7. Rebecca (1940)
Hitchcock's first American film based on the eponymous book by Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca is a dramatic psychological film starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. The pair fall in love in Monte Carlo and Maxim de Winter takes his young bride back to Manderley - his large Cornish manor and estate. The estate is dominated by the tyrannical housekeeper Mrs Danvers, who moans and bitches about everything the new Mrs de Winter does. Danvers is obsessed with the memory of Maxim's first wife Rebecca and harps on about how great and wonderful she was to the new Mrs de Winter who gradually begins to doubt her husband's feelings for her. However, whenever a boat comes in with Rebecca's corpse on it, Maxim has a lot of confessing to do to his young wife and she becomes entangled in a web of lies and intrigue, having to use her loaf to save her husband and herself. What is striking about Rebecca is not so much the directorial presence of Hitchcock, but the standard of the acting. The roles in Rebecca demand that the actors act their socks off, and indeed, the film is flawlessly performed. In Joan Fontaine we see a timid, nervous wreck of a woman grow strong and confident. The actress who plays Mrs Danvers - Judith Anderson - embodies perversion and malice in the extreme. The film is stylishly filmed and photographed. It is no accident that the film won Best Picture Oscar as well as Best Cinematography. And all of the major players were nominated for acting Oscars.