Psycho
4 Oscar Nominations·AFI #14·BFI #33·National Film Registry
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When larcenous real estate clerk Marion Crane goes on the lam with a wad of cash and hopes of starting a new life, she ends up at the notorious Bates Motel, where manager Norman Bates cares for his housebound mother.
What critics thought
Now considered a cornerstone of horror cinema, Psycho was met on release with one of the most sharply divided critical responses of Hitchcock's career — American reviewers split between those shaken into admiration and those who found it cheap and gimmicky, while British critics were nearly unanimously hostile, dismissing it as his worst film. Within months, many of those same critics reversed course, and the decades since have buried the original dissent almost entirely under a consensus of reverence.
“one of his most brilliantly directed shockers and also his most disagreeable”
Philip K. Scheuer·Los Angeles Times
“first American movie since Touch of Evil (1958) to stand in the same creative rank as the great European films”
Village Voice
“Alfred Hitchcock may at any time try to frighten me to death, and welcome to him. But I draw the line at being bored to death. There were moments in Psycho when I thought he had almost succeeded.”
Alexander Walker·London Evening Standard
“no more than quite a good sample of the old Hitchcock style, rich in suspense, tension, and the rest of it; and it is also typical in being brilliant in patches and, as a whole, quite implausible”
The Guardian
Genres
Drama, Horror, Mystery
Cast & Crew
DirectorAlfred Hitchcock
StarringAnthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam
ComposerBernard Herrmann
Psycho
4 Oscar Nominations·AFI #14·BFI #33·National Film Registry
When larcenous real estate clerk Marion Crane goes on the lam with a wad of cash and hopes of starting a new life, she ends up at the notorious Bates Motel, where manager Norman Bates cares for his housebound mother.
What critics thought
Now considered a cornerstone of horror cinema, Psycho was met on release with one of the most sharply divided critical responses of Hitchcock's career — American reviewers split between those shaken into admiration and those who found it cheap and gimmicky, while British critics were nearly unanimously hostile, dismissing it as his worst film. Within months, many of those same critics reversed course, and the decades since have buried the original dissent almost entirely under a consensus of reverence.
“one of his most brilliantly directed shockers and also his most disagreeable”
Philip K. Scheuer·Los Angeles Times
“first American movie since Touch of Evil (1958) to stand in the same creative rank as the great European films”
Village Voice
“Alfred Hitchcock may at any time try to frighten me to death, and welcome to him. But I draw the line at being bored to death. There were moments in Psycho when I thought he had almost succeeded.”
Alexander Walker·London Evening Standard
“no more than quite a good sample of the old Hitchcock style, rich in suspense, tension, and the rest of it; and it is also typical in being brilliant in patches and, as a whole, quite implausible”
The Guardian
Genres
Drama, Horror, Mystery
Cast & Crew
DirectorAlfred Hitchcock
StarringAnthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam
ComposerBernard Herrmann
Rent/Purchase