Vertigo (1958)
Average Rating: 8.7/10
Reviews Counted: 58
Fresh: 57 | Rotten: 1
An unpredictable scary thriller that doubles as a mournful meditation on love, loss, and human comfort.
Average Rating: 8.1/10
Critic Reviews: 16
Fresh: 15 | Rotten: 1
An unpredictable scary thriller that doubles as a mournful meditation on love, loss, and human comfort.
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Average Rating: 4.1/5
User Ratings: 89,941
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Movie Info
Dismissed when first released, later heralded as one of director Alfred Hitchcock's finest films (and, according to Hitchcock, his most personal one), this adaptation of the French novel D'entre les morts weaves an intricate web of obsession and deceit. It opens as Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) realizes he has vertigo, a condition resulting in a fear of heights, when a police officer is killed trying to rescue him from falling off a building. Scottie then retires from his position as a
Jan 1, 1958 Limited
Mar 31, 1998
Paramount Pictures
Watch It Now
Cast
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James Stewart
John "Scottie" Ferguson -
Kim Novak
Madeleine Elster/Judy B... -
Barbara Bel Geddes
Marjorie "Midge" Wood -
Tom Helmore
Gavin Elster -
Henry Jones
Coroner -
Raymond Bailey
Doctor -
Ellen Corby
Manager -
Konstantin Shayne
Pop Leibel -
Lee Patrick
Older Mistaken Identity -
John Benson
Salesman (uncredited) -
Margaret Brayton
Ransohoff's Saleslady (... -
Paul Bryar
Capt. Hansen -
Roxann Delman
Model -
Roland Got
Maitre d' -
Fred Graham
Death Fall Officer (unc... -
William Remick
Jury Foreman -
Nina Shipman
Young Mistaken Identity -
Dori Simmons
Middle-Aged Mistaken Id... -
Ed Stevlingson
Attorney -
Sara Taft
Nun -
June Jocelyn
Miss Woods -
Mollie Dodd
Beauty Operator -
Don Giovanni
Salesman -
Buck Harrington
Gateman -
Jack Richardson
Escort (uncredited)
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Vertigo Trailer & Photos
All Critics (58) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (58) | Rotten (1) | DVD (13)
Hitchcock's most tender story.
The old master, now a slave to television, has turned out another Hitchcock-and-bull story in which the mystery is not so much who done it as who cares.
Top CriticOne of the landmarks--not merely of the movies, but of 20th-century art.
Why is this movie Hitchcock's masterpiece? Because no movie plunges us more deeply into the dizzying heart of erotic obsession.
Slow but totally compelling.
James Stewart, on camera almost constantly, comes through with a startlingly fine performance as the lawyer-cop who suffers from acrophobia.
Top CriticHitchcock's rich and strange fable of love lost, and lost again, makes the case for him as a grand experimental artist who labored in genre cinema.
A haunting meditation on sexual politics, romantic love, and obsession, Vertigo is one of the greatest surreal movies ever made.
Must-see Hitchcock thriller for any classic movie bug.
"Vertigo" is Alfred Hitchcock's beautifully stylized psychological thriller about a man in love with a fetishized romantic fantasy invented by another man.
Technically well made, but there are a plethora of more entertaining Hitchcock films available.
Vertigo is a kind of consummate illusion--tantalizing for being so often out of reach (DVDs don't match the reel deal), fulfilling only for bringing us as close as possible to Hitchcock's head and heart in Frisco circa '58. Or...
a disturbing and darkly revealing psychological thriller
After it, Psycho and the rest of the '60s are only a bitter précis of this thesis of sexual disassociation and identity politics.
The "Vertigo" shot created for this film was so powerful and unique that everytime I see it used today, I get teary eyed.
Vertigo is an acknowledged masterpiece, one of those narrative films in which a bracing and unpredictable story has been distilled into a form that is at once classic and inventive.
Hitchcock was elsewhere an entertainer, often a great one, but Vertigo finds him working as an artist...
Alfred Hitchcock at his most disturbing.
A rich, resonant meditation of male romantic obsession ... Not only does Hitchcock demonstrate a total mastery of cinematic point-of-view, but he turns what might have been mere melodrama into film poetry. Perhaps his greatest film.
Hitchcock's twisty, suspenseful tale is far more involving and memorable than most recent Hollywood thrillers.
What can one say? Exquisitely controlled, framed, scored, acted, and edited. A peerless triumph.
Audience Reviews for Vertigo
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- John "Scottie" Ferguson: You know, the Chinese say that once you've saved a person's life, you're responsible for it forever.
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- Madeleine Elster/Judy Barton: Only one is a wanderer; two together are always going somewhere.
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- Madeleine Elster/Judy Barton: If I do what you tell me, will you love me?
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- John "Scottie" Ferguson: Anyone could become obsessed with the past with a background like that!
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- John "Scottie" Ferguson: One final thing I have to do... and then I'll be free of the past.
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- John "Scottie" Ferguson: You shouldn't keep souvenirs of a killing. You shouldn't have been that sentimental.
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Latest News on Vertigo
August 1, 2012:
Vertigo Topples Citizen Kane in Sight & Sound Critics' PollThe latest edition of the once-a-decade list makes a case for the Hitchcock classic as the greatest...
September 26, 2008:
Exclusive: Brand New The Children Photos and Director IntroductionWriting exclusively for RT, director Tom Shankland presents the first gallery of stills from the set...
June 22, 2007:
AFI Announces Top 100 Movies of All Time ... AgainTen years ago the AFI gave us a list of the Top 100 American Films Ever Made -- and when that was...
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Foreign Titles
- Vertigo - Aus dem Reich der Toten (DE)
- Vertigo (1958) (CA)
