6 Great Alfred Hitchcock Movies You Can Stream Right Now

Published Oct 17, 2026, 9:45 AM EDT

Nicholas Raymond is an author and journalist based out of Alabama, where he proudly roots for the Alabama Crimson Tide football team. A graduate of the University of Montevallo, he has a degree in mass communication with a concentration in journalism.

A selection of one of the greatest movie directors of all time can be found on various streaming services. True to his long-held title as the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock has cultivated a reputation like no other in the history of Hollywood. The director had a special knack for generating tension, helping to craft a long list of films that are counted today among the greatest thrillers ever made.

Over the course of a career that spanned half a century, Hitchcock's talents gave us Psycho, Notorious, Rear Window, The Birds, Anatomy of a Murder, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and so many other classics too numerous to name. Several decades after they kept audiences at the edges of their seats and inspired future filmmakers, several great movies from the filmography of Alfred Hitchcock rotate periodically across streaming services such as Netlfix, Tubi, and Prime Video.

A great many of them are available permanently, due to their status as public domain films. But it's worth noting that it's only the films from the early phase of Hitchcock's career before he made the jump to Hollywood. Several of these, by Hitchcock's own admission, don't match the quality of his later outings and would only be considered must-watches for completionists who desire to see the full body of the director's work.

That said, a few of the British-made Alfred Hitchcock films stand out from the crowd and certainly deserve a fair chance from viewers. Those movies can be found on Prime Video and Tubi, with the latter also hosting some of the Hollywood classics from later in his career. And for Netflix's part, its library currently includes his most iconic masterpiece.

6 Psycho (Netflix)

The movie in question is, of course, Psycho. Starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins, Psycho tells the story of a young woman (Leigh) who decides to spend the night at a creepy motel owned by the mysterious Norman Bates (Perkins), unaware that its proprietor is secretly a disturbed serial killer. Here, Hitchcock takes his penchant for suspense up several degrees, as the level of violence and the personal stakes for the film are significantly greater than usual - as evidenced by Pyscho's shocking plot twist.

Anthony Perkins' incredible performance as Norman Bates, the character's subsequent transformation into a cultural icon, along with its various psychological nuances, easily make it one of the most important movies of the 1960s.

5 The Lady Vanishes (Prime Video & Tubi)

Some of Hitchcock's 1930s movies are safe to overlook, but that's not the case for The Lady Vanishes, a head-scratching thriller mixed with elements of the whodunnit subgenre. Released in 1938, The Lady Vanishes stars Margaret Lockwood as a female passenger on a train who takes notice when the elderly woman seated next to her seemingly gets up and doesn't return. Inexplicably, Lockwood's character can't find anyone who even acknowledges the person was on the train at all.

The protagonist has no personal connection to the missing woman, but the bizarre nature of the incident compels her to investigate anyway. The movie allows Hitchcock to build a fascinating mystery, wherein both the audience and Lockwood's character struggle to make sense of what really happened to the old lady and why no one seems to remember her.

4 The 39 Steps (Prime Video & Tubi)

Much like The Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps is a product of Alfred Hitchcock's days as a director in the British film industry in the 1930s. Starring Richard Donat, The 39 Steps follows an ordinary man swept into an international conspiracy when he brings a woman into his apartment, only for her to be killed later in the night by an unknown assailant. Donat's character predictably becomes a prime suspect, forcing him to elude both the villains and the police.

The setup paved the way for a fast-paced storyline where the main protagonist was constantly on the move, going from one bad situation to another. Even Orson Welles, who hasn't minced words about his dislike for many Hitchcock classics, has called The 39 Steps a "masterpiece."

3 Strangers On A Train

In Strangers on a Train, Farley Granger and Robert Walker play two married men who have a chance meeting on a train, connect over some small talk, and then form a surprising agreement - to get away with killing someone they despise, they'll swap "murders." This way, neither will have a clear motive and will be able to have an allibi. It's a great premise for a thriller, and one that Hitchcock exploits to its full potential.

The inherent problem facing the main characters and the one that launches the plot forward in Strangers on a Train is that only one of the pair is actually serious about their bargain. When one follows through on their end of the deal, the other finds himself in an impossible situation. Hitchcock brilliantly utilizes the predicament to build tension and create a suspense-filled thriller where it's hard to predict exactly what the protagonist will do about the murder he's expected to commit.

2 North By Northwest (Tubi)

Years after making The 39 Steps, Alfred Hitchcock took a second stab at the underlying concept behind the 1935 film, and the idea led to an even better movie - North by Northwest. As a Hollywood project made two decades later, the story's quick-hitting formula benefited greatly from higher production values and a larger budget for its action sequences.

Similar to how The 39 Steps thrust an ordinary man in mortal peril involving murderous spies, 1959's North by Northwest used a case of mistaken identity to immediately turn Roger Thornhill's life upside down with spies, explosions, and other unexpected additions to his journey, including an unforgettable set piece where Cary Grant's character is chased by a crop duster.

1 Foreign Correspondent (Tubi)

Far more compelling than its title suggests, Foreign Correspendent is a must-watch Hitchcock gem and one of the first he made during his time in Hollywood. Boasting an impressive 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes, the 1940 movie stars Joel McCrea in his first and only collaboration with Hitchcock. In the movie, McCrea plays a newspaper reporter who goes to Europe on an assignment, only to get mixed up in the assassination of a European diplomat. The incident pulls him into a conflict involving Nazi spies.

As an action-oriented espionage thriller, it's less reliant on the approach to suspense taken in movies like Rear Window and Psycho, but it still delivers when it comes to story beats, great performances, particularly from Edmund Gween and McCrea, and the final act, which consists of an intense action sequence in a hot air balloon.

In a sense, Foreign Correspondent's under-the-radar speaks volumes about the filmmaker's contribution to movie history. While it typically ranks lower than several more high-profile Alfred Hitchcock favorites, it's important to note that it holds six Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture). For most directors, a movie of its caliber would be considered their magnus opus.