"I'm telling you, I saw him kill her!" The unassuming guy or gal witnesses a horrific crime - a strangulation, a stabbing, a shooting. They call the police, but by the time law enforcement arrives, there's no body, no murder weapon, not a drop of blood. Everyone thinks the witness is crazy, but the witness knows what they saw and won't stop until they're proven right. It's difficult not to love movies where your average Jane or John Doe sees something they weren't supposed to see, then goes to great lengths, including putting their own life at risk, to catch the bad guy. Audiences love to root for the mild-mannered citizen who becomes a superhero in their own right, and here are some of the best films that showcase those ordinary characters who become embroiled in the extraordinary.

RELATED: See No Crime, Hear No Crime: How 'Murder, She Wrote' Put a Twist on the 'Rear Window' Trope

The Window (1949)

The Window (1949)
Image Via RKO Radio Pictures

One of the earliest films to explore the crime witness theme, this well-crafted noir is a modern take on Aesop's "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," but with an ending that offers redemption instead of scorn. Child star Bobby Driscoll plays Tommy Woodry, a 12-year-old with a vivid imagination living in the tenements of 1940s Harlem. His tall tales and little white lies cause his hardworking parents (Barbara Hale and Arthur Kennedy) no small amount of frustration, and they've learned to tune out his fantastical stories. On a sticky summer evening, Tommy decides to sleep on the fire escape outside his bedroom to beat the heat. While trying to slip into a slumber, he peers through the window of his neighbors Joe and Jean Kellerson (Paul Stewart and Ruth Roman) and sees them stab a man to death with a pair of scissors. Given Tommy's record of fibbing, however, neither his parents nor the cops believe Tommy when he recounts what he's seen. When the Kellersons get wind of what Tommy's been telling folks around town, they move to make the boy their next victim. Although a "B-movie" produced on the cheap, The Window offers some genuinely chilling moments, and director Ted Tetzlaff makes the most of the gritty Manhattan locales as Tommy runs for his life from the homicidal Kellersons amid the dark abandoned buildings. The success of this little film paved the way for similar stories with bigger budgets and bigger stars.

Rear Window (1954)

Grace Kelly and James Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window
Image via Paramount Pictures

Five years after the success of The Window, director Alfred Hitchcock kicked the theme up a few notches with arguably the best film in the crime witness genre, Rear Window. Similar to the Tommy Driscoll film, this one also takes place during the hot, sultry Manhattan summer. Laid up with a broken leg, photojournalist L.B. "Jeff" Jefferies (Jimmy Stewart) spends his days spying on his neighbors, including the mysterious traveling salesman Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) and his bedridden wife. After hearing a crash and a scream in the middle of the night, then noticing the next day that Mrs. Thorwald is no longer in her bed, Jefferies becomes convinced that Mr. Thorwald has killed his wife. Jefferies' socialite girlfriend Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) thinks his cabin fever is getting the best of him. That is until she looks out the window and sees Mr. Thorwald rifling through his wife's purse. Lisa knows that no woman would ever leave home without her favorite handbag, and in no time, Lisa is also convinced that Thorwald has chopped his wife into little pieces.

But without a motive, body, or shred of evidence, neither Jefferies nor Lisa can convince Jefferies' detective buddy Tom Doyle (Wendell Corey) to start an investigation, so they decide to crack the case themselves. And although Stewart's Jefferies is the central character in this peeping tom thriller, it's Kelly's Lisa who's the true heroine, plucky enough to climb a fire escape and jump into Thorwald's living room through an open window to snoop around, all while wearing her high heels, pearls, and dirndl dress. What makes Rear Window so much fun is Hitchcock's ability to put the audience right there with Jefferies in his apartment, witnessing what he's witnessing, feeling his same frustrations, suspicions, and fear - and just a little bit of guilt for snooping on the neighbors, too.

Witness to Murder (1954)

Barbara Stanwyck and George Sanders in Witness to Murder
Image Via  United Artists

Released just months before Rear Window, this taut gem with a plot device similar to Rear Window was unfortunately overshadowed by all the technicolor splendor of the Hitchcock classic. In this rare 1950s feminist film, Barbara Stanwyck plays Cheryl Draper, a single career woman living alone and making her way in post-war Los Angeles. One evening, as she's about to close her bedroom window (yes, it's another "murder seen through the window" film), she witnesses a man (George Sanders) in the building across the street strangling a woman to death. Cheryl calls the police, but by the time they arrive, the neighbor has disposed of any and all evidence. Sanders' character Albert Richter is a well-known respected writer, so police are reluctant to believe Cheryl's story over Richter's claims of innocence. Stanwyck's Cheryl is unrelenting, however, and sets out on her own to prove that Richter is indeed a murderer. Thus begins a fascinating game of cat and mouse. Cheryl uncovers Richter's Nazi past, and Richter retaliates by trying to kill her and make her death look like a suicide. What sets Witness to Murder apart from other films in the genre is the presence of Stanwyck's strong female character. Smart, crafty, and fearless, Cheryl confronts Richter in his own apartment in the movie's nail-biting final showdown, showing 1950s audiences that women could fend for themselves just fine without a man's intervention.

