Hitchcock: the directors' cut

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The best Hitchcock films as chosen by ten film directors including Stephen Frears and Joe Wright

Alfred Hitchcock never won a Best Director Oscar, but he is the quintessential directors’ director. As the BFI’s five-month Hitch extravaganza gets underway across the city, we asked ten leading directors to pick their favourites

Mike Leigh on ‘Rear Window’ (1954) John Carpenter on ‘Vertigo’ (1958) William Friedkin on ‘North by Northwest’ (1959) Kenneth Branagh on ‘Vertigo’ (1958) Joanna Hogg on ‘Suspicion’ (1941) Ben Wheatley on ‘Psycho’ (1960) Mark Cousins on ‘Marnie’ (1964) Stephen Frears on ‘Notorious’ (1946) Joe Wright on ‘Strangers on a Train’ (1951) David Cronenberg on ‘Rear Window’ (1954)

John Carpenter on ‘Vertigo’ (1958)

‘“Vertigo” exists somewhere outside of time, in your unconscious. It’s a dark film, a deep, dark nightmare. The techniques involved are unbelievable – the music, the editing, the colour, the slow, deliberate, dreamlike pace. I’m not sure if audiences in 1958 – me included, because I saw it at the tender age of ten – knew what was going on. Everybody who’s ever tried to do anything suspenseful has copied Hitchcock. As a matter of fact, everyone who’s ever put two pieces of film together has copied Hitchcock. That’s how it’s done.’

John Carpenter is the director of ‘Halloween’ and ‘The Thing’.



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