Rear Window

1954 "In deadly danger...Because they saw too much!"
8.5| 1h55m| PG| en| More Info
Released: 01 September 1954 Released
Producted By: Paramount
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.

Genre

Thriller, Mystery

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Rear Window (1954) is now streaming with subscription on Prime Video

Director

Alfred Hitchcock

Production Companies

Paramount

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Rear Window Audience Reviews

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie
Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.
Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
chaz-76862 Wow, this movie was just great.Everything about it was just flawless. The pacing and the story kept me on the edge of my seat for the whole run time. I felt invested in the story and was interested about where it would go next. The acting was superb and helped pushed this film along. I also particularly liked how it didn't tell us everything from the beginning and we had to figure the mystery out along with the actors.In one sentence: "one of the best films ever made".
ahmetsemiherdem Even though the whole movie takes places in an apartment, it is fluent and makes you curious about what's going to happen next.The script is written cleverly and as i watched i couldnt see any holes in it.The movie is about stalking and being curious about other human lives.This is an instinct that we all have, we compare ourselves with others and we learn about life as we observe people around us.Hitchcock also wanted to show types of relationships between men and women through the neighbors we see in the movie.For the 1950s, Rear Window is an amazing movie; well written, good acting and sets a foundation to all the movies we've seen so far about spying. Most of the thriller horror movies are based on Hitchcock's movies.The reason he is considered one of the best directors in the history is that he accomplished the first of many films and inspired others that came after him.Rear Window is a true example for this.(Still feeling bad about the poor dog..WHY)
mxo-67838 Rear Window was a wonderful movie that more than fits into Hitchcock's portfolio of masterpieces.Personally I have trouble categorizing this movie into a single genre as it is so diverse. With this said this movie certainly used certain elements from multiple genres. One of these genres that the film certainly borrowed from was film noir. One of the biggest conflicts of the film was whether or not Thorwald killed his wife. Even I as a viewer was unsure if this was the case while I was watching it. Although Rear Window's setting might've been too trusting and almost lush for it to be considered hard boiled, this movie certainly was a crime drama with certain romantic elements. Additionally this movie has many elements of a suspense film. I know personally I was sitting on the edge of my seat while Lisa was going into Thorwald's apartment, as well as when Thorwald had entered Jeff's. However I personally don't believe there was enough suspense throughout the entire movie for it to be outright considered a full-out thriller movie.Alfred Hitchcock claimed to be a formalist director at heart and that really showed in the film. The movie used continuity editing so that it was easy for the viewer to sympathize with the protagonist, where as if he used non-continuity here the viewer might get confused and might emotionally disconnect from the protagonist. Additionally at the beginning of the movie and at the end of the movie the pacing of the cuts is very slow to show that there is very little tension. At the climax of the film the pacing is much faster to express a new sense of urgency and tension. The shots used in the film and the camera techniques were unlike many other movies. This first scene in this film was a long panning shot of Jeff's backyard showing off a unique assortment of happy individuals from both in and outside their apartments. I think this opening shot really impressed me because this scene not only conveyed who many of the individual characters and families in this neighborhood were, but it also did a really good job of making this neighborhood seem especially open and trusting. One of the major plot points of this movie is that the protagonist, Jeff, is looking at his neighbors through their apartment windows. To compliment this most of the shots in the film, were framed by Jeff's window sill. Like I said before the viewer throughout the film felt like they were watching from Jeff's point of view, where they could see what was happening around them but they were stuck in their seats and unable to affect anything. Hitchcock was able to build this sympathy also by showing an event happening outside of the window and then showing a close up on one of the protagonists so that they know how to feel about these events.This film also focused in on the certain themes and successfully raised a lot of questions about them throughout it. One of the themes that was brought up was community. At the beginning of the movie, the neighborhood that Jeff lived in was portrayed as being, perhaps a bit more friendly than most but overall unextraordinary. You felt like if you knew any one of those neighbors you'd be friends with them. But later in the film, obviously this sense of community is betrayed as one of the neighbors finds their dog strangled to death. Hitchcock often leaves his audience afraid of things people have come to trust in his films like in his other classic, the birds. Additionally this movie seems to revolve around Voyeurism which in this case is the pleasure one gets from watching people who don't know that they are being watched. This movie shows both positive and negative outcomes from Jeff's "peeping" so the question is left up in the air. However some viewers got a sense that the voyeurism Hitchcock was referring to wasn't staring at unsuspecting people through a window, but rather staring at characters through a movie.All in all I was absolutely in love with the cinematography and am looking forward to watching the rest of Hitchcock's films.
pcr-05045 This movie was something I would have never expected. As a freshman in college I have always been into the more modern things in life. New movies, new cars, new everything. I have never really been known for watching old movies. However, this movie was a lot different to me. When I think of a movie from 1954, I was thinking of black and white or silent or just something that doesn't seem as much of an interest to me. This movie passed my expectations by a mile. I have heard of Alfred Hitchcock and I have heard of the credibility of the man but I have never really watched any of his work. Rear Window was a story that I will probably remember for a long time. A man is in a wheel chair and all he does is watch the city go about around him from day to night. He experiences everything from happiness to sadness and even a murder. The whole movie was eye pleasing and just well thought out. The use of the city to display emotion in the movie was wonderful. The main part of the movie that really stuck with me was the suspense within it. Every time the main character, L.B. Jefferies, would just look through people's windows and he thought they were looking at them just made me feel fear knowing that they could see him watching them. His caretaker, Stella, made it worse by talking about how he could go to jail for looking through people's windows and I thought that was foreshadowing to him actually going to jail which made me nervous each time it was a close call. Especially when Lars Thorwald was looking out the window and he had to hide in the shadows. This movie also had me asking "What happens next?" as it took our hand and brought us through this great story. What makes a movie great is what ever emotions are going on, you feel them as well. This movie did that very well, any sort of fear, I felt fear. Any sort of happiness, I felt. Any sadness, I felt that too. Being able to bestow emotions onto the viewer is what means a movie is really well thought out and put together to try and help us be in the shoes of L.B. Jeffries. I could feel myself in that little apartment in that wheelchair and just watching everything going on. Another thing done really well was character development. I could really tell the personality and how each character would react in these situations. You could really tell the social classes within each person based on how they dressed and how they act which really shows the problem with the love interest throughout the movie. Each character out the window had their own personalities and you could really see who the people in their apartment were and how they acted. It really shows how a city is back in that time, there is such different events happening in each room and the amount of people really creates the chaos that is in the bustling cities we had back then and what we have today. Do I recommend this movie? Absolutely, this movie was very well made and put together and just looks beautiful. From the characters to the story, it was practically flawless in my opinion. Would I watch this movie again? Yes, I would, it is just so interesting and I feel like it is a kind of movie that the more times you watch it, the more times you realize something new. Do I recommend this movie? Yes, I do.