The Birds

Hitchcock's strangest film and the one that has aged least.

There is no score. Bernard Herrmann is credited as sound consultant and what he supervised was an electronic instrument called the Mixtur-Trautonium producing every bird noise in the picture, which means the film has no music to tell you how to feel at any point.

There is also no explanation. Nobody says why, no scientist appears with a theory, and the film ends without resolution on a slow drive through a landscape that has been given over. In 1963 audiences were reportedly furious about that. It is the reason it still works.

The Bodega Bay attack, filmed from above as the petrol fire spreads, is one of the great pieces of staging in Hitchcock's career.

Tippi Hedren was told the attic birds would be mechanical. They were live, they were tied to her costume, and she was filmed for five days until one cut her near the eye and she collapsed. She has talked about it consistently since.