Before he took Hollywood by storm, Alfred Hitchcock was already renowned as a master stylist and storyteller in his native Britain, where he was perhaps the leading director of the late silent and early sound eras. Strongly influenced by German Expressionism, Hitchcock’s silent films are triumphs of visual invention, pushing the medium to new expressive heights in works like THE LODGER, his atmospheric take on the Jack the Ripper tale. With the coming of sound, Hitchcock kicked off a run of early masterpieces including the train-set mystery THE LADY VANISHES and the underrated nail-biter SABOTAGE. Foreshadowing many of the themes and tropes he would rework obsessively throughout his American career, Hitchcock’s British films display the keen psychological insight, dazzling stylistic innovation, dark wit, and virtuoso set-pieces that would earn him the moniker “the Master of Suspense.”
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1927 • United Kingdom
Starring Ivor Novello, June Tripp
With his third feature film, THE LODGER: A STORY OF THE LONDON FOG, Alfred Hitchcock took a major step toward greatness and made what he would come to consider his true directorial debut. This haunting sile...
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1927 • United Kingdom
Starring Ivor Novello, Ben Webster, Norman McKinnel
That’s the direction things go for boarding-school student and star rugby player Roddy Berwick (celebrated songwriter and matinee idol Ivor Novello) when he falls from golden boy to public di...
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1934 • United Kingdom
Starring Peter Lorre, Leslie Banks, Edna Best
An ordinary British couple vacationing in Switzerland suddenly find themselves embroiled in a case of international intrigue when their daughter is kidnapped by spies plotting a political assassina...
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1935 • United Kingdom
Starring Robert Donat, Madeline Carroll, Lucie Mannheim
A heart-racing spy story by Alfred Hitchcock, THE 39 STEPS follows Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) as he stumbles upon a conspiracy that thrusts him into a hectic chase across the Scottish ...
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1936 • United Kingdom
Starring Sylvia Sidney, Oskar Homolka, John Loder
This loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novel “The Secret Agent” is one of the high-water marks of Alfred Hitchcock’s early British period. Sylvia Sidney is the unsuspecting wife of a London c...
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1937 • United Kingdom
Starring Derrick De Marney, Nova Pilbeam, Percy Marmont
Alfred Hitchcock’s delightfully entertaining, often overlooked tale of a wrongly accused man follows a young writer (Derrick De Marney) who, when he becomes the prime suspect in the murde...
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1938 • United Kingdom
Starring Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas
In Alfred Hitchcock’s most quick-witted and devilish comic thriller, the beautiful Margaret Lockwood, traveling across Europe by train, meets a charming spinster (Dame May Whitty), who t...
