Alfred Hitchcock developed his own unique style, and many other filmmakers have taken inspiration from his crime thrillers over the years. The term “Hitchcockian” describes any movie which bears the hallmarks of Hitchcock’s work. No such term exists for most other directors, which just goes to show how original and immediately identifiable Hitchcock’s classics are. The Master of Suspense is still inspiring filmmakers long after his death.
Hitchcock’s biggest hits share certain visual motifs, including blonde women, famous landmarks and the use of staircases as visual metaphors. His stories often shared some key ideas too, such as wrongly accused men, voyeurism and twisted family dynamics. These common themes helped Hitchcock’s movies stand out, and they became their own subgenre in a way. Other directors pay homage to Hitchcock by using his visual quirks to delve into his favorite subjects.
20 Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies, Ranked
Alfred Hitchcock directed over 50 feature-length movies, and his best thrillers are still just as suspenseful and terrifying decades later.
Many ofDavid Fincher’s best moviesshow that he’s a keen disciple of Alfred Hitchcock. Both directors have done some of their best work in the crime genres, and they often focus on the psychology of evil and criminality.Se7en,ZodiacandFight Cluball have elements of Hitchcock’s style, with big plot twists, charismatic everyman protagonists and cold-blooded villains.
Gone Girlstars Rosamund Pike as a woman who suddenly vanishes, leaving her husband as the prime suspect in her disappearance. She’s the kind of sophisticated platinum blonde who Hitchcock would have put in one of his movies, but her actions make her seem more similar to his most famous villains.There are several allusions to Norman Bates inGone Girl, from the shot of blood trickling down a drain to Amy’s nonchalant response to questioning.
Like David Fincher, Brain De Palma is another director who seems to have been particularly inspired by Alfred Hitchcock. While Hitchcock’s influence on the crime genre is impossible to ignore,few directors have followed in his footsteps quite like De Palma.Sistershas a lot in common withVertigo,not least the score by frequent Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Hermann.Blow Outis another clear product of Hitchcockian influences, as it features an everyman caught up in a dangerous criminal plot.
Body Doublerefers to many Hitchcock classics.De Palma isn’t shy about his admiration for movies likeRear WindowandVertigo,andBody Doublehas the same themes of voyeurism and obsession from these two classics. Like these older movies,Body Doublegoes deep enough to reflect the audience’s same impulses, and it uses a flawed character as a stand-in for crime movie fans who fixate on moments of violence. The other allusions to Hitchcock serve this central point.
Alfred Hitchcock was originally interested in directingLes Diaboliques,but Henri-Georges Clouzot was the one who optioned the rights to Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac’s novel. It’s easy to see why Hitchcock felt that the story suited his style. It follows a woman who conspires with her husband’s mistress to murder her husband.Elements of the movie would later influencePsycho, which came out five years later.
At the timeLes Diaboliquescame out, it was much darker than anything Hitchcock had directed.Despite this difference, it still contains many of the classic hallmarks of Hitchcock’s style, with two characters being psychologically tormented, striking musical accompaniment, and the use of long shadows to create an ominous sense of danger. It also has a twist ending that rivals the best Hithcock has to offer.
Agatha Christie and Alfred Hitchcock were both luminaries of crime fiction in the 20th century, but they often approached their stories from different angles. Christie’s most popular stories were whodunnit mysteries, usually featuring a large cast of potential suspects and one wily sleuth to sort the facts from the fraud. Hitchcock, on the other hand, liked to give his audience more information, creating a sense of dramatic irony that added to the tension.
Witness for the Prosecutionis one Christie story that feels like it may have suited Hitchcock’s tastes. UnlikeAnd Then There Were NoneorMurder On the Orient Express, for example, the mystery has just one potential suspect, and it’s all about the tension of characters trying to ascertain one another’s motives in an intense scenario.Billy Wilder’s adaptation shows what a Hitchcock version of a Christie story might have looked like, complete with a brilliantly executed plot twist.
A common rumor suggests that Alfred Hitchcock was approached to directFrom Russia With Love,along with several otherJamesBondmovies. While Terence Young eventually took on directing duties for the secondBondmovie, it still bears many of the hallmarks of Hitchcock’s style. Hitchcock made a great spy movie years before Bond, withNorth by Northwest, andFrom Russia With Loveseems to be influenced by the Cary Grant-led thriller.
