The Top Ten Films of the Master of Suspense by Debbie Babitt

“There is no terror in the bang. Only in the anticipation of it.”

—Alfred Hitchcock

I owe a huge debt to Hitchcock. He taught me how to tell a story cinematically. If I could see it, I could write it. From him I learned about pacing, an essential tool for building suspense; lighting a scene to set mood and create atmosphere; and how setting and character are inexplicably linked. His visual language transcended dialogue. The revelations weren’t always in what was said, but in the silences. Hitchcock was a genius at homing in on the telling detail that reveals character and sticks in the audience’s mind: a glass of milk that might be poisoned; two strikingly different pairs of shoes worn by strangers about to have a fateful encounter on a train. All this was in my mind when I sat down to write my new novel The Man on the Train (coming out May 7), about a married man who meets a mysterious woman on his daily commute.

Choosing the Hitchcock films that inspired me is like naming your favorite child. But I’ll try. Here are my Top Ten (with spoilers) in ascending order:

Spellbound (1945)

Nominated for six Academy awards and taking home the Oscar for Best Original Score, this journey into the mind of an amnesiac suspected of murder, starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck, showcases early psychoanalysis and was notable for its surrealistic dream sequence by Salvador Dali (most of which didn’t make the final cut). I love the romantic pairing of Bergman and Peck and solving the puzzle of Peck’s psyche even if I guessed the killer early on.

Notorious (1946)

This espionage noir featured Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, the only actor Hitchcock said he ever loved. Claude Rains is superb as a member of a Nazi spy organization hiding out in post-World War II Rio de Janeiro struggling to escape the yoke of his domineering mother, a motif repeated in later Hitchcock films. Watch the scene where Rains brings Bergman a cup of coffee. You’ll never look at your morning java the same way again.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Hitchcock’s reimagining of his 1934 film explores another signature theme: an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances. Here it’s James Stewart’s American doctor swept up in an assassination plot. The moments leading up to a gun going off during a concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall is topped only by Doris Day singing “Que Sera, Sera” while her kidnapped son is seconds away from being murdered. The emotions that play across her face are alone worth the price of admission.

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Hitchcock’s personal favorite, this unconventional, oddly seductive thriller about an impressionable young woman who begins to suspect her adored uncle is a serial killer is a heart-wrenching depiction of the loss of innocence. But it’s watching Joseph Cotten deliver Uncle Charlie’s chilling monologue about widows that makes us realize we’re in the presence of true evil.

Suspicion (1941)

We’re constantly kept off balance as we wonder—along with Joan Fontaine—if Cary Grant is a cold-blooded killer. What keeps this film, one of Hitchcock’s trademark paranoid thrillers, from ranking higher was Hollywood forcing him to change the ending from the original novel Before the Fact. But oh, that glass of milk!

It’s a dead heat between Rear Window, Hitch’s 1954 classic that turns us into complicit voyeurs spying on our murderous neighbors with wheelchair-bound James Stewart, and 1959’s North by Northwest, that puts the audience in the superior position of knowing something another character doesn’t. Watch Cary Grant trying to slip a message to Eva Marie Saint under the nose of arch-villain James Mason. Some call this nine-Oscar winner the first James Bond film.

Psycho (1960)

Hitchcock’s masterpiece of psychological horror adapted from the novel by Robert Bloch and loosely based on a Wisconsin serial killer is terrifying on many levels. Almost as shocking as the infamous shower scene was the early killing off of the film’s ostensible heroine, Hollywood star Janet Leigh, which taught me that when it comes to creating magic, there are no rules.

Vertigo (1958)

One man’s fixation on an enigmatic beauty casts an enthralling spell. The climax on the bell tower roof is morally and karmically pitch perfect. But what takes the film to another level is James Stewart seeing a woman who resembles his lost love, making him doubt his sanity and proving that obsession never dies. Initially panned by critics, Vertigo is now hailed as one of the greatest movies ever made.

Strangers on a Train (1951)

What is it about trains that’s so irresistible to us writers and why did Hitchcock choose them as the setting in four films? In a screenplay co-written by Raymond Chandler and based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel about how to get away with murder, Robert Walker is a fascinating study in psychopathy.

Rebecca (1940)

Hitchcock’s only film to win the Oscar, with a once again ideally cast Joan Fontaine, this time costarring with Laurence Olivier. I love the game-changing moment in a story that upends everything you previously believed. Here it’s Olivier telling newbie bride Fontaine about his first wife: “Loved her? I hated her!” I hope I’m not being sacrilegious when I say the film version almost succeeded in upstaging Daphne du Maurier’s quintessential gothic novel.

A few Honorable Mentions:

The sinister murder-for-hire thriller based on a play, Dial M for Murder (1954), along with Rope (1948), Hitch’s first color film inspired by the Leopold-Loeb case, and Rear Window, that restricted most of the action to a single set.

The 39 Steps (1935), a twisty tale of international intrigue that introduced the plot-spinning Maguffin—a term coined by the Master of Suspense himself.

The Lady Vanishes (1938), one of Hitch’s last British films, a stylish whodunit about an elderly woman who disappears on a train where nothing and no one is what they seem.

The Wrong Man (1956), an underrated docudrama centering on another classic Hitchcock theme of mistaken identity, with an innocent man falsely accused that may have had its roots in the director’s boyhood.

Every time I revisit a Hitchcock film, I marvel anew at his uncanny ability to tap into our primal fears and desires as we watch that train hurtling down the tracks.

I’m still learning.