Ranking The Master Of Suspense's Filmography

During the semi-locked-down Thanksgiving our family had, I got to enjoy a little more relaxation and television watching than I am normally used to. To my surprised enjoyment, Turner Classic Movies was running an Alfred Hitchcock marathon over the weekend. I caught a few films I hadn't seen in quite some time and was reminded of what an exquisite filmmaker Hitchcock was. He is my favorite director of all time, so much so that I wanted to sort of (as a bit mostly) name my youngest son after the man. I offered up Alfred Hitch Cook as the potential name, but Joanna wouldn't go for it.

After enjoying a few of Hitchcock's timeless and not-so-great movies this past weekend, I took it upon myself to try and rank all of his films from best to worst. He is credited as director of 58 films, but one of those is a German-made movie that was the same as his English-speaking one. They were made at the same time and swapped out most of the actors but used the same sets. Another three are lost. That left me with 54 movies to rank. Here is the best I could do.

Lost and Unseen Films include Number 13, Always Tell Your Wife (only one reel exists today), The Mountain Eagle, and Mary (German copy of Murder!)

54. Champagne

53. The Skin Game

52. Juno and the Paycock

51. The Manxman

50. Number 17

49. Under Capricorn

48. The Trouble with Harry

47. Aventure Malgache

46. Jamaica Inn

45. Easy Virtue

44. The Ring

43. The Paradine Case

42. I Confess

41. Topaz

40. Family Plot

39. The Pleasure Garden

38. East of Shanghai

37. Strauss' Great Waltz

36. The Wrong Man

35. Saboteur

34. To Catch a Thief

33. Sabotage

32. Blackmail

31. Marnie

30. Young and Innocent

29. The Farmer's Wife

28. Mr. & Mrs. Smith

27. Spellbound

26. Murder!

25. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

24. Foreign Correspondent

23. Frenzy

22. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

21. Rope

20. Bon Voyage

19. When Boys Leave Home

18. Stage Fright

17. Torn Curtain

16. The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog

15. Secret Agent

14. Shadow of a Doubt

13. Notorious

12. Strangers on a Train

11. Suspicion

10. The Lady Vanishes

9. Lifeboat

8. Dial M for Murder

7. The Birds

6. The 39 Steps

5. Rebecca

4. Vertigo

3. Rear Window

2. Psycho

1. North by Northwest

I know that it is cinephile heresy to put Vertigo at 4, but I just get so much enjoyment from the three in front of it. I also contend that you can put Hitchcock's top 5 movies (according to my rankings at least) up against any director's best 5 films and he would come out on top in most cases (Kubrick, Spielberg, and Scorsese all probably take umbrage to that).