A “masterpiece” is now available on Amazon Prime, with fans calling it the “greatest thriller ever”. Rear Window is a 1954 American mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by John Michael Hayes.
The film stars James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, and Raymond Burr. Based on Cornell Woolrich’s 1942 short story “It Had to Be Murder”, the film follows a professional photographer, L.B. Jefferies (Stewart), who is confined to his apartment with a broken leg and passes the time by watching his neighbours through his window. He becomes convinced that his neighbour, Mr Thorwald (Burr), has murdered his wife and enlists his girlfriend, Lisa (Kelly), and nurse, Stella (Ritter), to help him investigate the crime, leading to a suspenseful and dangerous confrontation. Rear Window is voyeuristic, shot almost entirely from within one room and from the point-of-view outside the window.
It is considered by many filmgoers, critics, and scholars to be one of Hitchcock’s best films, as well as one of the greatest films ever made.
Solzy At The Movies called it “one of the greatest thrillers” and said that Hitchcock is a “master of suspense”. Collider called it a “masterpiece” and recommended that film lovers watch it as soon as possible.
It received four Academy Award nominations and was ranked number 42 on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies list and number 48 on the 10th anniversary edition.
In 1997, Rear Window was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 98% based on 130 reviews, with an average rating of 9.30/10. The critics’ consensus states that “Hitchcock exerted full potential of suspense in this masterpiece.”
At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of a very rare perfect 100 out of 100 based on 18 critics, indicating “universal acclaim”.