Suspicion

A thriller from Hitchcock's RKO period, built on a single question: does the woman think her husband is trying to kill her, or is he? Lina is the shy daughter of a well-off family. Johnnie is charming, generous, vague about his work and permanently without money. They marry. Then Lina starts noticing the lies: debts, gambling, missing money, a dead friend. Its most famous image is a glass of milk. As Johnnie carries it up a dark staircase the glass glows from within; Hitchcock had a bulb placed inside it so that the audience's eye would go straight there. The source is Francis Iles's novel Before the Fact, and the studio refused its resolution: a man played by Cary Grant would not be allowed to be a murderer. Hitchcock had to change the ending and complained about it for years. Joan Fontaine won the Best Actress Oscar for it, the only acting Oscar ever won in a Hitchcock film. A good choice for anyone who likes classical Hollywood suspense. For anyone who wants a coherent resolution, the last section is still argued over today.