12. Vertigo (1958)
And now we go from vibrant and audacious to subtle and subdued. You may get all the way through Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece without even realizing how important the visual aspect is. Which just goes to show how well he did it in this movie. Underneath the detective story and the tale of love and obsession lies a bizarre use of colors to identify with characters. Take Kim Novak's character... every time green appears in the film, it's relating to her. Her dress, her car, the neon lights shining into her hotel room... even Jimmy Stewart's face in the opening credits (seen above) foreshadows his obsession with her. Also used to great visual effect is what came to be known as "the Vertigo effect", wherein the camera zooms in while pulling away from the object being framed. This gives the bizarre illusion of the background getting further away while staying in the same place.
Finally the film frequently uses spirals as a way of signifying the main character's obsession... constantly trying to get things (and people) back to the way they were.