Rear Window (1954) — Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, Wendell Corey, Raymond Burr. 112 minutes. Rated PG.
Alfred Hitchcock made films that asked you to be uncomfortable with yourself, and Rear Window is the most honest of them all about why. There is no monster in this film, no thunderstorm, no castle on a hill. There is only a window, a courtyard, a man in a wheelchair, and the oldest of human impulses: the need to watch other people without being watched back. By the time the film is over, Hitchcock has made you complicit in that impulse and then made you answer for it. That is the genius.
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