4. The Birds (1963)
A love bird carrying beautiful blonde socialite Melanie (Tippi Hedren) pursues a potential romance with Mitch (Rod Taylor) in a small island - Bodega Bay. However the local birds strangely turn nasty and begin savage attacks on civilians. Principally entertaining for me because whenever the birds start squawking my poor little budgies and cockatiels go bananas, The Birds has been creeping people out for 50 years now. Hitchcock built up a lot of tension in the viewer when it came to predicting when the bird attacks would occur. A lot of the time they are gathered in a menacing crowd and the viewer thinks "Oh crap! When is hell going to break loose?". It is also pretty scary in taking the premise of an ordinary object - like a bird and turning it into something horrific. The film is also unusual in that it doesn't have a score which definitely makes the film more atmospheric. There are numerous moments of nail biting tension and if the viewer feels the first part of the film is slow, it is because Hitchcock is concentrating on building up characterisation. Surely ranks as one of the great director's most well known and loved masterpieces.