Night Watch (1973)

Elizabeth Taylor in Night Watch
Image Via Avco Embassy Pictures

It's Rear Window meets Midnight Lace meets Gaslight. This surprisingly entertaining British import features Elizabeth Taylor as Ellen Wheeler, a woman recovering from a nervous breakdown in her country home with her husband John (Laurence Harvey) and best friend Sarah (Billie Whitelaw). While unable to sleep one night, she peers out her window (yes, we're looking out windows again) and sees what she thinks is a dead body in the abandoned house across the way. When the police come to investigate, surprise! There is no body. John and Sarah blame it all on Ellen's fragile emotional state, but Ellen is sure of what she's seen and begins to suspect her neighbor has committed murder and buried the body under the trees in his garden. As Ellen searches for the truth, she also becomes convinced that John and Sarah are trying to drive her mad so they can recommit her to the insane asylum and carry on with their own love affair. While it follows a predictable formula for most of its run time, it's the film's final act that makes it exceptional. Without giving anything away, suffice it to say that Taylor's Ellen is much more sane and much more Machiavellian than she initially appears.

Foul Play (1978)

Goldie Hawn in Foul Play
Image Via Paramount Pictures

In this genre-bending comedy/noir/thriller that saw the first onscreen pairing of Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn, director Colin Higgins (9 to 5) borrows heavily from Hitchcock's 1956 suspense yarn The Man Who Knew Too Much to tell the story of Gloria Mundy (Hawn). Gloria is a San Francisco librarian who, on a whim, picks up a stranded motorist on the side of the road, only to find him lying dead next to her in a movie theater hours later. From there, Gloria is pursued by an array of frightening bad guys, including a man with a scar, and a thug with the hilarious name of Rupert Stiltskin, all amidst a plot that involves an assassination attempt on the Pope. Gloria has trouble getting the SFPD to believe the bad guys are after her but finds a confidant (and romantic partner) in the detective assigned to her case, Tony Carlson (Chase). The film is a brilliant mix of slapstick comedy and edge-of-your-seat suspense, culminating in an epic car chase through the city's streets that rivals 1968's Bullitt. Foul Play sets a new standard for films that could incorporate action along with laughs, and Dudley Moore's turn as a sex-crazed misfit who can never manage to score is not to be missed. Anyone who's seen this classic knows it's an experience that's "far out."

Blow Out (1981)

John Lithgow and Nancy Allen as Burke and Sally nex to each other in the film Blow Out
Image Via Filmways Pictures

Brian De Palma 's underrated thriller, Blow Out, stars John Travolta as Jack, a Philadelphia man who ekes out a living as a sound technician on low-budget exploitation films. While recording snippets for his archives one evening, he sees a car plunge off a bridge and into a river. That car was carrying a presidential candidate, who loses his life, and his companion, a sex worker named Sally (Nancy Allen), who Jack saves from drowning. The scandal is covered up and the incident is officially explained as a tragic accident, but Jack is determined to prove, through the sounds he recorded that night, that the "accident" was planned. De Palma cleverly tweaks the Rear Window peeping theme, replacing it with noises pieced together to solve the crime (throwing in a little Chappaquiddick-style political intrigue to boot). Look for John Lithgow in one of his earlier roles as a bone-chilling assassin, and be prepared for one of the most shocking and downbeat endings ever in a mainstream Hollywood production.

Disturbia (2007)

Shia LaBeouf as Kale using a pair of binoculars in 'Disturbia'

Proving once again that Rear Window is the quintessential crime witness movie, Disturbia dips into the Hitchcock oeuvre but substitutes an ankle monitor for a broken leg to set up the machinations. Shia LaBeouf is Kale, a young man still grieving the tragic and sudden loss of his father who is under house arrest for landing a few blows on his high school teacher. Bored and restless after his mom (Carrie-Ann Moss) takes away his video games, Kale grabs his binoculars and starts watching his mysterious neighbor, Mr. Turner (David Morse). It isn't long before Kale, his buddy Ronnie (Aaron Yoo), and the girl next door Ashley (Sarah Roemer) are convinced Turner is murdering women, then disposing of their bodies in garbage bags. Without solid evidence, Kale can't get the local police to look into what's happening across the way. Like Grace Kelly's Lisa in Rear Window, it's Kale's friends who do the dirty investigative work while Kale supervises the proceedings. And like Rear Window, Disturbia culminates with Mr. Turner invading Kale's house in an impressive final battle. Director D.J. Caruso does an admirable job of injecting a dose of youthful exuberance and tension into what could have been an otherwise standard murder mystery.

The Woman in the Window (2020)

Amy Adams in The Woman in the Window
Image Via Netflix

Talk about a thriller that messes with the mind! Amy Adams plays Anna, an alcoholic, pill-popping agoraphobe inhabiting a huge, creepy Manhattan brownstone. New neighbors Alistair and Jane Russell (Gary Oldman and Julianne Moore) move in across the street, and soon, Jane and Anna become friends. Then one night, during one of her boozy binges, Anna looks out her window (yep, the window again) and sees Alistair stab Jane to death in their apartment. Anna calls the police, who arrive on the scene and, of course, finds nothing amiss, with Jane alive and well. The cops chalk it up to the crazy lady's love for the drink and move along. Later, Alistair and Jane come to Anna's for a visit, but what the what? Jane is now Jennifer Jason Leigh!

Anna believes she has lost her ever lovin' mind. That is until she finds a photo she took that clearly shows the Julianne Moore version of Jane in a reflection in a wine glass. Game on! Add the Russells' lying son Ethan (Fred Hechinger) and Anna's tenant, the oversexed David (Wyatt Russell), to the mix, and you have all the makings for one of the most brain-churning, twisting and turning chillers to come along in a while. Unfortunately, the final product isn't quite equal to the sum of its parts, with the film's finale collapsing upon itself amid some outlandish explanations for all the shenanigans taking place on West 121st Street. Still, at least in its first half, the movie's a compelling variation on the "I saw what you did" theme, with solid performances by all the principal actors.