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Psycho, Hitchcock > 
Psycho is probably the most "cinematic" and arguably the best of Alfred Hitchcock's American films. Even today, thirty-seven years after its initial release, the film is still powerful, unsettling stuff. It's distinctly different from Hitchcock's other works, dealing as it does with unpleasant, graphic murders among ordinary, even bland, characters. The acting, especially from the often under-rated Janet Leigh and the subtle, incisive Anthony Perkins, is uniformly above grade. And that shower scene -- even after repeated viewings, it retains its ability to unsettle and disturb the viewer! Refreshingly free of the complicated visual "tricks" and plot twists of many of Hitchcock's other films, the rather straight-forward narrative draws us in until we're hooked, then pulls the rug out from under us in the best thriller fashion. The carefully fleshed-out characters are perhaps equalled, in Hitchcock's ouevre, only by those in "Shadow of a Doubt", another film set uncharacteristically among realistic middle-class people rather than the high-society and spy types that populate so many of Hitchcock's films. Hitchcock himself was reportedly suprised by the overwhelming success of a movie he viewed, originally, as an experiment -- an attempt to bring TV production techniques and talent to a low-budget (for Hitchcock) film. Clearly, like many artists, he underestimated his own masterpiece. See it! And shiver!
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