Film Forum

12:15   2:50   8:00

(1954) “We’re all voyeurs to some extent” – François Truffaut. Laid up with a broken leg in his “low rent district” flat (in the West Village!), news fotog James Stewart wiles away the sweaty summertime hours between visits from uptown gal Grace Kelly by using that telephoto lens to zero in on the human comedy across his courtyard – but, hey, what’s Raymond Burr up to? One of the Master’s greatest successes: a witty, nerve-shredding entertainment and technical tour de force. DCP. Approx. 112 mins. 

A UNIVERSAL PICTURES RELEASE. 

Reviews

“Of all Hitchcock's films, this is the one which most reveals the man.”
– Geoff Andrew, Time Out (London)

“AS MUCH OF A ROMANCE AS IT IS A BRILLIANT EXERCISE IN SUSPENSE. Effortlessly demonstrates all that we now understand to be the splendor of the Hitchcockian cinema of the absurdly logical… After nearly 30 years, the enormous glamour of [Stewart and Kelly] remains as fresh and attractive as ever.”
– Vincent Canby, The New York Times

“ONE OF THE MASTER’S GREATEST STUNTS. Not only is this a thriller without on-screen violence or a visible (human) corpse, but virtually the entire movie unfolds in a single room, albeit facing out on one of the largest, most elaborate sets ever built on Paramount’s back lot.”
– J. Hoberman, Village Voice

“Rarely has any film so boldly presented its methods in plain view. This level of danger and suspense is so far elevated above the cheap thrills of the modern slasher films that Rear Window intended as entertainment in 1954, is now revealed as art. Rear Window lovingly invests in suspense all through the film, banking it in our memory, so that when the final payoff arrives, the whole film has been the thriller equivalent of foreplay.”
– Roger Ebert