Classic Suspense Movies

Barbara Stanwyck stars as Leona Stevenson, a spoiled heiress confined to her bed by illness. One night when left home alone, crossed telephone wires cause her to overhear two men planning to commit a murder. Desperate to prevent the crime, she begins a phoning frenzy, and in the process discovers unsettling details about the murderous plot. Based on Lucille Fletcher’s radio play, this noir thriller features Burt Lancaster as Stanwyck’s tyrannized husband. Directed by Anatole Litvak.

Otto Preminger’s Oscar-winning mystery about love, murder, and obsession. After beautiful, young Laura Hunt is murdered by a blast of buckshot to the face, no-nonsense detective Marc McPherson (Dana Andrews) is on the case. Through his interviews with those closest to Laura, including her doting mentor (Clifton Webb) and foppish fiance (Vincent Price), he falls in love with the victim. But will he solve the puzzle and book the true perp? Gene Tierney stars in the titular role.

Gene Hackman gives the performance of his career in Francis Ford Coppola’s underrated masterpiece. Hackman is professional eavesdropper Harry Caul, whose professional obsession with privacy haunts his personal life. A bastion of understated 1970s filmmaking, with a flawless supporting cast that includes John Cazale, Harrison Ford, and Robert Duvall

At the invitation of old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles), down-on-his-luck novelist Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) arrives in post-war Vienna to start a new job. Shocked to learn that Harry was just killed in a suspicious accident, Martins begins to investigate his death, and uncovers some disturbing truths about his friend. With a taut screenplay by Graham Greene, based on his novel, directed by Carol Reed.

“Is it safe?” Dustin Hoffman, poster boy for method acting, stars opposite preeminent stage actor Laurence Olivier in this Oscar-nominated film, adapted by William Goldman from his best-selling novel. Hoffman is a Columbia University grad student unwittingly caught up in the CIA’s pursuit of Dr. Christian Szell (Olivier), the wealthiest and most wanted Nazi left alive. Terrifying in part for its depictions of torture; one particularly memorable scene did for bathtubs what Psycho did for showers. Directed by John Schlesinger.

Guilty or not guilty? The answer to this question is not the end, but only the beginning of the electrifying murder trial depicted in this Agatha Christie mystery, written for the screen and directed by Billy Wilder. Tyrone Power (in his final film performance) plays the alleged murderer, Charles Laughton his aging defense lawyer, and Marlene Dietrich his wife—and only alibi.

Roman Polanski’s claustrophobic thriller was his first film in English. Catherine Deneuve is Carol, a timid manicurist who shares a London flat with her sister. Left alone for the weekend, Carol’s mental state quickly deteriorates into paranoia and extreme hysteria. As Hitchcock did with Psycho, Polanski creates terror by showing us the inner workings of a deranged mind—not with blood and gore.

An aspiring actress (Gloria Grahame) is forced to acknowledge the darker side of her volatile new boyfriend (Humphrey Bogart) when he is accused of murder. Though at first she defends his innocence, as both the investigation and their romance progresses, she begins to have doubts… Directed by Nicholas Ray.