Were he alive today, the Master of Suspense, Sir Alfred Hitchcock, would be 116. With over 50 films to his name spanning from silent films to talkies, black and white to colored, and in first Britain and then later America, Hitchcock was a true auteur. So many of the modern thriller and horror contraptions we’ve come to expect were devised by this brilliant man.  That frustrating mystery decoy, the MacGuffin, the hilarious—and rather meta—directorial cameo, and Hitch even discovered the appeal of the voyeuristic vantage point long before Bravo was shoving Real Housewives and Kardashians down our throats.

On his day of birth, we give thanks for a man who tapped into the very core of human nature, causing us to squeal, scream, gasp, jump, and “a-ha!” No one has raised hairs or provoked goosebumps as often or as well as the Master. And by way of thanks we’ve racked our brains and cast our votes to definitively rank the ten best films of Alfred Hitchcock. Whether you’re new to Hitch yourself or trying to decide how to introduce him best to your children, we say you start here. Just keep the lights on and prepare the edge of your seat, you’ll be sitting there a while.

One of Alfred Hitchcock’s finest works is also one of his most spatially confined. The first in his oeuvre to be shot in color and most notable for its use of the one take illusion, Rope tells the story of two young intellectuals who strangle their friend to death and hide his body in a chest prior to hosting a dinner party in the very same room where the corpse lies. The act is deemed “an immaculate murder” by one of the men involved and the Master of Suspense stages the aftermath beautifully, setting the whole affair in one apartment unit. Every frame carries the tension of whether or not the conspirators will break and Arthur Laurents’ script playfully alludes to the increasingly apparent elephant in the room through dialogue that is both darkly comedic and slyly referential. The film is gripping in its “will they or won’t they be caught” premise, but Rope truly impresses with its nuanced navigation of homosexual subtext as well as the theme of theoretical principles being twisted into wicked, irreversible deeds. [Byron]

One of the few traditional horror movies in Hitchcock’s filmography, The Birds is the godfather of modern nature-run-amok films. Marred only by some now-dated special effects, the suspense sequences in The Birds hold up remarkably well, and the scene of the schoolchildren being attacked by the violent airborne creatures is especially unsettling. In the hands of anyone else, The Birds was bound to fail, but Hitchcock approached the subject matter with such seriousness that it manages to work almost in spite of itself. It may not be his best film, but it could very well be his most impressive. [Blair]

One of Hitchcock’s more twisted crime mysteries is in fact amazingly simplistic in its scope. A posh ex-tennis player, Tony, discovers his socialite wife, Margot, is having an affair with a writer, Mark, and plots to have her murdered. Using one of his signature techniques, the majority of the action takes place within Tony and Margot’s sitting room. Tony blackmails an old college acquaintance to do the murdering and in a hair-raising scene he sneaks into her house and attempts to strangle her. What none of them expect is that Margot has more fight in her than they imagined. As a filmed adaptation of a play, the stakes never feel all that high, but Hitch gets around this with his attention to detail. He lingers on objects and plays with our sentiments toward each character. It’s the perfect example of Hitchcock’s ability to carefully build a mystery and then piece by piece deconstruct it, and the process is a slow and simmering thrill to experience. [Ananda]

Notorious> is a film so pulsating with sexual tension, rich imagery, forbidden romance and drunken desire that it’s almost too much to handle; watch it in the right environment and you’re liable to burst. It’s one of Hitchcock’s finest works (his finest in my book), an international spy romance starring Ingrid Bergman in her greatest role alongside Casablanca. Matching her greatness is Cary Grant, a U.S. agent who recruits Bergman to infiltrate a spy ring in Rio de Janeiro and get intimate with its leader (Claude Rains). The love triangle that emerges is the best in movie history, full of innuendo and jealous glances, all framed by a plot so well constructed it rivals any of Hitchcock’s more popular classics (even Vertigo and Rear Window). Filmmaking doesn’t get more elegant than watching Grant and Bergman descend that grand staircase at the end of the film, and it doesn’t get steamier than watching them lock lips in what was, at the time, “the longest kiss in the history of movies.” [Bernard]

Perhaps Shadow Of A Doubt has become more famous for being Hitchcock’s personal favorite than for the sum of its parts, but that feels grossly unfair to what is, essentially, a masterpiece. When Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) announces a surprise visit to his family in the small town of Santa Rosa, his niece and namesake Charlotte “Charlie” (Teresa Wright) is ecstatic. However, it’s not long before she starts to suspect her uncle of being the “Merry Widow” serial killer, and the plot unravels in the kind of hair-raisingly suspenseful way that would later become synonymous with Alfred Hitchcock’s name. In a rare twist of classic Hollywood convention, the leading man in this picture ends up being one of Hitchcock’s most memorable villains. Boasting the most opulent cinematography of any Hitchcock film (by Joseph Valentine), ridiculously immersive characterization of a small family unit, and a supremely original male-female dynamic that inspired Cotten’s and Wright’s mesmerizing performances; it’s easy to see why Hitchcock loved it so much. That slow-burning close-up of Cotten describing widows as “wheezing animals” is everything. [Nik]

Hitchcock’s paranoia-fueled tale of a man trapped in his apartment with delusions of murderous neighbors is my all-time favorite of his works. Jimmy Stewart’s wheelchair-bound photographer Jeff is the vehicle through which Hitchcock traps his audience into forced suspense. Through Jeff’s camera lens, we watch his various neighbors, and through his journalistic inquisitiveness and voyeuristic nature we start to see the same suspicious signs he does. His, at first, hairbrained schemes of murder by his neighbor across the way (played with perfect intensity by Raymond Burr) become more and more plausible the longer he (and we) watch from the darkened window of his apartment. With the bustling sounds of New York City providing a sort of humming background, Jeff’s neighbors live out their lives through their windows like a puppet show for his amusement, but as the truth of the danger he puts himself in by prying becomes clearer, it is Jeff who becomes the puppet, confined to his one room stage, and the denouement of Rear Window is by far among the most uncomfortably riveting of Hitchcock’s career. [Ananda]

Hitchcock’s timeless tale of exchanging murders poses a question that we’ve all asked ourselves, and in the process truly shows off the director’s mastery. Hitchcock constantly found ways to make even his most villainous characters empathetic, and that’s precisely what makes Strangers on a Train such an immensely engaging film. Despite being an abhorrent, sociopathic murderer, Bruno Anthony is strangely charming. Robert Walker approaches the role brilliantly, opposite the criminally underrated Farley Granger, who plays a perfect patsy in the form of Guy Haines. Over sixty years and countless viewings later, Strangers on a Train remains one of the most suspenseful movies of all time. [Blair]

