Alfred Hitchcock

No list of suspense or thriller films can be complete without mention of English film-maker/director Alfred Hitchcock.
He helped to shape the modern-day thriller genre, beginning with his early silent film The Lodger (1926), a suspenseful Jack-the-Ripper story, followed by his next thriller Blackmail (1929), his first sound film (but also released in a silent version). Hitchcock would make a signature cameo appearance in his feature films, beginning with his third film The Lodger (1926), although his record was spotty at first. After 1940, he appeared in every one, except for The Wrong Man (1956). Although nominated five times as Best Director (from 1940-1960), Hitchcock never won an Academy Award.

Alfred Hitchcock is considered the acknowledged master of the thriller or suspense genre, manipulating his audience's fears and desires, and taking viewers into a state of association with the representation of reality facing the character. He would often interweave a taboo or sexually-related theme into his films, such as the repressed memories of Marnie (Tippi Hedren) in Marnie (1964), the latent homosexuality in Strangers on a Train (1951), voyeurism in Rear Window (1954), obsession in Vertigo (1958), or the twisted Oedipus complex in Psycho (1960).