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).