# Hitchcockesque films
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [August 17, 2013, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490 "2013-08-17T14:33:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2013, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/1 "2013-08-17T14:33:19Z")
[Over here, we have people listing best and worst Hitchcock films](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=699326). In the middle of it, a couple people suggest films that are similar to Hitchcock’s style.
The two suggested were _Charade_ and _Mirage_. I’ll add _Arabesques_ to the list (even though it’s somewhat too happy and bright).
But let’s not just limit it to films that came after Hitch–Hitch didn’t do _Double Indemnity_, but he could have (and I’ve always thought that _Double Indemnity_ as well as _The Third Man_ inspired Hitchcock for his later works).
So…category: suspense, style: Hitchcock-esque.
Suggestions?
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### Author:  [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2013, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/2 "2013-08-17T14:58:48Z")
More recently, I always thought M. Night Shyamalan’s \*Unbreakable \*had some very Hitchcockian elements, at least in the directing and building of suspense in certain scenes.
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### Author:  [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2013, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/3 "2013-08-17T15:01:06Z")
How about _ **Wait Until Dark** _?
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### Author:  [@Mrs.Cake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrs.Cake)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2013, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/4 "2013-08-17T15:22:43Z")
I thought the French film _Tell No One_ had some Hitchcockian elements to it. Wonderfully suspenseful.
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### Author:  [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2013, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/5 "2013-08-17T17:28:34Z")
Another French film, _Diabolique_ of 1955, was excellently suspenseful and quite Hitchcockian. I could see it again.
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2013, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/6 "2013-08-17T17:36:28Z")
[The Bride Wore Black](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bride_Wore_Black) was a homage to AH, including the score by Bernard Herrmann.
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### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2013, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/7 "2013-08-17T18:07:47Z")
Brian de Palma’s \*Dressed To Kill \*and _Sisters_.
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### Author:  [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2013, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/8 "2013-08-17T18:43:07Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#):
>
> Brian de Palma’s \*Dressed To Kill \*and _Sisters_.
Also, de Palma’s **Body Double** and **Obsession**. In fact, for much of his career Brian de Palma was notorious for copying Hitchcock to the nth degree.
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### Author:  [@Renifer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renifer)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2013, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/9 "2013-08-17T20:40:07Z")
_Cry Wolf_ is like Hitchcock for teens.
_The Crucible_, though the historical aspect is a bit of a departure.
_Devil_ (five people trapped on an elevator, one is a killer demon) and\* The Collector\* (thief breaks into a house, but there’s psychotic killer holding the family hostage) are Hitchcockian in concept but not in execution. _Devil_ could pass if the supernatural part of the story was more understated, and _The Collector_ had too much unnecessary gore.
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### Author:  [@minlokwat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minlokwat)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2013, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/10 "2013-08-17T21:00:35Z")
\*\*The Machinist \*\*deserves mention.
In addition to the plot and use of suspense, the music is very Hitchcockian as well.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2013, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/11 "2013-08-17T21:41:49Z")
> [@Fenris](#):
>
> [Over here, we have people listing best and worst Hitchcock films](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=699326). In the middle of it, a couple people suggest films that are similar to Hitchcock’s style.
>
> The two suggested were _Charade_ and _Mirage_. I’ll add _Arabesques_ to the list (even though it’s somewhat too happy and bright).
>
> But let’s not just limit it to films that came after Hitch–Hitch didn’t do _Double Indemnity_, but he could have (and I’ve always thought that _Double Indemnity_ as well as _The Third Man_ inspired Hitchcock for his later works).
>
> So…category: suspense, style: Hitchcock-esque.
>
> Suggestions?
The film title is **Arabesque** , singular, and it belongs in this group because of shared people with _Charade_ and _Mirage_ (It stars Gregory Peck, again, it has a common director with Mirage. And, even though Peter Stone didn’t write the screenplay thi8s time, he did do an uncredited rewrite. Not enough to save it, though. The film also has opening titles by the same guy who did them for Mirage – Maurice Binder, better known for doing almost all of the James Bond title sequences up until **License to Kill** )
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### Author:  [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2013, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/12 "2013-08-17T21:45:14Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#):
>
> Another French film, _Diabolique_ of 1955, was excellently suspenseful and quite Hitchcockian. I could see it again.
