Shadow of a Doubt

(Alfred Hitchcock, US 1943, 108 min., DCP)

This slow-building, disquietingly cynical small-town thriller was also Hitch's avowed personal favorite of his many pictures. A suspected murderer, Charlie (Joseph Cotten, both charming and menacing in a brilliant performance) returns to his hometown to lay low for a while by visiting his teenage niece. Harrowingly insidious, this was the closest Hitch ever came to film noir and remains entirely deserving of its description by critic Dave Kehr as "Our Town turned inside out." Not coincidentally, Thornton Wilder collaborated on the script.