PsychoFor all the slasher pictures that have ripped offPsycho(and  particularly its classic set piece, the "shower scene"), nothing has  ever matched the impact of the real thing. More than just a first-rate  shocker full of thrills and suspense,Psychois also an  engrossing character study in which director Alfred Hitchcock skillfully  seduces you into identifying with the main characters--then pulls the  rug (or the bathmat) out from under you. Anthony Perkins is  unforgettable as Norman Bates, the mama's boy proprietor of the Bates  Motel; and so is Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, who makes an impulsive  decision and becomes a fugitive from the law, hiding out at Norman's  roadside inn for one fateful night.--Jim EmersonRear WindowLike the Greenwich Village courtyard view from its titular portal, Alfred Hitchcock's classicRear Windowis both confined and multileveled: both its story and visual  perspective are dictated by its protagonist's imprisonment in his  apartment, convalescing in a wheelchair, from which both he and the  audience observe the lives of his neighbors. Cheerful voyeurism, as well  as the behavior glimpsed among the various tenants, affords a droll  comic atmosphere that gradually darkens when he sees clues to what may  be a murder.Photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries (James Stewart) is, in  fact, a voyeur by trade, a professional photographer sidelined by an  accident while on assignment. His immersion in the human drama (and  comedy) visible from his window is a by-product of boredom, underlined  by the disapproval of his girlfriend, Lisa (Grace Kelly), and a  wisecracking visiting nurse (Thelma Ritter). Yet when the invalid wife  of Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) disappears, Jeff enlists the two women  to help him to determine whether she's really left town, as Thorwald  insists, or been murdered.Hitchcock scholar Donald Spoto  convincingly argues that the crime at the center of this mystery is the  MacGuffin--a mere pretext--in a film that's more interested in the  implications of Jeff's sentinel perspective. We actually learn more  about the lives of the other neighbors (given generic names by Jeff,  even as he's drawn into their lives) he, and we, watch undetected than  we do the putative murderer and his victim. Jeff's evident fear of  intimacy and commitment with the elegant, adoring Lisa provides the  other vital thread to the script, one woven not only into the couple's  own relationship, but reflected and even commented upon through the  various neighbors' lives.At minimum, Hitchcock's skill at making  us accomplices to Jeff's spying, coupled with an ingenious escalation  of suspense as the teasingly vague evidence coalesces into ominous  proof, deliver a superb thriller spiked with droll humor, right up to  its nail-biting, nightmarish climax. At deeper levels, however,Rear Windowplumbs issues of moral responsibility and emotional honesty, while  offering further proof (were any needed) of the director's brilliance as  a visual storyteller.--Sam SutherlandNorth By NorthwestA strong candidate for the most sheerly entertaining and enjoyable movie ever made by a Hollywood studio (withCitizen Kane,Only Angels Have WingsandTrouble in Paradiserunning neck and neck). Positioned between the much heavier and more profoundly disturbingVertigo(1958) and the stark horror ofPsycho(1960),North by Northwest(1959) is Alfred Hitchcock at his most effervescent in a romantic  comedy-thriller that also features one of the definitive Cary Grant  performances. Which is not to say that this is just "Hitchcock Lite";  seminal Hitchcock critic Robin Wood (in his book Hitchcock's Films  Revisited) makes an airtight case for this glossy MGM production as one  of The Master's "unbroken series of masterpieces from Vertigo to  Marnie." It's a classic Hitchcock Wrong Man scenario: Grant is Roger O.  Thornhill (initials ROT), an advertising executive who is mistaken by  enemy spies for a U.S. undercover agent named George Kaplan. Convinced  these sinister fellows (James Mason as the boss, and Martin Landau as  his henchman) are trying to kill him, Roger flees and meets a sexy  Stranger on a Train (Eva Marie Saint), with whom he engages in one of  the longest, most convolutedly choreographed kisses in screen history.  And, of course, there are the famous set pieces: the stabbing at the  United Nations, the crop-duster plane attack in the cornfield (where a  pedestrian has no place to hide), and the cliffhanger finale atop the  stone faces of Mount Rushmore. Plus a sparkling Ernest Lehman script and  that pulse-quickening Bernard Herrmann score. What more could a  moviegoer possibly desire?--Jim EmersonVertigoAlthough it wasn't a box-office success when originally released in 1958,Vertigohas since taken its deserved place as Alfred Hitchcock's greatest, most  spellbinding, most deeply personal achievement. In fact, it  consistently ranks among the top 10 movies ever made in the  once-a-decadeSight & Soundinternational critics poll,  placing at number 4 in the 1992 survey. (Universal Pictures'  spectacularly gorgeous 1996 restoration and rerelease of this 1958  Paramount production was a tremendous success with the public, too.)  James Stewart plays a retired police detective who is hired by an old  friend to follow his wife (a superb Kim Novak, in what becomes a double  role), whom he suspects of being possessed by the spirit of a dead  madwoman. The detective and the disturbed woman fall ("fall" is indeed  the operative word) in love and...well, to give away any more of the  story would be criminal. Shot around San Francisco (the Golden Gate  Bridge and the Palace of the Legion of Honor are significant locations)  and elsewhere in Northern California (the redwoods, Mission San Juan  Batista) in rapturous Technicolor,Vertigois as lovely as it is haunting.--Jim EmersonBirdsVacationing in northern California, Alfred Hitchcock was struck by a  story in a Santa Cruz newspaper: "Seabird Invasion Hits Coastal Homes."  From this peculiar incident, and his memory of a short story by Daphne  du Maurier, the master of suspense created one of his strangest and most  terrifying films.The Birdsfollows a chic blonde, Melanie  Daniels (Tippi Hedren), as she travels to the coastal town of Bodega Bay  to hook up with a rugged fellow (Rod Taylor) she's only just met.  Before long the town is attacked by marauding birds, and Hitchcock's  skill at staging action is brought to the fore. Beyond the superb  effects, however,The Birdsis also one of Hitchcock's most  psychologically complicated scenarios, a tense study of violence,  loneliness, and complacency. What really gets under your skin are not  the bird skirmishes but the anxiety and the eerie quiet between attacks.  The director elevated an unknown model, Tippi Hedren (mother of Melanie  Griffith), to being his latest cool, blond leading lady, an experience  that was not always easy on the much-pecked Ms. Hedren. Still, she  returned for the next Hitchcock picture, the underratedMarnie. Treated with scant attention by serious critics in 1963,The Birdshas grown into a classic and--despite the sci-fi trappings--one of Hitchcock's most serious films.--Robert Horton