Mistaken identity was part of Hitchcock’s arsenal as early as 1935’s The 39 Steps, but it reached iconic heights (literally and figuratively) in 1959’s North By Northwest. New York ad-man Roger Thornhill (Master of Swag, Cary Grant) is mistaken for a government agent by villainous spy Philip Vandamm (a perfect James Mason), and finds himself running for his life cross-country whilst falling hard for Eva Marie Saint’s mysterious blonde beauty Eve Kendall. The film is infamous for its action scenes, especially a bamboozled Grant barely escaping from an evil crop-duster in the middle of nowhere, so it’s easy to overlook the sly sense of humor on constant display and one of the greatest screenplays Hitchcock ever directed (written by the legendary Ernest Lehman). Without a single frame wasted, and a kind of cinematic rhythm that holds the answer to defeating time itself, there’s no mistaking North by Northwest as one of the master’s very best. [Nik]

When we think about Psycho, we think of its iconic scenes. The infamous shower sequence. The shocking twist. That unsettling final inner monologue in which the audience stares directly into the face of evil. As undeniably memorable as those moments are, though, Psycho is notable for more than its permeation of popular culture. Beginning as a tale of a woman absconding with a bag of money, the film deftly transitions into a very different kind of story, centering on a young man, his mother, a motel and a trail of disappearances. With his intelligent use of editing (cleverly obscuring grotesqueries while still managing to disturb), a discerning eye for darkly connotative imagery and a perfectly paced progression of terror, Hitchcock took B-movie material and made it into art. A watershed moment in horror cinema and a catalyst for the modern slasher movie, Psycho legitimized the genre and remains a vastly influential work 55 years on. [Byron]

In the darkest corners of Hitchcock’s mind hid his deepest, wildest obsessions and fears; with Vertigo, he digs them out, slaps them together and forms with his hands the purest expression of his true self he’s ever shared with the world. It’s a pretty, prickly thing that sends you into a state of paranoid euphoria, lusting after its beauty as you drown in cold sweats. As we become more and more immersed in the headspace of Jimmy Stewart’s Scottie as he chases the spectre of the quintessential icy blonde (embodied by Kim Novak) around San Francisco, we are stepping into Hitch’s very own shoes. As in most of his stories, his leading man is his proxy, and the dizzying fever dream that is Scottie’s pursuit is his way of saying, “This is me. All of me.” It’s all there: his debilitating fear of the police; his manipulative relationship with women; his resentment of the real world and its cruelty. Hitchcock much preferred the world of dreams. In his greatest shot, Novak walks slowly toward Stewart in a lonely hotel room, wading through an otherworldly neon green light. The image is paralyzing. Hitchcock is known for being less than kind to his icy blondes, but in this moment, he feels her pain. Good filmmakers take you on a leisurely stroll through the garden of the mind; great filmmakers drag you through the brambles. By this measure, Hitch was the greatest. [Bernard]

Since April starts with people getting fooled, Way Too Indie has decided to end the month by asking its writers when they’ve been fooled by a film. Plot twists have been popular in films for ages, and for good reason. Audiences love when a film manages to successfully pull one over on them, and when done well enough, the film can cement its place in cinematic history. After listing our favorites, we combined our picks and came up with a list of 15 movies that left us with our mouths wide open. Before you read on to see our list, please take note: We have tried to avoid spoilers in our descriptions, but some people might be more sensitive than others when it comes to what constitutes a spoiler. Read carefully, or better yet, just go see these great films already!

WARNING: Mild spoilers ahead

15 Films That Fooled Us

#15 – Dear Zachary

When Andrew Bagby was murdered by his pregnant girlfriend, director Kurt Kuenne set out on a personal project for his now deceased friend. Kuenne interviewed everyone who knew Bagby so that one day his child could learn about his father. Kuenne had no idea what would actually happen once he started filming, and Dear Zachary captures every single anguished moment of it. There’s a genuine, emotionally raw quality to Dear Zachary that viewers can immediately relate to, which makes the devastating ending hit like a wrecking ball to the gut. It’s one of the few films guaranteed to turn its viewers into a sobbing mess by the end, and the raw power of its story is why it still has a lasting impact with people today. [CJ]

#14 – Se7en

“What’s in the box?!” are four words that changed the way people thought of serial killers (and boxes) forever. In 1995 the world was introduced to David Fincher, before Fight Club and Zodiac solidified his status as one of the most revered directors in Hollywood, and after Alien 3 could leave too bad of a taste in our mouths. If you call yourself a Fincher fan, you’re all too familiar with the story of detectives Mills (Brad Pitt) and Somerset (Morgan Freeman) hunting the serial killer John Doe (Kevin Spacey) who orchestrates his murders years in advance, and bases them off the seven deadly sins. With every murder more sordid than the previous one, nothing prepares them – or us – for the heart-pulsating shocker at the end, when the contents of that box made John Doe into one of the most notorious on-screen villains. Here’s a funny story about that: producer Arnold Kopleson at first refused to allow the end to pass because of its sheer psychological brutality. Brad Pitt came to the rescue and said he’d walk if they didn’t allow Fincher to film the intended finale. So, we have Pitt and Fincher to thank for all those sleepless nights. On a personal note, its still my favorite Fincher film by a country mile. [Nik]

#13 – The Usual Suspects

Lately, Bryan Singer’s something of a usual suspect himself (it was right there, I’m sorry…) but forget all about that for a second. Before he ventured into the world of comic books and beanstalks, Singer directed a little film you may have seen called The Usual Suspects. The success of Suspects put him on the map and gave him carte blanche to work on X-Men, which rippled into the insane popularity of superheroes today. So, in a way, we can blame Keyser Soze for the mind-numbing number of comic book movies today. Regardless, nothing could change our thoughts about one of the greatest tricks the devil ever pulled. Premiering in 1995 (a year that turned out great for shockers), the story follows Kevin Spacey’s Verbal Kint, a survivor of a bust gone terribly wrong, as he recounts the events to Agent Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) while drinking coffee in a police station. That’s all brilliant minds need sometimes, and a film that was compelling enough with its intricate narrative and colorful cast of degenerates, became an entirely different beast with its final sequence, putting the twist in plot-twist more memorably than M. Night Shyamalan could ever dream of. Thanks in large part to this ingenious turn of events, the film went on to win two deserving Oscars for Spacey and screenwriter Christopher McQaurrie. [Nik]

