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- Alfred Hitchcock's filmography continues to be a popular subject of debate, discussion and inspiration for both fans and critics alike today. His films set outside the United States present an interesting perspective when compared to his latter work, with the best ones standing out thanks to astounding set pieces, obvious Hitchcock trademarks and, of course, suspenseful stories.
Alfred Hitchcock's best-known films were thrillers made in America throughout the 1940s-1960s. While these aren't the only decades during which Hitchcock was active as a filmmaker, it's understandable that these are the years he's best known for, given the huge number of classic films he was responsible for directing during that time.
For those who want to dive deeper into his filmography, however, there's a wide range of movies he directed outside the USA. He made the transition to making American films in 1940, having made over 25 in England during the 1920s and 1930s. There's also one British outlier released in the early 1970s (arguably his last great film). While his British films may not be as consistently slick or timeless as his best American movies, there are numerous gems to be found among them.
Updated on January 13th, 2023, by Hannah Saab:
Alfred Hitchcock's filmography continues to be a popular subject of debate, discussion and inspiration for both fans and critics alike today. His films set outside the United States present an interesting perspective when compared to his latter work, with the best ones standing out thanks to astounding set pieces, obvious Hitchcock trademarks and, of course, suspenseful stories.
10 'Secret Agent' (1936)
Available to stream on FilmBox+.
With Secret Agent, Hitchcock makes a historical film of sorts, with its WW1 setting. It shows he also made a movie about British special agents decades before it was cool, as this film follows three special agents tasked with assassinating a German spy during the middle of the First World War.
Complications arise (as they often seem to do in Hitchcock movies) when two of the spies morally object to their mission, and the remaining one still seems committed to carrying it out. It doesn't flow as well as the filmmaker's best 1930s films, but it's grounded by a great Peter Lorre performance and some fun set pieces.
9 'Blackmail' (1929)
Available to stream on Kanopy.
Blackmail instantly jumps out among the underrated films Hitchcock made in the 1920s because it's his first "talkie." In other words, it's his first to feature dialogue, and features a surprisingly dark story about a young woman who's blackmailed by a thief after she kills a man in self-defense.
Because of its darker tone and high-stakes story, it also stands out as being one of the first genuinely suspenseful films made by Hitchcock, and it holds up pretty well, considering it will turn 100 by this decade's end. It's also unique for featuring long stretches of the film that don't have dialogue (which can be common in early talkies). It sometimes rides the line between being a talkie and being a silent film, and is very interesting to see play out as a result.
8 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' (1934)
Available to stream on HBO Max, The Criterion Channel and FilmBox+.
Hitchcock loved to make movies about main characters who get falsely accused and/or roped into a situation where they're in way over their heads. The Man Who Knew Too Much certainly solidifies itself as the latter from the title alone, with a story about a vacationing couple who find out about an assassination attempt, only to find out their daughter has been kidnapped/threatened by criminals, to ensure the couple keeps quiet.
This one is very entertaining throughout, with little downtime. Hitchcock had grown a great deal as a filmmaker in the decade or so he'd been at it by this point, and it makes The Man Who Knew Too Much stand as one of his most entertaining films from the 20s and 30s. Interestingly, he remade it in the 1950s, too, and while that one (starring James Stewart and Doris Day) is more well-known, the 1934 original shouldn't be overlooked.
7 'The Ring' (1927)
Available to stream on Kanopy.
If you only ever watch one black-and-white movie about boxing in your lifetime, you should watch the classic Martin Scorsese film, Raging Bull. However, if you can find the time to watch two black-and-white movies about boxing in your lifetime, The Ring might well be a good pick as the second.
Not to be mixed up with the horror remake of the same name, The Ring (1927) is another silent film from Hitchcock, with a plot involving a love triangle made up of two rival boxers, and the young woman they're both in love with. It's predictable by today's standards, but still a fairly good watch for silent film fans. It's also notable for including an early, trademark Hitchcock cameo: he apparently appears in this as "Man-Dipping Attraction Worker"... whatever that means.
