10 Incredible Shots That Totally Defined Movies

Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is not merely a masterwork of its genre but of aesthetic design, evidenced rarely better than by the frightfully effective focal shower scene in which Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is killed.

But Hitch actually saved the very best shot for almost-last, with the ingeniously executed final glimpse of Norman Bates' (Anthony Perkins) face, subtly superimposed as it is over the skeletal skull of his dead mother Norma.

It's a fleeting effect which appears for only around a second, but brilliantly, almost subliminally, concedes how fatally Norman was consumed by his twisted obsession with his mother.

As a riposte to the infamously exposition-heavy explanation of Norman's mental state mere moments earlier, it delivers quite the eerie, spine-tingling jolt to anyone who notices it, while perfectly illuminating who Norman is as a character.