#12 – The Prestige

It’s no coincidence two of my picks on this list of twisty films are from Christopher Nolan and his screenwriting partner/brother Jonathan Nolan. The two know how to tell a story that keeps you guessing. The Prestige is often overlooked among Nolan’s work, it had the misfortune of releasing between Batman Begins (Nolan’s fabulous reinvention of what comic-based film could be) and The Dark Knight (quite possibly the best comic-based film ever released, if I have anything to say about it). So you may have missed this one. Starring Nolan favorites Christian Bale and Michael Caine, along with Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johansson, The Prestige follows two up-and-coming magicians in 19th century London. While at first partners in the same act, the two become competitors, and indeed nemeses, when a magic act goes tragically wrong. From then on their careers are a series of attempts to get vengeance on the other, while also trying to attain top magician status. Their hate filled ambition leads both to drastic and questionable measures, but it isn’t until the very end when–like their magic tricks–the real secrets behind just how far each was willing to go are revealed, and its truly astonishing. When you discover the secret to a magic trick, all you want is to re-watch it and see if you can spot the illusion, so too does The Prestige demand repeat viewings. [Ananda]

#11 – Tell No One

This is a film that I love to recommend to people who normally scoff at having to read subtitles because this French whodunit film is that good. Tell No One doesn’t waste any time setting up the central plot. Alexandre Beck (played by the French Dustin Hoffman lookalike, François Cluzet) jumps into the water upon hearing his wife Margot scream from the other side of the secluded lake. As he climbs up the dock he gets knocked unconscious yet remains the prime suspect after the police find Margot brutally murdered. Despite evidence piling up that supports Alex as the murderer, he seems too distraught to actually be guilty of the crime. Then the film reveals the first of many plot twists. Eight years after the tragic event, Alex receives an email proving that Margot is still alive. Boom! Just when you think you are close to figuring it out, Tell No One presents a new piece of the puzzle. [Dustin]

#10 – Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

We’ve all seen the (unnecessary) prequels of the insanely ubiquitous Star Wars series by now so the mystery of Luke Skywalker’s origin is somewhat ruined. But for us older folks who had just the OT (Original Trilogy) while growing up, seeing the arc of Luke’s daddy issues culminate at the end of The Empire Strikes Back blew everyone’s mind. It starts in Episode 4 A New Hope, when Luke begins questioning Obi-Wan Kenobi about his enigmatic father who fought alongside Kenobi during the Clone Wars. Kenobi reveals Skywalker’s father was murdered by the heinously sinister Darth Vader. But then in Episode 5 everything changes. Luke is locked in a duel with Vader in the pit of the monstrous floating Cloud City on the planet Bespin. While it looks as if Vader is about to put Skywalker to the sword, he instead reveals the answer Luke has been waiting for. Skywalker is left in ruin and audiences around the world were left with a three year break before the finale of the series wrapped everything up. [Blake]

#9 – American Psycho

As far as revelations go, the final twist in American Psycho is more bewildering than earth-shattering, but that’s what makes it great. Watching Christian Bale gruesomely plow through hapless victims as New York trader Patrick Bateman only to eventually realize that the murders may not have played out the we we or Patrick thought, is ambiguous and ambitious in the best way. Bale sells the crap out of Bateman’s revelation, and Herron conjures a maelstrom of paranoia and anxiety to swirl around him. The plot twist in American Psycho has been seen before and is a tired tune at this point, but Herron and Bale play it pitch-perfect. It’s one of those reveals that, like the one in Oldboy (also on our list), sticks with you long after the credits roll instead of dissipating immediately. [Bernard]

#8 – The Sixth Sense

The Sixth Sense holds a certain stigma around it that has everything to do with someone either ruining the hugely shocking surprise ending for others, or because once you’ve seen it all the way through, it feels like the magic is gone. However, I’d argue this is absolutely a mistake on the part of potential viewers (thank goodness for a generation of younger people who are blissfully unaware) and of those who’ve already seen this gem of a horror film. Wildly creepy and excellently paced, the twist ending shouldn’t be the only thing that people remember about this film. Bruce Willis is perfect in his role as Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a children’s therapist whose marriage has lost steam. When he takes on a new patient, Cole (Oh, Haley Joel Osment if only cuteness lasted), with a very particular issue–seeing dead people–he begins to feel his methods may not work, until he starts to give Cole the benefit of the doubt. M. Night Shyamalan has tried so hard to duplicate the brilliance of his deception in this film’s ending with almost every other film he’s done since, and unfortunately has never been quite as successful. But anyone wanting a truly good scare, mixed with the sort of heartfelt character investment that makes the plot that much more enthralling, will never be disappointed with The Sixth Sense, time and time again. [Ananda]

#7 – Saw

Just mentioning the Saw series nowadays will result in an eye roll or a sigh because of how ridiculous the franchise got with pumping out a new film every year. But before Saw spiraled off into a massive cash cow of a franchise, it began as an original thriller/horror film featuring a serial killer named Jigsaw who devised puzzles for his victims to figure out. Gruesome puzzles. The film opens (watch a clip) with two strangers who find themselves chained to opposite sides of a bathroom. Between them is a dead man holding a tape player and a gun. They both discover a cassette in their pocket and work together to retrieve the tape player that is just out of their reach. Their jaded past gets exposed after listening to each other’s tapes, discovering the only way out is for one to kill the other. Say what you want about the acting or even the franchise as a whole, but Saw includes one of the most unforgettable endings that you won’t see coming. [Dustin]

#6 – Diabolique

Diabolique‘s now-famous plot twist is perfect, sublime in its execution and ahead of its time by decades. Henri-Georges Clouzot’s nail-biter masterpiece gets my vote for best non-Hitchcock Hitchcock picture, and its brilliance all hinges on one final, heart-stopping surprise in the bathroom. When the wife and mistress of a headmaster conspire to murder their shared ex-lover, sightings of the deceased begin to pop up all over the school premises. When the wife finally arrives at that fateful moment in front of the bathtub, get ready for one of the most classic shocks in all of cinema. Sure, the plot and premise of Diabolique are absurdly implausible, but that’s the power of good movies: they make you believe in the impossible. [Bernard]

