The establishment of film as a serious art form is coincident with the earliest critical writing on Alfred Hitchcock that emerged in the 1950s. Since then, Hitchcock has remained one of the most important filmmakers of all time, spawning not only a massive body of critical scholarship but also legions of imitators. This course will serve as an introduction to both the films (such as Psycho and North by Northwest) and related issues: questions of suspense, authorship, morality, and spectatorship.