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Like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, he’s incredibly well known among the general public, but few could name more than a handful of his films. And, for those intrigued enough to investigate the devilish master, his fifty-plus filmography looks daunting.

When it comes to Hitchcock, though, there are really only three places to start: Notorious, Vertigo, and Psycho, his three finest films.

Notorious is the greatest movie that Hitchcock made before he began his foray into color film. It follows Ingrid Bergman as she spies on her husband (suspected-Nazi Claude Rains) for an American she’s slowly falling in love with (the always charismatic Cary Grant). The film is electric and sensual, with the fantastically beautiful Bergman torn between the man she’s married to and the man she can barely trust.
Hitchcock takes extra care in creating real tension, using his actors’ facial expressions to build toward a climax that will have you biting your nails and begging for more.

Which is why Psycho is such a fine follow-up rental. Parodied to death, it still packs a wallop for a first or fifteenth-time viewer.

A fugitive Janet Leigh checks into the Bates Motel, takes a shower, and enters the American psyche. Psycho is so brilliant, however, because it never ages. The thrills that the actors elicit as they are hunted by this mad killer are genuine and are a consistent rush, without ever becoming exhausting. You’ll be panting for air at the end, but unlike the current trend of creating shocks by using loud noise, this will be out of genuine fear for the players on screen, being hunted by something far more powerful than any of them can comprehend. And finally, to finish out your jump into Hitchcock, there is Vertigo.

Vertigo, like all the best of Hitchcock, appears deceptively small, with a simple love story turning tragic, but Hitchcock, observing the shock of death and a broken heart, instead lets his affable everyman (Jimmy Stewart-in bar none the best thing he ever did) brink into madness, becoming obsessed with Kim Novak’s Madeleine, trying to pull together the pieces of his life that can never be reconstructed.

The ending, like all of Hitchcock’s endings, is startlingly moving, not because of a come-out-of-nowhere surprise, but because by the time we reach the movie’s close, we’ve become so entrenched in these characters’ lives we can’t help but feel their desperation and pain.

So take a chance on a genius this Halloween and rent something from this true master. He’ll make you laugh, cry, scream, and never want to take another shower againčall in all, you’ll certainly be in store for a good evening.