I can't decide on which movie I think was Hitchcock's best -- I can't even decide on a favorite. It changes depending on my mood. But Vertigo (1958) is at or near the top of both lists.
Vertigo is a odd movie, though -- intensely personal and complicated, with a hypnotic vibe and deliberate pacing, it's a master class on filmmaking. It's also a movie you need to watch more than once to appreciate, because the first time you're likely to get caught up in the plot inconsistencies. Once you've "solved" the mystery, you can get caught up in the atmosphere.
Jimmy Stewart is simultaneously sympathetic and cringe-inducing as a retired police detective who had to give up the job he loved after a bungled arrest leaves him with chronic vertigo. An old acquaintance asks him to check up on his wife -- one of Hitchcock's famous cool blondes, this time played by Kim Novak.
"To reveal more," as Leonard Maltin wrote, "would be unthinkable."
Intelligent, stylistic, mysterious and almost unearthly, Vertigo steps into a San Francisco that may have never existed.
Simply suberb -- this is a must-see.
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