#5 – Fight Club

David Fincher is well represented on this list, Se7en is a personal favorite, and while his films have plenty of plot curveballs, what Fincher excels at is the art of the twisty character. He is at his best when working with deplorably questionable characters and while John Doe is terrifying in his sociopathy, there have been few characters in film that demand attention the way Tyler Durden does in Fight Club. Adapted from Chuck Palahniuk’s novel of the same name, Fight Club follows Edward Norton’s Narrator as he gets in with Tyler Durden, Brad Pitt’s most memorable role. Depressed, sleep-deprived, and caught in lethargic consumerism, the Narrator meets Tyler on a plane and is immediately sucked into his charismatic anarchist world. Together they form Fight Club (of which we do not speak), and its barbaric, therapeutic appeal to bored blue-collar workers like the Narrator turns into a nationwide underground movement. When Tyler’s power becomes chaotic and dangerous the Narrator tries to uncover his plans, and ends up learning more about himself. All to mind-blowing effect. [Ananda]

#4 – Chinatown

Say what you want about Roman Polanski and his messed up private life, but the man has proven time and time again that he can direct circles around most of his contemporaries. None is perhaps so potently absorbing as his 1974 crime mystery Chinatown, starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway in peak form. What starts off as a routine investigation into the disappearance of an L.A. Department of Water and Power engineer, turns into something much more intriguing, complex and diabolical and all before P.I. Jake Gittes (Nicholson) can say “I cut myself shaving.” His life completely changes when he meets and falls for Evelyn Mulwray (Dunaway), daughter of powerful tycoon Noah Cross (John Huston,) and decides to help her with her… predicament. It’s not for nothing that Robert Towne’s Oscar-winning screenplay is mentioned ad nauseam in every screenwriting course, lauded for its brilliant structure and build-up to a – you guessed it – shocking finale that still leaves me jaw-dropped after countless repeat viewings. I’m just not sure which scene gets to me more; the reality of Evelyn’s sickening family history revealed slap by slap, or the cruel end securing “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown” as one of the most haunting final words in cinema. [Nik]

#3 – Psycho

Despite many believing the “big reveal” in Hitchcock’s Psycho happens at the end of the movie in the Bates’ basement, the true twist comes halfway through the film in the motel. What happens to Janet Leigh’s Marion Crane in that famous shower scene is one of the most innovative, forward-thinking jukes in movie history, and the film’s revolutionary (at the time) plot structure is seldom used to this day, as few filmmakers dare to be so audacious. The shower scene is immaculate, obviously, but few pay homage to what it actually meant for the movie. From that scene forward, all bets are off. We’re disoriented, we’re confused, our allegiances are shifted, and Hitchcock ingeniously puts himself one step ahead of us. They don’t call him the master for nothing: we’re just followers, guinea pigs he’s tickled to toy with. [Bernard]

#2 – Memento

Oh, Chris Nolan, how you love to mess with our minds. It would be annoying if it wasn’t always so genius-ly well done. Memento isn’t just a film with a twist ending; its scatterbrained storytelling literally keeps you guessing with every scene and because it’s literally told backwards, its twist end is actually a twist beginning. Guy Pearce stars as Leonard, a man with short-term memory loss and the inability to create new memories. Leonard uses a system of notes, Polaroids and tattoos to continually remind himself of his mission: to find and kill the man who murdered his wife. Two storylines portray Leonard, one that runs straight forward chronologically of Leonard on his motel phone telling the story of Sammy Jenkins, a man he encountered in his days as an insurance fraud investigator, who had a similar memory problem that led to the accidental murder of his own wife when he gave her too much insulin. The second storyline is told backwards as Leonard searches for his own wife’s killer, trusting and untrusting all the wrong people. The end/beginning reveals a truth that is far more complicated than just solving a murder, but gets at the very nature of revenge itself. I did not catch all the nuance in this film and it’s ending upon my first viewing, repeat viewings are absolutely necessary. [Ananda]

#1 – Oldboy

When Oh Dae-Su is let go after 15 years of captivity, the first question on his mind is who put him there. It doesn’t take long before he’s told that the “who” doesn’t matter, it’s the “why.” That “why” is what puts Oldboy at the top of our list. Dae-Su’s quest for vengeance is director Chan-Wook Park, and the “Korean New Wave”, at its peak; gorgeous cinematography, powerful writing, and bravura sequences (any mention of Oldboy must mention the classic one-take fight scene). But none of this could prepare audiences for the climax, when Dae-Su’s captor unveils his own master plan of revenge. It’s a twist almost nobody saw coming, and to this day people still get unsettled thinking about it. That twist ending is why Oldboy has grown such a large following since its release, and is required viewing for any cinephile. [CJ]

Our monthly staff features of past have usually been reserved for top ten lists regarding a certain subject, genre or even anticipation lists pertaining to film festivals. With this monthly feature we went through a few ideas before settling on something a little different. The idea was to always have it be horror themed since October is synonymous with Halloween. But instead of having a top ten list of a certain type of horror film or even ranking our favorites, we’ve decided that each of us will share with the reader what actually scares us in horror movies. Whether it’d be actual subject matter or aesthetics applied by the filmmakers, we discuss the various ingredients in horror movies that make us put that pillow over our eyes or make us reach for a loved one’s grasp.

What Scares Us The Most In Movies

Someone Else Is In Control

I thought a lot about what scares me in Horror films and the one thing that I kept coming back to is not being in control. I know it sounds weird, but when I’m watching a movie and if I can’t get a grip on what’s real or not or if I’m watching a living, breathing nightmare where I have no control, I freak. I think that’s why Suspiria is so attractive to me. The film is a master class of sensory overload where viewers are toyed with for 90 minutes. We are paralyzed to cheer for Susie Bannion, because we are so entrenched in this world where colors and sounds could never exist in our reality. Every time I watch the film, I can’t move. I’m transfixed and it scares me that I can’t move while I watch it. David Lynch is the master at creating films where the viewer is essentially his pawn and he attacks their stability with striking images. His final film (so far), Inland Empire, is quite possibly the greatest nightmare that I’ve seen in film. I was too scared to move while watching it. Laura Dern running in slow motion towards the camera that is suddenly sped up to a roaring orchestral cue haunts me to this day. Simply put, when David Lynch is in control, you are not.