6 'Frenzy' (1972)
Available to rent on Apple iTunes, Amazon Video and Google Play Movies.
By the late 1960s, Hitchcock was nearing 70, and had already made numerous great films in America over 30 years. He then returned to England, to push boundaries and shock one last time with Frenzy, a film that ended up being his penultimate film, rather than his last... though it's perhaps the last of his great movies.
It involves a serial killer who becomes known for strangling his female victims with neckties, and another innocent who gets falsely accused. It's perhaps Hitchcock's most violent and sexually explicit film, with some scenes that could still disturb modern viewers. It's twisted, off-the-wall, and somewhat messy in parts, but there are too many great, memorable moments to overlook it when considering Hitchcock's best films made in England.
5 'Sabotage' (1936)
Available to stream on HBO Max, The Criterion Channel and FilmBox+.
Sabotage is a very interesting early Hitchcock film. Even by the director's standards, it's noticeably grim and nail-biting for a movie of its age, with a plot about a woman who suspects her husband of being part of a plot to bomb several areas of London.
Perhaps the only Hitchcock film that definitely manages to be darker and more downbeat than Sabotage is Vertigo (arguably Psycho, too... maybe). The best, most shocking sequence in Sabotage is one Hitchcock apparently regretted making, but it elevates the film and makes it stand out, raising the stakes for Hitchcock's filmography as a whole, by showing how far he was apparently willing to go to produce tension, fear, and shock.
4 'The 39 Steps' (1935)
Available to stream on HBO Max, The Criterion Channel and FilmBox+.
The 39 Steps is often considered the first flat-out great and romantic Hitchcock film, combining suspense, mystery, and romance into one satisfying package. It follows a man on the run from dangerous foes after he accidentally stumbles on a conspiracy, with things becoming more complicated after he ropes a young woman along for the chase, too.
It's surprisingly light without being a comedy exactly, and stands out as one of Hitchcock's most fun and accessible pre-Hollywood movies. The whole movie being about two people on the run means the pacing stays fast and exciting, and it's just genuinely well-executed from start to finish.
3 'The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog' (1927)
Available to stream on HBO Max and The Criterion Channel.
Emerging as Hitchcock's first well-known film that had hints of his style to come, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog is a silent film about a notorious serial killer who plagues London, and a mysterious young man who rents a room from a family who begin to wonder if he could be the killer.
Hitchcock only directed a few silent films, and very early in his career (he was only 28 years old in 1927), but there's a good argument to be made that The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog is the best of them. It's moody, solidly directed, and with its sense of paranoia and its crime-related storyline, stands as a clear example of a young Hitchcock beginning to develop his signature traits and interests as a director.
2 'Young and Innocent' (1937)
Available to stream on The Criterion Channel.
Young and Innocent is one of many Hitchcock movies about a person falsely accused of a crime who needs to prove their innocence while being on the run from those who believe them guilty. In this particular film, it's a young man who's accused of killing a woman he once knew, with others around him suspecting him as the most likely suspect.
The way the protagonist here, Robert, meets a young woman whilst on the run, this feels a little reminiscent of The 39 Steps. It's not as good as that one, but it scratches a similar itch, and represents another solid attempt on Hitchcock's part to perfect the "man on the run" storyline he seemed to love so dearly.
1 'The Lady Vanishes' (1938)
Available to stream on HBO Max, The Criterion Channel and FilmBox+.
Perhaps the best-known of Hitchcock's pre-Hollywood films (well, it's either this or The 39 Steps), The Lady Vanishes is about a young woman who notices an older woman seemingly disappear from the train they were on mid-trip, only to find no one else on the train seems to have seen her.
It's the kind of movie where you know some sort of conspiracy will be unraveled, but it's not so much the "what" that's interesting; it's the "why" and "how" that keeps you watching. Like the train it's mostly set on, The Lady Vanishes continually chugs along at a good pace, and in turn becomes one of the most entertaining and easy to watch of Hitchcock's British films, perhaps being the last great one he made before he began making films in America.