From Russia With Loveremains one of thebestJames Bondmovies, thanks in part to the elements of Hitchcock that come into the story. There are some superficial Hitchcockian motifs, like Daniela Bianchi’s blonde bombshell and the use of an iconic landmark in the Hagia Sophia, but there are also deeper themes that Hitchcock might have deployed. Once the action moves onto the train,From Russia With Lovebecomes a Hitchcockian murder mystery.The most obvious reference toNorth by Northwestis the helicopter chase, which mimics the iconic cropduster scene.
Parasiteis a wry social satire, but it gets darker and darker as it progresses. The Oscar-winner follows a working-class family as they slowly embed themselves into the lives of their more affluent neighbors.It’s a sort of subverted Hitchcock tale.Whereas one of his movies might focus on an unsuspecting family being torn apart by outsiders, likeShadow of a Doubt,Parasitesees things from the perspective of the outsiders.
Parasite’s brilliant script bears many similarities to Hitchcock’s work, but Bong’s directing style also borrows a few techniques. From the gorgeous design of the house to the close-ups of the protagonists,Parasiteresembles some of Hitchcock’s best movies.The third act gets increasingly dark and dangerous, just like many Hitchcock thrillers, as the Kim family discover the disturbing secrets propping up the Park family’s life of luxury.
Alfred Hitchcock mastered thesingle-location moviewithRope, LifeboatandRear Window.While there have been plenty of other movies that don’t necessarily copy from the Hitchcock playbook, like12 Angry MenandThe Breakfast Club,others certainly have a distinct Hitchcockian flavor.While Hitchcock’s one-room dramas used the limited setting to heap extra pressure onto the characters,Insideuses the same technique to torture just one character.
Willem Dafoe delivers a captivating performance inInside.He plays a thief who is abandoned by the rest of his team and left for dead inside an expensive penthouse apartment. His performance is part of what keeps the action moving despite the location never changing, but director Vasilis Katsoupis' framing choices are also important.Like Hitchcock, he constantly finds new ways to shoot the same man in the same room, and the shot composition often reflects the thief’s state of mind.
Shutter Islandisn’t the only Martin Scorsese movie that seems to draw inspiration from the work of Alfred Hitchcock. Scorsese is a true student of the history of cinema, and his best movies also nod to Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman and other groundbreaking directors.Cape Fearhas the same sense of psychological horror invading a happy household as seen in some Hitchcock movies, andTaxi Driveris a classic tale of crime and obsession.
Shutter Islandmay be Scorsese’s most Hitchcockian movie of all, and the period setting helps sell this illusion. The story uses the subjective camera, and this is extended to the script. It’s all about what is shown and what isn’t shown to the audience, so that they are left in the same puzzled state as Leonardo DiCaprio’s character.Shutter Island’s shocking endingalso provides a twist that Hitchcock would be proud of,and the style is comparable toPsychoandVertigoin particular.
Oscar-nomineeAnatomy of a Fallis a courtroom drama, but it also dives into the investigation of a man’s death. Sandra Hüller plays a woman accused of killing her husband, and she delivers an outstanding performance.Anatomy of a Fallhas a simplistic set-up just likeAlfred Hitchcock’s best murder mysteries, includingRopeandShadow of a Doubt.Its closest equal is probablyDial M for Murder,however.
Like inDial M for Murder,the investigation inAnatomy of a Fallhinges on the most minute details. InDial M for Murder,it’s the whereabouts of a key, and inAnatomy of a Fallthere are things like the different textures of pieces of tape.Both movies make these details feel lively and fascinating, when lesser directors could easily render them too mundane.Theambiguous ending ofAnatomy of a Falllets the audience decide for themselves whether Sandra is guilty or innocent.
Park Chan-wook’sDecision to Leaveis a modern Hitchcockian thriller, taking many of the director’s most common motifs and reimagining them for the 21st century. Tang Wei’s femme fatale is more dangerous than Eve inNorth by Northwestand Judy inVertigo,as she becomes both a love interest and a villain. Park Hae-il’s troubled detective could also be seen as an evolution of John inSpellboundor Jeff inRear Window.
Decision to Leaveis a story of obsession and deceit, with two characters with their own secrets. Park entices his audience in for a closer look, but many of the key details are left frustratingly out of reach until precisely the right moment. Many of the framing choices seem to take a leaf out of Hitchcock’s book, contrasting moments of serenity with moments of conflict. Above all,Decision to Leaveproves thatHitchcock’s movies continue to inspire filmmakers decades later, and they are still being interpreted in new and interesting ways.