I can also bring up that not being in control can also be applied literally as well. When a person in the film is shooting what you’re seeing (think Blair Witch), you experience what they are seeing from their point of view. I think the POV handheld genre has gone overboard, but there are some films that execute this to great extent. [Rec] and Grave Encounters are by no means great horror movies, but both feature great moments where someone else is in control of the camera and I want them to turn away or zoom out. By then it’s too late. [Blake Ginithan]

Trapped With No Way Out

Nothing gets my heart racing more than the idea of being trapped with no way out knowing that impending doom is inevitable. For me the fear is that feeling of being helpless in a situation that is inescapable. This is a rather simple concept that has been used and modified several times over. I suppose the most rudimentary example of this is when characters are trapped inside a room where the walls on both sides begin to close in to the middle of the room. This sort of “Walls Closing In” stunt has been around forever and I likely picked it up as a child while watching cartoons, Star Wars: A New Hope, or even Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom. As I mentioned, that is just the most elementary of an example and it would be easy to confuse my fear of being helplessly trapped with straight-up claustrophobia, so let me explain further.

You probably remember that famous scene in The Shining when Jack Nicholson busts down the door and screams, “Here’s Jonny!” through a hole in the door. That scene is a great example of what terrifies me the most in horror films. In case you haven’t seen it (watch it here), Nicholson slowly walks with a deranged look on his face and an axe in his hands towards his wife who has locked herself in the bathroom from him. She seemingly has nowhere else to go and she knows that she will soon be killed if she cannot escape. Add in Stanley Kubrick’s methodically slow-pacing and ear-piercing score and it is the perfect setup the scare the living hell out of me. The combination of having no control over the situation and knowing that death is soon approaching is what scares me the most. [Dustin Jansick]

Ambiguity

I’m going to be a bit broad with my pick, but what scares me the most is simple: ambiguity. A lot of horror films tend to go in the opposite direction, showing too much or explaining every little thing to the audience, but there’s still plenty of power in deciding not to show or tell. When I watched Ju-On years ago what terrified me wasn’t the jittery ghosts, it was how the curse in the film wasn’t defined in any way whatsoever. It could be weeks, months, or even years before these ghosts would get you, but they will kill you at some point.. Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Kairo has one of the most terrifying first acts I’ve seen, as a rash of suicides and hauntings occur without explanation. Films like Insidious and Paranormal Activity also drew on elements of the unknown to scare audiences (to the point where people are now throwing money at them) but their inferior sequels built a mythology explaining every single thing that occurred in the originals. It’s an approach that shows how, the more you know, the less scared you’ll be. [CJ Prince]

Jack Nicholson As Joker

As I get older, I find myself almost impervious to fright at the movie theater, which is more of a curse than a blessing. It’s a sad thing that most scary movies fail to make my skin crawl like they did to my 7-year-old, candy-corn-gobbling self. The upside to my time-hardened nerves is that when a film does manage to creep me out, it’s a delicious rarity that I devour like a starving dog. I relish horror flicks like Eyes Without a Face, Nosferatu, Last House on the Left, and The Descent for employing finely tuned filmmaking techniques–not hackneyed “jump scares” or “false-alarm scares” (as Roger Ebert brilliantly called them)–to create deathly atmosphere and a sense of inescapable dread.

But still, nothing–NOTHING–can compare to the terror I experienced back in the candy-corn-gobbling days when I got my first glimpse at the face of pure evil–Jack Nicholson’s Joker. I remember being so scared of that pale, perpetually grinning motherfucker that I couldn’t even look at my family’s VHS copy of Tim Burton’s Batman. It didn’t even have Nicholson on it, but I knew some form of his lipstick-wearing devil spirit MUST have been lurking inside the cheap card stock packaging and black plastic shell. It had to be that smile–the only way to make any movie monster scarier is to have them bear their grisly grills like a demented clown (fuck clowns). There’s something repulsive, twisted, and deeply unsettling about someone who smiles as they’re about to do something truly sinister. I wonder if my folks ever got rid of that tape…[Bernard Boo]

Everything About Horror Films

So I will admit, I’ve never really been a huge fan of horror films. I’m pretty sure it all stems from watching Signs when I was in my early teens—man that film terrified me—the knife under the door, the creepy Alien sneaking out the hedges at that kids party. I had to keep the volume on 1 the entire time.

Then came my mid-teens when it was the cool thing to watch scary movies on a Friday night sleepover (Gothika, Amityville Horror, The Others – I mean what was up with that kid’s face?!) I think it’s the intense suspense build ups and the loud heavy Dolby Digital bass in the cinema that thumps through chest making you really feel like it’s all happening to you. I also find that the actual “knowing what’s around the corner” scares me more than whatever is there because your mind goes into a frenzy trying to prepare your body for it. [Amy Priest]

Suspense and Psychological Manipulation

I’ve never been one to actively search out horror films primarily for two reasons, the first being a belief (built from years of poor film choices by friends and family) that they all contained the same components, with slight variations on which “spooky” location and in which particular manner the unexplained deaths or disappearances happened. But in the interests of being truthful, the more honest—and embarrassing—reason is simply that I’m easily scared. Nevertheless, the films that really get to me are those that center more around suspense and psychological manipulation. Throw as much blood on the screen as you like, and it won’t bother me half as much as a mere second of something mentally disturbing. A perfect example of this is in 127 Hours (even though it’s not a horror film) when Scooby-Doo appears just for one shot; this one scene affected me far more than watching young Franco saw his arm off.

While finding suspense in films scary is a fairly universal concept, there is a defining line between the type of suspense we find dotted throughout films such as the Saw franchise and The Blair Witch Project, and the type we find in films such as Psycho and more recently, 28 Days Later. This difference stems from the basic intention of these films—are they attempting to provide us with a narrative that is scary in its essence, or are they attempting to thrill us with snippets of suspense loosely held together by some form of plot? I’ll jump (and perhaps even scream a little) at films that do the latter, but Joss Whedon has hit the nail on the head—at some point the majority of horror films devolved “into torture porn and into a long series of sadistic comeuppances.” Perhaps this is why my favourite horror film has to be, in all its meta construction, Whedon and Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods; as much as it scares us, it simultaneously enters new territory, subverting our expectations of the genre. [Pavi Ramani]

Believability And Doubt-Producing Ending

My film genre of choice is horror, but because of that I’m actually quite a fastidious viewer and it takes a lot to impress me. The most obvious element of a scary film is actually the easiest to pull off: surprise. It’s not hard to startle an audience, jump out at them, or spray some blood in their direction, eliciting a few screams. The hard part, and what marks the best horror films from all the others in my opinion, is getting into our heads and keeping the fear alive once we leave the theater. The most memorable horror films have two elements that will get me every time.

