North by Northwest
3 Oscar Nominations·AFI #55·BFI #45·National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
Advertising man Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.
What critics thought
Near-universally celebrated since its 1959 release, North by Northwest has only grown in stature over decades of critical reassessment, now ranking among the most honored films ever made. Critics single out the convergence of Hitchcock's direction, Ernest Lehman's screenplay, Cary Grant's effortless performance, Bernard Herrmann's score, and a string of set pieces — the crop-duster sequence most of all — as a rare alignment of talent firing at full strength.
“the year's most scenic, intriguing and merriest chase”
A. H. Weiler·The New York Times
“the purest piece of entertainment filmmaking”
Penelope Houston·Sight and Sound
“Fifty years on, you could say that Hitchcock's sleek, wry, paranoid thriller caught the zeitgeist perfectly: Cold War shadiness, secret agents of power, urbane modernism, the ant-like bustle of city life, and a hint of dread behind the sharp suits of affluence.”
Time Out
“smoothly troweled and thoroughly entertaining”
Time
Genres
Adventure, Drama, Mystery
Cast & Crew
DirectorAlfred Hitchcock
StarringCary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis, Leo G. Carroll
ComposerBernard Herrmann
North by Northwest
3 Oscar Nominations·AFI #55·BFI #45·National Film Registry
Advertising man Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.
What critics thought
Near-universally celebrated since its 1959 release, North by Northwest has only grown in stature over decades of critical reassessment, now ranking among the most honored films ever made. Critics single out the convergence of Hitchcock's direction, Ernest Lehman's screenplay, Cary Grant's effortless performance, Bernard Herrmann's score, and a string of set pieces — the crop-duster sequence most of all — as a rare alignment of talent firing at full strength.
“the year's most scenic, intriguing and merriest chase”
A. H. Weiler·The New York Times
“the purest piece of entertainment filmmaking”
Penelope Houston·Sight and Sound
“Fifty years on, you could say that Hitchcock's sleek, wry, paranoid thriller caught the zeitgeist perfectly: Cold War shadiness, secret agents of power, urbane modernism, the ant-like bustle of city life, and a hint of dread behind the sharp suits of affluence.”
Time Out
“smoothly troweled and thoroughly entertaining”
Time
Genres
Adventure, Drama, Mystery
Cast & Crew
DirectorAlfred Hitchcock
StarringCary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis, Leo G. Carroll
ComposerBernard Herrmann
Rent/Purchase