‎North by Northwest (1959) directed by Alfred Hitchcock • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

North by Northwest

1959 Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

It's a deadly game of 'tag' and Cary Grant is 'it'...

Advertising man Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.

Cary Grant Eva Marie Saint James Mason Martin Landau Leo G. Carroll Adam Williams Jessie Royce Landis Doreen Lang Josephine Hutchinson Philip Ober Philip Coolidge Edward Platt Robert Ellenstein Les Tremayne Patrick McVey Edward Binns Ken Lynch Maudie Prickett Ned Glass Malcolm Atterbury Bess Flowers Stanley Adams Andy Albin Ernest Anderson Tol Avery Baynes Barron Brandon Beach John Beradino Steve Carruthers Show All…

136 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by tysan ★★★★★ 1

even if this is one of hitchcock's most acclaimed films, I don't know why I thought I wasn't going to like it, but I absolutely loved it. truly a masterpiece and it's definitely up there with rear window and psycho!

really fun, thrilling, and surprisingly hilarious film. cary grant is great, and there are many sequences that are just iconic and make the movie already worth seeing. a new favorite of mine!
Review by CinemaClown ★★★ 27

Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest features a spellbinding first half which makes terrific use of clever humour, elevated tension & elements of mystery or suspense but is unfortunately marred by a lacklustre second half which bogs the story down with a dragged narrative & feels quite overlong in the end although it does have one spectacular sequence that'll be etched in memory once it's seen.

One of the first films to lay down the foundation of modern action thrillers in Hollywood, North by Northwest is a thrilling tale of mistaken identity which concerns an innocent advertising executive who is mistaken for a government agent by an organisation of foreign spies & is pursued by them. The story covers his journey of survival as…
Review by DirkH ★★★★★ 13

Part of Dastardly Difficult December: film nr.68

A benchmark in the action/adventure genre, crafted by one of cinema's masters.

I remembered next no to nothing from this film, apart from its iconic final sequence. It is therefore that I'm still reeling from being transported 50 years back and being swept along on this tale of mistaken identity, romance and espionage.

Hitchcock is of course know as the master of suspense, yet this is perhaps his least suspenseful film. It is, on the other hand, a very exciting adventure filled with the easy charm, class and simplicity of days gone by. I love the fact that practically from the get go, Hitchcock gives us one up on his protagonist. He understands…
Review by SilentDawn ★★★★★ 3

100

(35mm)

North by Northwest is famous because of one scene. Now, that doesn't mean the rest of it is lacking, as it should be common knowledge of its solidified place in the canon of the greatest American films in the history of the cinema, but the zenith is found in a classic Hitchcock concept: the image of the pursuer and the pursued. Its famous sequence of a crop-duster aircraft leaping towards Cary Grant's Roger O. Thornhill in the Midwest countryside - bullets flying near his dives for survival - is constructed through the context of a world unknown: a place not designed for your color or creed or gender or social status. It is an environment, depicted via the…
Review by Willow Maclay ★★★★½ 4

2 1/2 hours of almost fucking and then a train penis goes into a mountain vagina.

The End
Review by Peter Labuza ★★★★★

Horizontal meets vertical as the title and crisscrossing credits propose. Cary Grant commits the greatest of horizontal acts (swiping into a cab) and tells the man a lie he's a hero for his immobility. The rest of the film turns a cosmic joke on the star as he runs from East to West in the identity of a man of a shorter suit. The camera arcs in a circular dance as he faces James Mason, the short stature man pulling his weight through lean Martin Laundau, who pours a tall bottle into Grant. "It's so horribly sad...why is it I feel like laughing?" an agent exclaims after a top down shot against the UN makes Grant a small dot in…

Recent reviews

Review by Richmondhill ★★★★½

Scintillatingly silly and silkily preposterous - this is certainly hokum - but with such a gorgeous polish as to be beguiling. All elements, technical and artistic, smoothly coalesce making nonsense never seem so stylishly effortless. Cocktail hour at its most suspenseful.
Review by Tomss ★★★★★

10
Review by Deepak ★★★★

a. Inspiration: Consensus Choice
b. Theme: Alfred Hitchcock
c. Awards: 3 Noms | 0 Wins (32nd Oscars).
d. Actors: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, et al.
e. To Watch:
- Rebecca
- Psycho
f. Format: HDMI, Amazon Video, All the Way Through w/ Brandon.
Review by Tuosma ★★★★½

(Old impressions, not based on a recent viewing)

I had watched several Hitchcock movies in a short period of time and the anxiety inducing feeling I got out of most of them had made me quite tired and I wasn't in the slightest waiting for North by Northwest. Much to my surprise, Noth by Northwest didn't make me anxious in the slightest. The movie was more heavy on mystery and again much to my surprise, the movie was heavy on humor of all things. This was the first movie I saw from Cary Grant and his delivery was absolutely hysterical and made the snappy writing all the more funny. I had a joyoys feeling throughout as I observed the man navigate every situation the mistaken identity case shoved him. The movie was almost perfect to me, but that very end was such bullshit, that I gotta knock a half a star off.
Review by seannmorgan

Listen... how dare Mr. Hitchcock have the audacity to co-opt Mount Rushmore as an iconic movie location. North by Northwest shamelessly rips off the most iconic adventure film ever made.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets contains the iconic and prototypical Mount Rushmore appearance on film. Benjamin Franklin Gates (played by the incomparable Nick Cage) went through a lot in order to clear his ancestor’s name in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Hitchcock seems to think he can get away with ripping off the legendary auteur Jon Turteltaub. I see right through Hitch’s lies, though. Sorry there, Alfred. Come talk to me once you produce anything even slightly comparable to The Meg, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice or Cool Runnings.
Review by dolly ★★★★

the whole bit where he's drunk is honestly so funny and peak cinema
Review by tdwightdavis ★★★★½

Have y’all heard of this movie? Pretty neat. Probably should be more popular.
Review by Aldo Elizalde ★★★★½

Hitchcock jerked me off for over two hours and not even letting me finish, he punches me in the face at the last minute
Review by Panwa6601 ★★★★★

My favourite Hitchcock film because it's the most epic and unpretentious, Most Hitchcock films take place almost exclusively in a room whereas this one goes all over America. The two leads are so good and the film itself has an awesome plot, awesome execution, and just so much fun.