First, is an essence of believability. I don’t care if it’s ghosts, aliens, murderers, or demons, if the film can show me that the scenario I’m witnessing could happen to me, than I’m much more likely to feel a sense of anxiety that heightens the fright. A virus that turns a majority of the world into zombies? Seems plausible. Found footage of the family-next-door being haunted? That looks like a house I’ve seen. Those look like people I know. I’m creeped out. Second, is a well-played, doubt-producing ending. At the end of The Silence of the Lambs, Clarice may have caught her serial killer, but Hannibal Lecter’s final phone call reminds her, and us, that evil is never truly contained, just redirected. A hand popping out of a grave, a-la Carrie, just makes me laugh; zooming in on Jack Torrance in an old picture on the wall of the Overlook Hotel at the end of The Shining, reminds me that the evil within that hotel lives on. Because they have these two elements, I can watch my favorite horror films over and over again and still squirm. Because really, I never stopped being scared of them. [Ananda Dillon]

If you’re in the Bay Area this weekend, I highly recommend you check out the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, which will host the “Hitchcock 9”, a series of films from Hitchcock’s early days as a director in the silent era. These classics have been beautifully restored and will be projected on the big screen with live music. Silent films play a vital role in the history of cinema, and festivals like this are guaranteed to make all your future movie-going experiences richer!

In our first feature honoring the Hitchcock 9, we looked at 9 of the Best “Talkie” scenes from Hitchcock. With this feature we’re going to count down Hitchcock’s 9 Best “Silent” scenes. We chose to include only films made after the Hitchcock 9 to take a look at how he exhibited the tools and principles he learned and retained from the silent era in his later works. Though some of these scenes do have some dialog in them, it’s largely disposable and the scenes work purely because of the imagery and score. Using his vast visual vocabulary and some of cinema’s most unforgettable scores, Hitchcock plays us like Beethoven played his piano.

9 Best “Silent” Scenes from Alfred Hitchcock

#9 — Sabotage (1936) — Bus Bomb

This classic scene got a nice little “cameo” in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. It’s an almost perfect example of Hitchcock doing what he does better than anybody—creating suspense. I say “almost” because, well…I’ll let the man explain for himself:

A boy is tasked with delivering a package which, unbeknownst to him, contains a bomb that will detonate within minutes. We’re aware of how much danger the boy is in (Hitchcock reminds us with cuts to various clocks), but he isn’t, which is a basic recipe for suspense. Other than the scene’s unsavory conclusion, it’s a classic example of Hitchcock pushing all the right buttons to get us to squirm in our seats.

Watch “Bus Bomb” scene:

#8 — Frenzy (1972) — Fingersnappin’

A serial killer has hidden one of his victims (a young woman) in a potato sack on a truck (Hitchcock was never big on practicality). Minutes later, he notices he’s missing his very distinctive (and incriminating) tie pin, which he realizes she must have snatched during the murder. He returns to the truck to search the mountain of sacks for the one containing the body, when the truck suddenly starts moving. Hilarity ensues! Hitchcock was a master at getting his audience to identify with his villains (see Strangers on a Train, Psycho) and this scene accomplishes this in the funniest fashion. The killer has difficulty wresting the pin from the corpse—he gets a cold dead foot in the face and even gets knocked on his ass a couple times. The body is stricken with rigor mortis, so the killer has to gruesomely break the poor girl’s fingers to pry his pin out of her cold dead hands. It’s like a morbid episode of Mr. Bean.

Watch “Fingersnappin” scene:

#7 — Rear Window (1954) — I See You, You See Me

The nightmare of a voyeur is for the person they’re snooping on to look straight back at them, and Hitchcock captures this vividly and thrillingly in Rear Window. James Stewart has been spying on his neighbors from his apartment window, and we peep along with him (an inventive use of Hitchcock’s patented “subjective” filmmaking). Grace Kelly invades the home of Raymond Burr, and we boil with helpless anxiety as Burr catches her in the act and gets violent. When Burr catches on to the plot and shoots an evil eye at Stewart (and us) it’s a terrifying shock. After countless shots of observing the neighbors from a god’s-eye-view, Burr’s stare feels like a knife in the gut. It’s a great Hitchcock moment.

Watch “I See You, You See Me” scene:

#6 — The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) — Assassination at Royal Albert Hall

Man, this one’s a beauty. It’s also truly “silent”—there’s not a word spoken, only Bernard Herrmann’s gorgeous rendition of “Storm Clouds Cantata”, the lifeblood of the scene. Every shot—of the massive Royal Albert Hall, its grinning, opulent guests, the sea of white that is the choir, and our heroes, Doris Day and James Stewart)—is goddamn pretty. They’re masterfully composed, full of life, perfectly sequenced, and the colors are a revelation. Though it’s easy to get lost in the glorious eye candy, there’s real tension to this scene, which is sold brilliantly by Day. The shot of Reggie Nadler pointing his gun at the screen is as “3-D” as any “3-D” movie to come out in the past ten years.

Watch “Assassination at Royal Albert Hall” scene:

#5 — Dial M for Murder (1954) — Death by Scissors

No matter how many times I see it, the telephone murder scene in Dial M For Murder is always suspenseful, always nail-bitingly delicious. This is Hitchcock at his sharpest—every beat is orchestrated perfectly. The editing is immaculate—each shot adds a new layer of suspense and gives the scene momentum. When the camera semi-circles around from Grace Kelly’s front to her back, then cuts to her front again revealing Robert Cummings standing behind her in strangle mode, it’s truly terrifying (even though we know Cummings has been there all along). Dimitri Tiomkin’s score is as effective as Hitchcock’s visuals.

Watch “Death by Scissors” scene:

#4 — The Birds (1963) — A Murder of Crows

Tippi Hedren is leisurely smoking a cigarette on a bench outside an elementary school, waiting for the children inside to be dismissed. Crows begin to gather on a jungle gym behind her. At first, we see only a few of them, but then we glance away and look again to see several more have appeared without a sound, seemingly out of nothing. We look away and back again and gasp in terror as their numbers are now so great they resemble a demonic, jet-black cloud clinging to the children’s playground. There’s no telling when they’ll strike, but they surely will. The scene is so alarming because of the context the sound provides—the only sound is the faint sound of the children inside singing a youthful tune, reminding us of the stakes.

