Hitchcock Comes To Netflix

Generally the work of Alfred Hitchcock work shows up in film buff retrospectives or in college auditoriums. You can depend on TCM to run a Hitchcock film every now and then. The Criterion Channel includes 40 videos and 24 collections.

Enter Netflix.

Yes, the streaming service that people have roundly criticized for its visual Philistinism is providing an incredible platform for the works of Alfred Hitchcock.

Starting June 1, Netflix has presented a collection of Hitchcock films in the U.S.

There’s be an array of classics, from the familiar Vertigo and Rear Window, to the less-seen Frenzy and Family Plot.

Hitchcock’s work created an influential approach to visual storytelling from which subsequent directors have benefited. So in addition to the suite of movies he directed, there will also be films  that bear the stamp of Hitchcock’s influence, including Zac Cregger’s Barbarian (2022) and Jordan Peele’s Us (2019).

What’s more, Netflix is including Sacha Gervasi’s 2012 film Hitchcock, which stars Anthony Hopkins as Hitchcock; Helen Mirren as Alma Reville, his wife; and features actors including Scarlett Johansson, Toni Collette, Jessica Biel, and Ralph Macchio (yes, that Ralph Macchio).

Now, you might think that this is just an event to keep people on their couches. And as previously mentioned, there is the opportunity to see Hitchcock movies on the Criterion Channel. But the biggest estimated number of subscribers to the Criterion Channel that I’ve been able to find puts it at 300,000, and the estimated figure for U.S. Netflix subscribers is 81 million.

Looked at another way: the estimated total universe of Criterion subscribers is 0.37 percent of Netflix’s.

Clearly, that means more prospects for people to see Hitchcock’s amazing oeuvre.

Realize that he directed his last film, Family Plot, in 1976, so someone born that year would be 49 today. There are arguably a couple generations who would gain from exposure to his work.

But Netflix is doing something else beyond securing eyeballs on 65-inch screens.

From May 16 and running through June 29, Netflix has presented “HITCH! The Original Cinema Influencer” at the Paris Theater in Manhattan.

Netflix, which happens to own the Paris Theater, is running this series in cooperation with the New York Film Critics Circle.

Included in the event are 36 films directed by Hitchcock, ranging from Blackmail (1929) to Family Plot.

Like the presentation on Netflix, there are Hitchcock-adjacent movies, including Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black and Clouzot’s Diabolique.

There are also the documentaries Hitchcock/Truffaut by Kent Jones and My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock by Mark Cousins.

One of the things about having a highly profitable company like Netflix: It can provide the means that creates things like these celebrations of Hitchcock.

Of course, it can also provide the means for greenlighting, producing, and exhibiting schlock.

Still, although Quentin Tarantino said “Hitchcock’s influence will never fade—his films are timeless,” if those films are not widely available, then cue the “Funeral March of a Marionette” and fade to black.