For the For Love of Film Blogathon this week, today we’re counting down our third and second favorite Alfred Hitchcock films along with a brief note on why they are important to each of our contributors (Wesley Lovell, Peter J. Patrick, Tripp Burton) here at Cinema Sight.

Number 3

Rebecca (Wesley Lovell)

The only time Hitchcock took home an Oscar for Best Picture just so happened to be his first American-made film. While the story and genre is fairly traditional, Hitchcock never lets the audience feel they are watching something old hat. From the iconic performance of Judith Anderson as Mrs. Danvers to the stellar turns by Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine and George Sanders, there’s nothing milquetoast about the production. And because it fits more nicely into the mainstream of the time, a lot of people tend to dismiss the film unfairly while it stands as a testament to how Hitch had the capability of taking convention and turning it on its ear all while maintaining that feeling of traditionalism the genre needed.

Rear Window (Peter J. Patrick)

Hitchcock’s breeziest film revolves around the uncomfortable situation of a wheelchair bound voyeur who may or may not have witnesses a murder. The word-play between James Stewart and Grace Kelly, and Stewart and Thelma Ritter is a bonus.

Psycho (Tripp Burton)

It almost seems too obvious to put Psycho high up on this list, since it is Hitchcock’s most famous film, and contains so many “classic” elements that is almost seems like you know the entire film long before you ever see it. Watching Psycho for the first time though, you encounter a film so well-made that it never feels familiar or stale, no matter how many imitators and spoofers it has inspired. Anthony Perkins gives one of cinema’s greatest performances as mentally deranged innkeeper Norman Bates, whose surprise twist is only one place where Hitchcock completely subverts the genre he perfected. Nothing in this film is ever what it seems, from the identity of the killer to the fate of the leading lady to the way that Hitchcock so openly treats sexuality and violence throughout the film. Then, of course, there is the shower scene, probably the most famous and most dissected sequence in cinematic history, and still as chilling today as it was 50 years ago.

Number 2

Rear Window (Wesley Lovell)

Few films in Hitchcock’s stable of masterpieces can live up to the lofty goals set by one of his most inventive and original stories. Set entirely within the small courtyard of an apartment complex, a voyeuristic photographer, confined to his wheelchair, believes he’s seen the man across the courtyard murder his wife. Stuck with a broken leg the superb James Stewart struggles to uncover the truth while those around him scoff and his nosiness draws the unwanted attention of the murderous neighbor. There are so many twists and turns in the film that you’ll scarcely notice the running time drifting by as you live vicariously through Stewart and his troubled lens. Hitchcock was a very experimental filmmaker and this is his most profoundly original experiment.

Notorious (Peter J. Patrick)

Hitchcock’s great cynical romance played against the background of Nazi spies is probably the Hitchcock film I’ve seen more than any other. There are four superb perfomrances in this film, by Ingrid Bergman as the German-born American agent caught in a hornet’s nest of spies; Cary Grant as her American handler; Claude Rains as her Nazi husband; and Leopoldine Konstantin as Rains’ serpentine mother.

Notorious (Tripp Burton)

Hitchcock was always famous for the “MacGuffin,” the thing that set the plot of a film in motion but had little bearing on the true meaning of the film. In Notorious, there is a plot involving Nazis, uranium, kidnapping and spys. What the film is really about, though, is the sparkling sexual tension between Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, and the ways in which they can find to keep their own passion ignited in the face of evil. Claude Raines is exceptional as the Nazi villain, but it is the way that Hitchcock keeps everything so tight, while giving his two leads the room to breathe and take in each other that makes the film so exciting. It also contains the longest kiss in film history.