Vertigo

Vertigo is ranked highest in the latest Sight & Sound poll of film scholars and critics. Although a critical and box office flop when released, through the years Hitchcock’s complex erotic thriller about the death of love and its possible return has gained an enthralled audience. James Stewart stars as retired detective who attempts to re-fashion his lost love, as Kim Novak plays both the lover and her apparent double. The complexities of grasping the image of the beloved, the pain of loss, and the perils of recovering the past through control of costume have never been so stunningly visualized.