This one was tough because Hitchcock made a lot of really great films, but Rebecca just barely edged the rest of them out, and not because that was the best Laurence Olivier ever looked. Rebecca is a mix between Gothic romance/horror and film noir. (By the way, if you like Rebecca, you should check out Dragonwyck starring Vincent Price and Gene Tierney.)
The movie is about a girl who meets a rich man, quickly falls in love before really getting to know him, and they marry. She moves into his mansion and is terrorized by his housekeeper, who constantly reminds her that she'll never live up to the first Mrs. de Winter, her husband's previous wife. She becomes extremely insecure, believing her husband never got over Rebecca.
SPOILERS: Mrs. de Winter eventually learns from her husband that Rebecca had an affair, said she was pregnant, and wanted her husband to claim the child as his own. During a heated argument, she fell, hit her head and died, so he decided to hide her body. Now, I'm not saying he did or didn't kill his wife, I'm not even going to comment on the rest of the movie. All I'm saying is that if I were Mrs. de Winter and I heard that story, I would be kind of skeptical. Why hide the body if you didn't kill her? I'm just saying. Either you're guilty or you're just stupid. That pretty face can only get him so far. (I guess the money can get him a little further, too, but eventually, he's going to run out of things to fall back on.)
Honorable Mention 1: Strangers on a Train - This film is about...Two strangers who meet on a train and have a chat about committing murder for each other. Only one of them is just joking around, while the other is actually serious and goes through with the plan, becoming enraged with the other man doesn't old up his end of the deal.
Honorable Mention 2: Psycho - Everyone already knows about this film, I'm not going to talk about the plot. I love this movie because of Anthony Perkins. He made Norman a somewhat sympathetic character, I'm not sure how many actors could have done that. The sequels to this movie were mostly disappointing, but after watching them, it becomes easier to understand how Norman became the way he did, and even though it doesn't excuse his actions, I felt sorry for him.
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