Watch “A Murder of Crows” scene:

#3 — Vertigo (1958) — The Green Ghost

By the time we reach this scene in Vertigo, James Stewart’s whirlwind of obsession is at its most turbulent. As Kim Novak floats into the room as Madeline, drenched in that uneasy green light, time stands still. We lose our breath, at once in awe and frozen with fear. Stewart’s face is full of desperation, yearning, elation, and pain, a face he only ever used once. Novak is a stirring vision, a guaranteed heart-stopper. Hitchcock was sometimes criticized for his stiff, immobile camerawork, but he circles his camera around Stewart and Novak to create a remarkable image. As we circle, the hotel room around them magically melts away and they’re transported to the stables where they’ve kissed before, then back to the room again, all in one sensuous effects shot. No other Hitchcock scene gets under the skin quite like this one.

Watch “The Green Ghost” scene:

#2 — North by Northwest (1959) — Nowhere to Hide

What I love most about Hitchcock was his defiant nature. He loved to challenge cinematic conventions. He noticed that in the early days of film (especially in German cinema, of which he was a student) chase scenes were claustrophobic, typically set at night in dark alleyways with armed mysterious men in trench coats lurking around every shadowy turn. So what did Hitch do? He set his chase scene in North by Northwest in broad daylight, in a wide-open field, with the pursuer being a dangerously low-flying crop duster. Hitchcock was breaking the rules, chuckling to himself the whole way. This is Hitchcock at his most precise and virtuosic, a symphony of masterstrokes that adds up to one of the most iconic scenes in movie history, only second to…

Watch “Nowhere to Hide” scene:

#1 — Psycho (1960) — Nothing Like a Hot Shower After a Long Hard AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!

It’s hard to think of a scene more watched, more beloved, more dissected, more memorable than this one. Its mark on movies and pop culture is indelible. The bracing imagery and staccato cuts are taken to another world by Bernard Herrmann’s thrashing strings. The first people who saw the scene in Psycho had their whole world flipped upside-down when their heroine (the stunning Janet Leigh) was cut to pieces only 45 minutes into the film. They screamed, jumped, ran in the aisles, and collectively thought “What the hell happens now?” They were conditioned to expect movies to play out a certain way. Hitchcock exploited this with Psycho, and because of this scene he was now free to take them to places they’d never been. He pulled an epic swerve on them, the clever devil. As I write this I have the scene playing on repeat in the background. Moments ago I was sinking my nose into my laptop, absorbed in typing this blather, and the strings hit out of nowhere and scared the shit out of me! It’s a dreadful sound. Somewhere out there, Hitch is still chuckling.

Watch “Nothing Like a Hot Shower After a Long Hard AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!” scene:

Be sure to come out to the “Hitchcock 9” this weekend at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco!

From June 14-16 at San Francisco’s wonderful Castro Theatre, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival will host the “Hitchcock 9”, a series of films from Hitchcock’s early days as a director in the silent era. The films have been beautifully restored and will be projected on the big screen with live music accompaniment by the acclaimed Mont Alto Motion Pcture Orchestra, Stephen Horne, and others.

Arguably the greatest director to make a movie, Alfred Hitchcock was a product of the silent film era, which he revered. Greats like Murnau, Dreyer, and Chaplin were masters at visual storytelling, and as far as Hitchcock was concerned, this was the medium at its pinnacle. When silent films were elbowed out by the “talkies”, Hitchcock was crushed, as the advent of sound compelled directors to demote visual storytelling below the novelty of the spoken word. Hitchcock referred to this new style of cinema as “filmed theater”, as these films had lost all visual technique and appeal.

Hitchcock, however, retained the sensibilities and discipline he learned from silent film, and applied them to all his work going forward. The nine films included in this festival are paramount to understanding what makes Hitch—and all movies, for that matter—tick.

In the spirit of the festival (and the reason we chose nine), we’re going to explore Hitchcock’s work with a couple of fun lists. We’re going to work backwards, starting here with our list of Hitchcock’s 9 Best “Talkie” Scenes, taking a look at scenes where he demonstrates he isn’t a snob and can shoot dialog as well! Next, we’ll take a look at Hitchcock’s 9 Best “Silent” Scenes, in which he employs and builds on the tools he developed in the silents. These two lists only include films after the silent era. Finally, we’ll hit you with our coverage of this weekend’s Hitchcock 9.

Though Hitchcock held visual storytelling above everything and often treated actors (who he believed must be treated like cattle) and their performances as simply another filmmaking component—like sound or set design—he certainly let them shine when he thought it appropriate. These are our nine favorite scenes where Hitchcock embraced his actors’ gabbiness.

9 Best “Talkie” Scenes from Alfred Hitchcock

#9 — The Lady Vanishes (1938) — Zany Train

Hitchcock was a definite sucker for silly physical comedy (see the Frenzy truck scene, Family Plot runaway car scene). This scene, though not as talky as others on the list, stands out because the dialog is funny as hell and makes the scene better. Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood are engaged in a hilariously choreographed “fight scene” over a pair of spectacles with a bulbous magician. They’re in a train car surrounded by an assortment of the magician’s things, like bunnies in a hat, birds, magic chests, and (funniest part) a life-sized cutout of the magician himself. As the two men scuffle on the ground, Lockwood worriedly bounces around them. “Don’t stand hopping about like a referee! Kick him! See if he’s got a false bottom!” commands Redgrave. The magician (naturally) escapes through the false bottom of his magic chest.

Favorite Quote: “Naughty naughty! That’s a very large nose for a very large pair of spectacles!”

Watch “Zany Train” scene: (skip to 7:45)

#8 — The 39 Steps (1935) — Hannay’s Babble

The 39 Steps has many scenes that blossom into better versions in it’s spiritual successor, North by Northwest, but its public speaking scene (echoed in NXNW by the auction scene) is still very good. Hannay (Robert Donat), on the run from a pack of pursuers, ducks into a random door off the street and is mistaken for a politician who is expected to make a speech at a political rally within moments. He takes this as an opportunity to, at least momentarily, evade the bad guys. Hannay takes the podium and uses his gift for gab and quick wit to dance around his complete ignorance of the issues of the evening. He addresses the congregation: “We’re going to discuss some topic. What shall it be?” A concerned citizen answers, “The idle rich!” to which Hannay cleverly responds, “That’s a bit of an old topic these days, especially for me, because I’m not rich and I’ve never been idle!” A master bullshitter.

Favorite Quote: “MacCrocodile.”

