Alfred Hitchcock

The featured feature film director for this week is Sir Alfred Hitchcock. Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (13 Aug. 1899 – 29 Apr 1980) was an English filmmaker and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in his native UK in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood. In 1956 he became an American citizen while retaining his British citizenship.

Hitchcock directed more than 50 feature films in a career spanning six decades. Often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker, he came first in a 2007 poll of film critics in Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper, which said: "Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from us) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else.