.
North by Northwest (1959)
Eva Marie Saint then takes up the Hitchcock-blonde mantle in this Cary Grant-led, almost Bond-esque classic as the beautiful accomplice to his innocent man on the run. In her floral shifts and neat skirt suits, this femme fatale can do it all—including climb down Mount Rushmore in stilettos.
Psycho (1960)
Cinema audiences in the ’60s were shocked to see Janet Leigh in a white bra in the film’s opening sequence, but they had no idea what was coming: a deep dive into the demented mind of Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) with jaw-dropping twists, an iconic shower scene, and a spine-chilling Bernard Herrmann score that would forever change movie history. It resulted in record box-office earnings and people fainting in the aisles.
The Birds (1963)
What else do you wear to navigate a sudden avian war in coastal California but a mint green skirt suit that matches your recently purchased love birds? Tippi Hedren is a vision in this blood-splattered cautionary tale, which is guaranteed to transform the way you see our feathered friends for the rest of your life.
Marnie (1964)
Equally refined is Hedren’s titular grifter, who is pursued by Sean Connery’s publishing tycoon in this disturbing, murky mystery. A horse girl who likes creamy knits and slim trousers for riding and ’60s shifts, pussy-bow blouses, and skirt suits for making off with her employers’ funds, she’s a chameleonic enigma no one can quite pin down.