Watch “Hannay’s Babble” scene:

#7 — Strangers on a Train (1951) — I’ll Scratch Your Back…

Hitchcock has always been known to repeat himself in his works (the airplane scenes in North by Northwest and The 39 Steps, countless staircase scenes), and one of the most revisited scenes by the master is the oddly casual and detailed outlining of a hypothetical (?) murder. Perhaps the most eminent is this one, from the brilliant Strangers on a Train. “Wanna hear my idea for a perfect murder?” Robert Walker is as brazen as a child as he submits his macabre scenarios to the apprehensively dismissive Farley Granger, the other titular “stranger”. Walker relishes in his morbid fantasy while we identify (hopefully) with the more humane Granger, who is frightened by Walker’s enthusiasm.

Favorite Quote: “Your wife, my father. Criss-cross!”

Watch “I’ll Scratch Your Back…” scene:

#6 — North by Northwest (1959) — Auction Audible

Cary Grant, as the cosmopolitan wrong-man Roger O. Thornhill, is trapped at a bustling fine art auction, with goons blocking every exit. Out of options, his clever solution is to create mayhem. Hysterically, he begins making nonsensical bids on the valuable pieces: “13 dollars! That’s more than it’s worth!” The crowd begins to vibrate with annoyance, and Grant churns the chaos further: “How do we know it’s not a fake? It looks like a fake!”To which an irritated woman snips, “You’re no fake. You’re a genuine idiot!” “Thank you” replies Grant, pleased with his ingenuity. He hilariously knocks out a security guard, earning him a police escort out of the building. Cary Grant could do anything, and this is one of his finest and most endearing comedic performances.

Favorite Quote: “What took you so long?”—Grant, to the police officers.”

Watch “Auction Audible” scene:

#5 — Rope (1948) — Cat and Mouse

Rupert (James Stewart), in a state of shock, almost pleads with Brandon (John Dall): “Did you think you were God, Brandon? Is that what you thought when you served food from his grave!?” Brandon and Phillip (Farley Granger) have just hosted a party with the centerpiece being a chest containing their dead friend David (who they’ve freshly strangled). Strangely, they did it for the thrill, and they would have gotten away with it had it not been for their final party guest, the uber-intelligent Stewart. Granger’s neurotic paranoia explodes as Stewart begins to Sherlock their little scheme. “Cat and mouse, cat and mouse! But which is the cat and which is the mouse…” growls Granger. Stewart and Dall’s tug-of-war about the morality of a “superior race” is fascinating and was hotly relevant at the time. Stewart gets to show big emotion here, which fits nicely with Rope’s theater-esque presentation.

Favorite Quote: “If nothing else, a man should stand by his words, but you’ve given my words a meaning I’ve never dreamed of!”

Watch “Cat and Mouse” scene:

#4 — Shadow of a Doubt (1943) — Did He Just Say That?

When Uncle Charlie (played by Joseph Cotton, gifted with a classically evil face) sits with his sister’s family for a quaint, suburban, All-American dinner, he shatters the cheerful mood with a spit-take-worthy misogynistic tirade. We slowly zoom in on him as he pompously describes widows as “silly…useless…faded, fat, greedy women.” His good-hearted niece (Teresa Wright) defends the widows: “They’re alive! They’re human beings!” Cotton then, in a masterstroke by Hitchcock, looks straight at the camera and replies, “Are they?” Positively rattling. Uncle Charlie is one of the baddest baddies in Hitchcock’s oeuvre, and this is his moment. You can almost hear hundreds of moviegoers in 1943 collectively screaming “BOOOOOOOO!!!”

Favorite Quote: The whole dirty, rotten thing

Watch “Did He Just Say That?” scene:

#3 — Notorious (1946) — Heartbreak at the Races

An electric scene from my favorite Hitchcock film. Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), an American daughter of a Nazi spy, has fallen for US government agent T.R. Devlin (Cary Grant), who is forced by his superiors to instruct her to seduce Alex Sebastian, one of her father’s old friends in order to obtain the [MacGuffin!]. They’re conflicted about the assignment, yet are too passive and stubborn to blow the mission and reveal their true feelings for one another, frustrating the both of them. In a (public) secret meeting at a crowded horse race, Bergman reports to Grant on her progress: “You can add Sebastian’s name to my list of playmates.” Grant viciously assures Bergman that her “loose” behavior doesn’t surprise him: “You almost had me believing…that a woman like you could…change her spots.” Bergman is heartbreaking as she hides her wet eyes behind her binoculars. Grant fights not to flinch as he suppresses his love.

Favorite Quote: “Dry your eyes, baby. It’s out of character.”

Watch “Heartbreak at the Races” scene: (skip to 8:10 for the scene)

#2 — Psycho (1960) — Dinner With Norman

Birds are a major motif in Psycho. In the most loquacious of the film’s numerous iconic scenes, our protagonist—Marion Crane from Phoenix—shares an unsettling dinner of sandwiches and milk in the Bates Motel back office with the schizoid mama’s boy Norman. The dynamic between Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins is as nimble as the stuffed birds on the walls once were, jumping from friendly to aggressive to empathetic to frightening, all seamlessly. Like magic, these two just click, giving performances of a lifetime. Hitchcock was often (unjustly) accused of mistreating his actors, but here he gives them his uninhibited trust. The funny thing is, despite these characters’ fates, they make a fleeting connection: “You’ve never had an empty moment in your whole life, have you?” says Perkins. Somberly, Leigh replies, “Only my share.”

Favorite Quote: “People always mean well. They cluck their thick tongues and shake their heads and suggest oh so very delicately…”

Watch “Dinner With Norman” scene:

#1 — North by Northwest (1959) — Sex on a Train

Eva Marie Saint is sex and seduction in the flesh sitting across from Cary Grant on the train in North by Northwest. This is one of the most suggestive, sexually charged scenes of dialog ever, especially considering the time period it belongs to. Marie Saint is thrilling in her bluntness: “It’s going to be a long night, and I don’t particularly like the book I’ve started. You know what I mean?” “Yes, I know exactly what you mean” replies Grant, who is as in awe of her lustiness as we are. When she gently puckers her lips to blow out a lit match in Grant’s fingers, it’s time to put the kiddies to bed. These are two of the most attractive movie stars ever virtually eye-fucking each other. Hitchcock believed that sex scenes should have an element of suspense to them, and by the end of this one we’re so worked up we could explode.
Favorite Quote: “Luck had nothing to do with it.”

Watch “Sex on a Train” scene:

Check back soon for our list of Hitchcock’s 9 Best “Silent” Scenes and be sure to come out to the Hitchcock 9 this weekend in San Francisco!