Dial S for Scary: Alfred Hitchcock's 10 most terrifying movie moments, ranked

opens with one of Hitchcock’s greatest setups: an obsessed fan approaches a tennis star named Guy Haines (Farley Granger) and proposes that they commit the perfect double murder with each killing someone the other despises, as they would seemingly have no motive. The film then doubles down on that promise with 100 minutes of obsession, tension, and harassment, before concluding with an action setpiece on a carousel. The police, chasing a framed Guy, shoot a carnival worker to make the ride spin uncontrollably. It kills Guy’s stalker, yet also leaves behind a chillingly unrevealed number of victims as collateral damage.

In much the way modern chillers like are anchored around nascent tech, exploited the then-increasing ubiquity of the rotary telephone. Its opening half revolves around upper-class Englishman Tony Wendice’s (Ray Milland) plan to kill his adulterous wife (Grace Kelly). First, he blackmails an old classmate into doing the deed, then arranges for a call to his wife to cue the killer. The buildup makes the scene itself agonizing, but it takes such a twist that—much like Psycho six years later—the rest of the movie becomes an unpredictable yet excellently put-together scramble.

Like Strangers On A Train, is a thriller with an instant hook of a setup: teenage girl Charlie is visited by her affluent uncle—also called Charlie–who is revealed to be a suspect in the “Merry Widow Murderer” case. Those suspicions are seemingly confirmed during this dinner scene, where Uncle Charlie launches into an increasingly cold, callous and misogynistic monologue about “silly wives” and “useless women.” The camera pushes in the entire time; when he hears a protest of, “but they’re human beings!” Charlie stares into the lens and flatly asks, “Are they?” Goosebump-raising stuff.

One of Hitchcock’s most underrated gems, is the story of a London serial murderer called the Necktie Killer and the ex-RAF pilot suspected of the crimes. It was a welcome return to the seediness and suspense of Psycho after the auteur’s experimental ’60s, and its freakiest moment recaptures Hitchcock’s peak. The killer takes his victim back to his apartment to murder her; just before she enters, the camera silently tracks backwards, down the stairs and out into an otherwise normal London street. It’s a harrowing illustration of the horrors that happen under our noses but that we’re blissfully unaware of.

Another masterpiece built off a simple premise, is about photographer L.T. Jefferies (Jimmy Stewart), who passes his time while healing a broken leg by snooping on his next door neighbors with binoculars and a camera. Before long, he’s convinced that one of them, Thorwald (Raymond Burr), has murdered his wife. When Jefferies’ girlfriend sneaks into Thorwald’s apartment to investigate, she’s caught, and Jefferies is spotted. With all the action seen from the photographer’s POV, Hitchcock destroys the fourth wall with the murderer directly leering at the audience. It’s a guaranteed “Oh shit!” moment for anyone watching.

While every other moment on this list is intentionally frightening, with this scene from it’s hard to tell. The movie’s not a horror but a lavish blockbuster, starring James Stewart as a private investigator who falls in love with his client’s wife—and later her doppelgänger. In the modern age, the scene in which the investigator demands that said doppelgänger pin her hair back so she can exactly resemble his recent love is uncomfortable viewing, demonstrating near-abusive control. However, Hitchcock famously had problems with women that he projected onto his characters and actresses. Was this scene another case of that, or was it knowingly creepy? Who knows?

is full of visceral horror. There’s the infamous shower sequence (we’ll get to that), as well as the revealing of Mrs. Bates’ corpse and the murder of private detective Arbogast. The only reason the latter two don’t make it onto this list is that time has aged their practical effects. However, as distressing today as it was in 1960 is the ending. Alone in a prison cubicle, Norman Bates—now fully convinced he’s his mother—stares menacingly at the camera. “They’ll say, ‘Why, she wouldn’t even harm a fly…’,” a female-voiced monologue promises, chillingly implying he’ll feign docility to get an early release.

1960s gore effects rarely hold up in the modern day, but ’ grisliest kill is the exception proving the rule. In between the random bird attacks that plague the California beach town of Bodega Bay, Lydia Brenner (Jessica Tandy) visits her neighbor’s house. There she finds shattered windows, dead gulls and a man lying motionless with his eyes completely gone. The camera cuts back and forth between Lydia and the corpse to gradually reveal the horror, while the lack of a soundtrack makes the scenario feel all the more realistic. Don’t worry, Lydia: we’d dash out of that house, too.

You knew it’d be here. The shower scene in Psycho is arguably the most influential and iconic three minutes in the history of horror—not to mention the most shocking. At the midpoint of the film, when the audience hasn’t had a single scene without Janet Leigh’s Marion Crane, the protagonist is shockingly murdered. Bernard Herrman’s strings are striking, the cinematography is as erratic as it is artistic, and the remainder of the film is suddenly impossible to predict. Every slasher movie of the next two decades would try and fail to be half as hard-hitting as this, and it remains Hitchcock’s signature sequence.

The Psycho shower is the most infamous and influential moment of Hitchcock horror. However, we’d argue that the ominous ending of The Birds is infinitely more haunting. Throughout the film, Bodega Bay and its residents have been victims of random bird attacks. It all peaks with an avian assault so intense that the main characters need to board themselves up in a house to survive. Then it ends as inexplicably as it began. When the party ventures outside, thousands of gulls and crows are waiting silently. They can only drive their car away at walking speed for fear of bathing the road in bird blood and restarting the horror. Then come the credits. Will the birds strike again? How widespread are the attacks? Do our protagonists survive? We never know. While Psycho wraps up with an explanation of its plot, The Birds never explains itself—and what’s scarier than the complete unknown?