Netflix is tossing film lovers a bone with a screening series of Hitchcock’s films in collaboration with the New York Film Critics Association, available on the streamer and at the Paris Theater in New York, where lucky film fans can see it on the big screen.
I was lucky enough to attend a film class at UCLA way back in the day, where all of Hitchcock’s movies were played on the big screen with a lecture by a professor at the end. We finished the series with High Anxiety, and I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. At least not in public. I’d never seen it before, and now that I knew all of the inside jokes that made it all the more funny.
Of course, Hitchcock is one of my favorite directors, as he is for most people. I have seen my favorite movies of his countless times—so many times that my daughter has said she knows exactly where in the movie we are just by the music. The Birds does it all without music, just using the actors and the flutter of the wings. Yes, on the one hand, it’s silly to think birds would attack, but it’s less a horror movie about birds and more about the inner lives of the women in the film, specifically, female jealousy. That’s more or less what the professor said at the time and it made sense to me as a way to look more deeply into the psychology of Hitchcock, I suppose.
Either way, to me it is a perfect film.
One of my favorites, The Birds, has no score. It joins other movies like No Country for Old Men, which use the silence and atmosphere of the place as the score. Psycho and Vertigo are films I feel compelled to watch. Rear Window would be my next in line of the most famous ones. I’d follow that with North by Northwest and then head into the older ones, like I Confess, Lifeboat, The Lady Vanishes, etc.
I would put Psycho and Vertigo at the top of the best films ever made list, along with Citizen Kane, and no, I would not modulate or adjust for gender, thank you very much. I am old. I have a right to be honest, at the very least.
Here are the press releases from Netflix:
Keep the lights on for this one — A collection of Alfred Hitchcock films are coming to Netflix and the Paris Theater to honor the legacy of cinema’s most influential directors.
Starting June 1, a collection of classic Hitchcock films will be available to stream in the US featuring some of his most iconic works including Vertigo, Rear Window, Frenzy, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Family Plot, The Birds and more. The collection will also include films inspired by his lasting influence, such as Us and Barbarian, as well as a narrative feature about the filmmaker himself, Hitchcock, directed by Sacha Gervasi. And for those who can’t wait – you can watch his masterpiece that redefined horror, Psycho, available now on Netflix in the US!
In addition to the cinematic offerings in your Netflix queue, the Paris Theater will present “HITCH! The Original Cinema Influencer,” May 16 through June 29, co-presented by the New York Film Critics Circle, celebrating its 90th anniversary. The six-week screening series features over 50 films—36 directed by the master of suspense himself, along with more than a dozen others that either trace the stylistic influences behind Hitchcock’s filmmaking, are works made in collaboration with him, in his style, or as direct homages to his legacy. From Hitchcock’s early English films like Blackmail to his Hollywood masterpieces such as Psycho and The Birds, the series will highlight his evolving technique and influence on popular culture and future filmmakers. 35 films in this series will have showings in 35mm, including Hitchcock classics like Rear Window, Vertigo and North by Northwest to enduring masterpieces like Francois Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Dialbolique.
Horror and suspense continue to dominate entertainment and we’re tracing back to the roots of this enduring appeal. The influences that Hitchcock drew from and the techniques he pioneered during his career still cast a long shadow over modern audiences’ ever-growing thirst for thrills and chills. Visit the Paris Theater or tune in to Netflix to rewatch a classic favorite or discover a Hitchcock film for the first time.
Look for the Alfred Hitchcock collection and row on Netflix starting June 1.
View the full Paris Theater screening series schedule and buy tickets here.
From the site:
DETAILS
The Paris Theater is proud to present HITCH! The Original Cinema Influencer, a six-week series running from May 16 through June 29, featuring nearly 60 films—36 directed by the Master of Suspense himself, along with many that trace the stylistic influences behind Hitchcock’s filmmaking, and more than a dozen others that stand as homages to his legacy.
As horror and thrillers continue to dominate the box office, spawning ever more lucrative franchises, it’s worth tracing the roots of this enduring appeal. Alfred Hitchcock, the Master of Suspense, didn’t single-handedly invent the horror genre, but the influences he drew from and the techniques he pioneered during his career still cast a long shadow over modern audiences’ ever-growing thirst for thrills and chills.
HITCH! The Original Cinema Influencer will chart the progression of Hitchcock’s technique and influence chronologically, beginning with his early films made in England such as the silent film Blackmail, as well as spy thriller The Lady Vanishes. The latter was an early indicator of Hitchcock’s ability to take root in popular culture, as the performances of Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as Charters and Caldicott proved so popular, the actors would go on to reprise their roles in five more films – including Carol Reed’s Night Train to Munich, which will play in special double feature shows with The Lady Vanishes. We’ll also showcase films by some of the German expressionist masters, including F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang, whose work Hitchcock studied during his time in the German film industry. Their inventive approach to visual storytelling—relying less on title cards or excessive dialogue—became a guiding principle in Hitchcock’s own filmmaking.
Hollywood would soon come calling for Hitchcock, pairing incredible star power with his increasingly virtuosic directorial style. This era would see him win his only Best Picture Oscar – for 1940’s Rebecca – and would be heavily influenced by World War II, seen clearly in spy thrillers like Foreign Correspondent, Saboteur, and Lifeboat, as well as two rarely-screened short films (Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache) made by Hitchcock to aid in the war effort, but shelved by government officials for being “inflammatory”.
The 1950s saw Hitchcock in peak form, with internationally beloved movie stars like Grace Kelly, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Montgomery Clift, and Marlene Dietrich all lining up to headline some of the director’s most universally praised classics – from the pulse-pounding thriller Rear Window, to the psychological labyrinth of Vertigo, which frequently polls as one the greatest films ever made. But despite acclaim and success, Hitchcock’s appetite for grit, experimentation and boundary-pushing never waned, well into the 1960s where he completely upended audience expectations and helped launched horror as the popular genre it is today with the legendary Psycho, and delivered a vision of apocalyptic doom with The Birds.
As his career drew to a close, Hitchcock continued to deliver surprises— through the entertainingly vicious Frenzy and the dark comedy of his final film, Family Plot. This period also saw a new generation of filmmakers producing work clearly indebted to the Master of Suspense—from the overt thrills of Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black to the affectionate parody of Mel Brooks’ High Anxiety. Over two decades later, Robert Zemeckis offered his own Hitchcockian thriller with What Lies Beneath—a tradition that continues to this day, as many of today’s horror auteurs trace their cinematic lineage back to Hitchcock.
Thirty-five films in this series will have showings in 35mm, including Hitchcock classics like Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and The Lady Vanishes, as well as enduring masterpieces like Francois Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black, Fritz Lang’s M, and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique, screening on an imported 35mm print courtesy of Institut Français. We’ll also have special treats like two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, featuring memorable small screen roles for stars like Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre and the directing prowess of multi-hypenate Ida Lupino. And those curious to learn more about the filmmaker’s history can take in two featured documentaries: Kent Jones’ Hitchcock/Truffaut, and My Name is Alfred Hitchcock by Mark Cousins.
