The most amazing thriller of all time.

Rating: 10/10 (29 March 2002)

I watched this movie for the very first time when I rented the DVD a few months ago. I had my 19-inch setting up on my dresser and the lights off in my bedroom. I pressed play and sat watching this movie for the whole two hours, completely absorbed as if I were in a theater or seeing this out of a window, the way Jimmy Stewart watches the goings-on in his neighborhood. I felt so tense watching it that it wasn't until I thought about it later that I realized there wasn't any violence in the movie, with the exception of the very end. I can't think of another film--or another director--that I'm that willing to play along with for that long, with the possible exceptions of Hitchcock's earlier Lifeboat (an underrated classic) or Seance on a Wet Afternoon. This is my absolute favorite Hitchcock movie, and one of Jimmy Stewart's finest performances. Easily a 10 out of 10.