Alfred Hitchcock’s films appeal to the inner murderer in all of us. Why wouldn’t they? They’re suspenseful films filled with unpredictable plot twists, horrifyingly realistic villains, and a dark sense of humor towards anything dealing with death. A huge part of the appeal to these films is their complexity; many of his films feature a would-be perfect murder. This is a list of the best of those. It should be stated that I have not seen all of Hitchcock’s films, not near half to be honest, but I have seen many of his masterpieces and loved nearly every one.
10. North by Northwest (1959) – the murder at the UN
The ingenuity of this film lies in its humor. Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is on the run from the beginning, wrongfully believed to be a spy. Of course, when a UN ambassador dies in his arms from a perfectly thrown blade, everyone has reason to believe he’s a spy. This is one of the great cases of framing in Hitchcock’s canon, as Thornhill may or may not been about to discover the truth, but instead dozens of people see a man die in his arms and him have the knife in his hand.
9. The 39 Steps (1935)
This film is extremely similar to North by Northwest, but its dramatic hook of a murder happens very quickly. Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) meets an attractive female spy in his home and she is murdered late at night. Hannay is now the only one who knew the secrets (or anything about them) so he must run. And naturally, running makes him look guilty of the murder.
8. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
No one is actually murdered in this film, but it’s implied that the titular woman would have been. A woman disappears on a train and only one other woman seems to recall her presence. This works because a great deal of the passengers didn’t speak English, but all the English-speaking ones had some other reasons not to care. The rest of the film is the main character trying to prove to the passengers that there was indeed a woman, and then to find her.
7. Lifeboat (1944)
Lifeboat begins with the deaths of many, as a passenger ship is sunk by a German ship, but little by little, opportunity for murder begins to present itself. Is there ever a better place to get away with murder than in the middle of an ocean on a lifeboat? Of course, not everything ends up working out.
6. Rear Window (1954)
It is apparent that Lars Thorwald had carefully planned out the murder of his wife, probably for months. Everything was so perfect about his murder—her about to leave on vacation, etc—except there’s wheelchair-ridden Jimmy Stewart to account of. This is my second favorite Hitchcock film as just about everything in it is magnificent.
5. Psycho (1960) – the first murder
This was a crime of passion but ended up being nearly perfect. Why? Well because of the actions of Marion Crane. She stole a bunch of money and was on the run, so her disappearing doesn’t necessarily mean she’s dead. And she even used a fake name. While the murderer didn’t know any of this, one can consider this an accidentally perfect murder, a perfect example of this film’s brilliance. In addition to that, the murder scene was cleaned up nearly flawlessly and her body was hidden well in a swamp.
4. Dial M for Murder (1954)
Dial M for Murder is one of the finest examples of a film being a mystery for the characters but not the viewer. We see early in the film a husband hire someone who he hasn’t seen in years to kill his beautiful wife. Now I don’t know why anyone would ever want to kill Grace Kelly if they were married to her but that’s the premise for this perfect murder. A man who has never met Margot Mary Wendice is to kill her while the husband is away, seemingly incapable of committing the murder. It’s a great concept but was even better executed in another film. This one takes an interesting twist.
3. Rope (1948)
In addition to this more or less being a perfect murder morally (while this is debatable of course) the two murderers are so clever about it that they have a bunch of guests at the scene of the crime and where the body has been hidden and no one is able to notice anything. Of course, pride breeds the tyrant and they eventually are found out, but that’s out of guilt as much as it’s out of evidence.
2. Vertigo (1958)
While implausible to a degree and requiring so much coincidence, how it went down is just about perfect. I could easily see this being described as the perfect perfect murder. It’s complexity is astounding. Hitchcock takes the whole lookalike theme from The Wrong Man and uses it here to make a murder look like a suicide, and it works incredibly well. Of course, this would have gone on unsolved had it not been for love.
1. Strangers on a Train (1951)
This is a lot like Dial M for Murder in a sense. Two strangers meet on a train and they both have someone in their lives they could do without. Bruno Antony (Robert Armstrong) proposes that they “swap murders,” and that’s exactly what he does. He’s also very careful about it. While the husband is the natural suspect, he was nowhere near the wife at the time of the murder and there is nothing more than circumstantial evidence against him. Add some blackmail to the mix and you’ve got more or less a perfect murder, and coincidentally, a perfect film.
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