Hitchcock had actually stated that this was one of his own favorite films and wished he _had_ directed it.
Hictchcock was actually the first choice to direct _Rosemary’s Baby_, but turned it down. But it’s not hard to imagine Hitch directing it - secret conspiracy, a blond ingenue who receives abusive treatment, paranoia & suspicion especially toward “authority” figures (the doctor who turns out to be a secret Satanist.) All the classic Hitch elements.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2013, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/13 "2013-08-17T21:46:24Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> [The Bride Wore Black](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bride_Wore_Black) was a homage to AH, including the score by Bernard Herrmann.
This is the one I came in to post. Not only did Truffaut do it in Hitchcock’s style, and get Bernard Hermann to do the score, but the film is based on a story by Cornell Woolrich, the same guy who wrote the story **Rear Window** , upon which Hitchcock based his film of the same name. To my mind, this makes TBWB the ultimate Hitchcock tribute film.
Of course, if you’re talking Hitchcock tributes, you have to include Mel Brooks’ **High Anxiety** , even if that is tongue-in-cheek.
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### Author:  [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2013, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/14 "2013-08-17T23:24:31Z")
If somebody had told me Hitchcock directed _ **The Manchurian Candidate** _ I wouldn’t have questioned it.
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### Author:  [@Rollo\_Tomasi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rollo_Tomasi)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2013, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/15 "2013-08-18T00:12:06Z")
I sometimes hear George Cukor’s **Gaslight** mistakenly referred to as a Hitchcock movie. It’s a psychological thriller similar in style to Hitchcock’s **Suspicion** , albeit with a period twist.
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### Author:  [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/16 "2013-08-18T00:40:20Z")
> [@NDP](#):
>
> Also, de Palma’s **Body Double** and **Obsession**. In fact, for much of his career Brian de Palma was notorious for copying Hitchcock to the nth degree.
**Body Double** was the first thing that came to my mind.
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### Author:  [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2013, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/17 "2013-08-18T01:11:52Z")
> [@bup](#):
>
> If somebody had told me Hitchcock directed _ **The Manchurian Candidate** _ I wouldn’t have questioned it.
The scene where the camera pans, in an unbroken shot, around 360 degrees from the ladies at the garden club back around to the Chinese and Russian spectators does seem like something he’d have done.
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### Author:  [@Darth\_Nader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Nader)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2013, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/18 "2013-08-18T02:14:35Z")
No love for Silver Streak?
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### Author:  [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2013, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/19 "2013-08-18T02:28:31Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#):
>
> Hictchcock was actually the first choice to direct _Rosemary’s Baby_, but turned it down. But it’s not hard to imagine Hitch directing it - secret conspiracy, a blond ingenue who receives abusive treatment, paranoia & suspicion especially toward “authority” figures (the doctor who turns out to be a secret Satanist.) All the classic Hitch elements.
However, there’s one thing in **Rosemary’s Baby** that Hitchcock mostly avoided and was probably the reason why he turned the project down: the story turns out to be explicitly supernatural. In films like \*\*Rebecca, \*\ ***Vertigo** , or **Psycho** , Hitchcock often teased us with fantastic or otherworldly elements but, with the major exception of **The Birds** (which was quasi-science fiction), everything had a rational real-world explanation behind it.
As for Hitchcockesque films, I’ve always thought **Marathon Man** had a lot of the elements that were present in many of his movies.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2013, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchcockesque-films/666490/20 "2013-08-18T03:02:17Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#):
>
> Hitchcock had actually stated that this was one of his own favorite films and wished he _had_ directed it.
The authors of the book that **Les Diaboliques** was based upon also wrote the novel **Vertigo** was based on, and wanted to imitate Hitchcock.
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