6. Hitchcocks Strangler Trilogy
The Films: Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Rope (1948) and Strangers On A Train (1951).
Why So Awesome: Shadow Of A Doubt is a highlight of early Hitchcock, staking the claim no one can build a finer thriller. With the relationship of a girl and her namesake uncle/strangler at its heart, it inadvertently started an unofficial trilogy. After showing us a heartless, money grabbing murder, we got more morality in Rope, with the key duo torn over whether the murder theyve committed was right, albeit after the fact. The pair still ended up caught thanks to their teacher (Hitchcock favourite Jimmy Stewart), but in Strangers On A Train we finally got a truly moral person who makes it to the end a free man having never killed anyone. This gradual development of characters shows a maturity in filmmaking, but also highlights the various psyches of the killers.