Seventy-five years ago, Alfred Hitchcock changed the face of American film -- and made it a lot creepier.



Having already directed two dozen features in England, the filmmaker moved to Hollywood and made his first feature there, the glossy psychological thriller "Rebecca," released 75 years ago this month (April 12, 1940). The movie, about an unnamed young woman (Joan Fontaine) who marries a brooding aristocrat (Laurence Olivier) and moves into a spooky mansion still haunted by her husband's late wife (the Rebecca of the title), won the Oscar for Best Picture and launched Hitchcock's four-decade reign as Hollywood's leading director of movies that sent chills down your spine.



Today, of course, Hitchcock movies are recognized as their own genre, films whose suspense and horrors have not only kept generations of moviegoers on the edge of their seats but also became the templates that taught all thriller and chiller directors who followed how to do the same. His is a formidable body of work, one that covered more than half a century from the silent era to the '70s and includes scores of classic films that still hold up well today.



Which is the best Alfred Hitchcock movie? That's a question that film buffs, scholars, and casual fans alike have enjoyed arguing about for decades. Here's Moviefone's contribution to the argument, a list ranking all 52 Hitchcock English-language narrative features, from worst to best.