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Alfred Hitchcock

Born: 13 August 1899, Leytonstone, London
Died: 29 April 1980, Los Angeles, Calif.

Introduction

One of the world's greatest directors, Alfred Hitchcock excelled in a variety of genres during his early British career, before moving to Hollywood in 1939. It was here he became known as the 'Master of Suspense', producing some of the most analysed works in the history of cinema. With Vertigo in contention for the top spot in Sight & Sound's Greatest Films Poll, and the BFI's restoration of his surviving silent films, Hitchcock's remarkable body of work remains as relevant as ever.

Highlighted works

  • The Manxman

    The Manxman

    Two men fall in love with the same woman in Alfred Hitchcock’s melodrama, set on the Isle of Man (though filmed in Cornwall).

  • Suspicion

    Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine are perfectly cast in Hitchcock’s classic psychological thriller.

  • Foreign Correspondent

    Foreign Correspondent

    Stunning set pieces abound in Alfred Hitchcock’s espionage adventure.

  • The Farmer's Wife

    The Farmer's Wife

    A housekeeper tries to find a suitable wife for a widowed landowner in a rare venture by Alfred Hitchcock into romantic comedy.

  • Rebecca

    Rebecca

    Alfred Hitchcock’s chillingly beautiful adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s bestseller.

  • The Ring

    The Ring

    An Australian boxer threatens the relationship of a young fighter and his fiancée in Alfred Hitchcock’s superior melodrama.

  • The Pleasure Garden

    The Pleasure Garden

    Alfred Hitchcock’s directorial debut, made when he was 25, follows the love lives of two dancers at a London nightspot.

  • Notorious

    Notorious

    In one of Hitchcock’s darkest thrillers, a traitor’s daughter is engaged by an American agent to get close to one of her father’s Nazi associates.

  • Easy Virtue

    Easy Virtue

    Alfred Hitchcock adapts Noël Coward’s melodrama about a divorced woman rejected by society.

  • Downhill

    Downhill

    Ivor Novello plays a schoolboy who is falsely accused of getting a girl pregnant and descends into disgrace, in Alfred Hitchcock’s dark melodrama.

  • The Lady Vanishes

    The Lady Vanishes

    A mysterious disappearance on a continental train journey is the backdrop to the perfectly executed comic thriller that paved Hitchcock’s way to Hollywood.

  • Champagne

    Champagne

    Alfred Hitchcock directs the fizzy tale of a millionaire who pretends to lose his fortune to teach his wayward daughter a lesson.

  • The Lodger A Story of the London Fog

    The Lodger A Story of the London Fog

    A strange lodger may be a serial killer in Alfred Hitchcock’s first suspense thriller.

  • Blackmail

    Blackmail

    A woman kills a man in self-defence but falls victim to a blackmailer in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller, made in both silent and sound versions.

  • Dial M for Murder

    Dial M for Murder

    One of Hitchcock’s stagier thrillers, confined largely to a single set, where Grace Kelly kills in self-defence only to find herself accused of her attacker’s murder.

  • The 39 Steps

    The 39 Steps

    Master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock perfected his favourite thriller set-up – the innocent man on the run – with this adaptation of John Buchan’s classic adventure novel.

  • Vertigo

    Vertigo

    A former detective with a fear of heights is hired to follow a woman apparently possessed by the past, in Alfred Hitchcock’s timeless thriller about obsession.

Filmography

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