I was chatting with Evie and told her she should check out Shadow of a Doubt again and I was reminded of the Scorcese and Spielberg threads I did ages ago...and since someone has already covered Kubrick...

Too hard to pick a favorite so, but I guess it would be...

1) Vertigo - A classic in every sense of the word

2) Rear Window - where are you, E-man?

3) North By Northwest - I've always loved this one. Anyone up for a trip to Mount Rushmore?

4) Suspicion - too bad this one isn't on the Masterpiece Collection, neither is NxNW unfortunately

5) Psycho - I know, how predictable?

6) Shadow of a Doubt -- love this one, very Blue Velvet...or is it the other way around?

7) Marnie - always surprises me how good Tippi Hedren is in this, the story and pacing of this film in all its layers is fantastic.

8) The Wrong Man - just for Susan

9) Rope - deliciously good fun...

10) I'll throw in The Trouble With Harry - this is what happens when Hitchcock does a comedy...

Honorable mentions: Strangers on a Train and Dial M For Murder         

"Every day holds a new beginning and every hour holds the promise of an Invitation to Love." 

Oh, like I'm SOOOOOOOO sure The Wrong Man is better than that fantastic classic ROPE, Smokey! The great little film Zero Day shared a similar insight to murdering duos that Hitchcock understood -- that SUPERiority complex thing. We're so much smarter than all those other doofuses (is that the plural of doofus?) that not only can we kill them if we feel like it, but they also deserve to be victims.

Notice you left out The Birds too. Good call.

Strangers on a Train deserves more than an honorable mention on my list. Loved the Danny DeVito remake even until it fell apart at the end as many a Hollywood comedy tends to do. I loved the concept of the switcheroo murder -- I'll kill your wife if you kill my mother.  Who would ever know?  Wonderful!

Lifeboat with Tallulah Bankhead?! Pretty damn fine piece of cinema. Rebecca too. That's when B&W really sparkled!

When that final Hitchcock film was released we were there in a Westwood movie theater to see it. The one with Karen Black. All I remember about that one was disappointment. The title always escapes me.

Today is Alfred Hitchcock's birthday! Were he still alive and making films, he'd be 107 years old. Looking over his IMDB I see there are literally dozens of his early films I've never seen. This means a trip to my son's DVD collection!  Then there's allllll those old Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV shows waiting to be revisited.  Back in the 60s he had a magazine of AH stories too, if my memory serves me well.

Personal story:

There is a small restaurant down the street from me -- one of those quiet spots with consistently fine food where the menu rarely changes and the staff stays the same year after year.  Businesses all around it come and go. We've been eating there for 30+ years but didn't know until about a month ago that Alfred Hitchcock, his wife, and Edith Head and her husband were regular late night dining patrons. What a group, huh!?  Speaking to the owner on our last visit, the subject of which celebrities patronize his restaurant came up. In LA, every plumber, electrician, carpet cleaner and restaurateur has their celebrity tales. Anyway, the owner thought AH was such a down to earth genuine gentleman. He told us that Alfred's driver would park out front and wait for the group to have dinner. But also in the car was Hitchcock's beloved dog. Whatever Alfred had for dinner, he'd save a portion of it for his pooch, taking it out to him before his after-dinner dessert, coffee etc.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

If you have COMCAST Cable they have an Alfred Hitchcock section " On Demand".  Check it out!!

Rob

 
Vertigo, Rear Window, North By Northwest, Rope, Psycho, Shadow of a Doubt, The Trouble With Harry, To Catch a Thief, The Lodger (with my own special soundtrack), and The Birds. The first three are locked in their positions, and the rest shift, occasionally with Frenzy or Family Plot sneaking in there.

Nothing comes near Notorious.

I could rape that movie.

 
Oh, I dearly hope you don't... 

I'll add Spellbound, worth checking out if only for the Dali-designed dream sequence:

Slicin' up eyeballs!...

Granted, Grace Kelly lives in that strata that few can even visit. But her performance is written to be effortless, and Kim Novak's isn't -- and I can't see Kelly in the Vertigo role. For me Rear Window is a simple story made complex in its conversion to film, while Vertigo is a complex story in a complex film.

As much as I hate terms like "better", if pressed I would probably admit to Rear Window being the (slightly) superior film, but my own subjective preference stands. It could be just because I'm a sourpuss.