With masterful control of those elements, Hitchcock could manipulate his audiences like puppets on a string, delivering shocks that reverberate through cinema history. Thrillers show us horrors and weave in human dramas, but they use those raw materials to forge something particular: a sense of unease and suspense.
From the early classics, like Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger or Fritz Lang’s M, to the films of David Fincher and Martin Scorsese, they’re rich in nerve-shredding, adrenaline-pumping rides into the darker recesses of the psyche. And if you don’t believe us, there’s a suspicious figure in that darkened doorway who’d like a word. Everyone has their favourite genre but we can surely all agree that thrillers are the best.
