Ranking the 9 Oscar-nominated Performances from Hitchcock's Filmography | Hitchcock Month 2024

[@thomaskummer9968]

Claude Rains is one of my favourite classic actors 👍

[@maplestreetmovies]

@@thomaskummer9968 he’s sooo good!

[@blackherz]

Loved your video! Just by the title, the first actress I though of was Judith Anderson, I even forgot Janet Leigh in Psycho. Rebecca is such a hunting movie. I'm so happy to find another Claude Rains fan! He's such an amazing actor and wish so hard a biopic (I imagine it as a flashback starting with Bette Davis and Jessica Rains talking about Claude after his passing) or a documentary about him. I'd like to know more about him. Thanks again for such a good video!

[@maplestreetmovies]

@@blackherz really appreciate those kind words! Yes, Rains is such a talent!! It’s a crime he never won an Oscar! But I’m always happy when he’s in a movie. I rewatched Lawrence of Arabia last week and had forgotten he was in it! Though a smaller role, and I think his last role, I still was so happy!

[@HarryBaileyShow]

Great as always man, how the only ‘Hitchcock actor’ win is Joan Fontaine for Suspicion is totally beyond me

[@maplestreetmovies]

@@HarryBaileyShow amen!!

[@maplestreetmovies]

@@HarryBaileyShow and thank you!!

[@raydunn8262]

Thank you. Judith Anderstand's impeccable performance made the twist about Rebecca even more shocking. It's up there with The Sixth Sense's twist. Remarkable, Rebecca is Hitchcock's only film to win the top prize. The mansion would have been nominated for supporting if inanimate objects were eligible.

[@danielcarlmanpessoal]

Judith Anderson for sure. Thelma Ritter was robbed of an Oscar, by the way. She steals that movie.

[@davepugh8815]

Thelma Ritter wasn’t in Rebecca

[@MissLizaMay]

Famously the Paradine Case was recut after the Oscar nominations came out, and Barrymore's performance was mostly chopped out. It explains a lot.

[@maplestreetmovies]

@@MissLizaMay makes so much more sense now!

[@zmani4379]

Nice video - I appreciate the detail you go into as you discuss your thoughts on each performance; this is an aspect of filmmaking that audiences gravitate to, and yet the actual talk about it usually feels so impoverished - re Janet Leigh, I'd even go further and say those moments where she's just driving are precisely where her work shines brightest (is her "supporting" Oscar category a spoiler lol) - note that Michael Chekhov was a famous and influential acting teacher, and nephew to the great Anton

[@maplestreetmovies]

@@zmani4379 really appreciate your comment, thank you! Yes, I was hesitant to highlight Janet’s role as supporting but it’s been out since 1960, so I don’t feel too bad 🤣

[@zmani4379]

@@maplestreetmovies I actually meant the Academy was "spoiling" it w the nomination itself lol

[@DanCrowleyNYC]

All great performances, but your top 2 are spot-on. Rebecca has always been my favorite of his 1940s films and those 2 performances are wonderful. Happy to see Janet Leigh and Claude Rains high as well, but I genuinely loved every one of these films (except The Paradine Case, though I did like Ethyl Barrymore's performance).

[@90defaz]

I read that the original theatrical cut of The Paradine Case featured an additional scene with Ethel Barrymore. Perhaps that helped her secure the nomination when those who voted on the nominations saw it. She was of course beloved and a previous winner so that must’ve helped as well.

[@maplestreetmovies]

@@90defaz that totally makes sense!

[@DHGlee2013]

This was actually a great list. I love that you put Mrs Danvers as number 1 in watched Rebecca in high school and found Judith Anderson was chilling and people often who haven’t seen Rebecca think of Joan Fontaine but not Judith(in my experiences anyway)I have never even thought of making a list like this even for fun, which is ??? because I love Hitchcock films. There honestly should be a list of Hitchcock performances that deserved to be nominated but were not, because there are a lot.

[@maplestreetmovies]

I made a video earlier this month of 9 that should have been nominated, linked at the end of this one :)

[@AlexW-fr1jk]

A really excellent video - very well thought out. Personally I would put Claude Rains as number 1 - but Judith Anderson is outstanding. Agree about Laurence Olivier. In fact I would have rated him lower. He was somehow off in this movie - his confession scene was mannered and unconvincing and he acts so erratically during the scenes with the authorities in the last third of the picture it is a wonder he wasn't arrested on the spot. Story goes he was angry Vivian Leigh wasn't cast in the movie and he was unpleasant during the shoot. Criminal non-nominations: Joseph Cotton and Patricia Colinge, Shadow of a Doubt, Ingrid Bergman and Leopoldine Konstantin (watch her light the cigarette in bed) in Notorious, Robert Walker, Strangers On A Train, James Stewart and Thelma Ritter in Rear Window and of course Anthony Perkins in Psycho.

[@maplestreetmovies]

@@AlexW-fr1jk thank you for watching and for commenting! Glad to find another Claude Rains fan and even happier I’m not alone on Olivier’s performance! If Ethel and Michael had more screen time, Olivier probably would’ve been last, I just found it too hard justifying moving him below 2 actors who maybe have 5 minutes tops of screen time

[@kenanderson9673]

Collinge always breaks my heart in Shadow. I just adore her. I do wish Bankhead would have got a nomination for Lifeboat.

[@AlexW-fr1jk]

@@maplestreetmovies To tell the truth I originally started watching your video because I thought you were wrong--that only 6 actors were nominated. Of course you proved me false as I totally forgot about the 3 relative minor role nominations! So your placing of number 7 for Olivier is totally appropriate! Look forward to more videos from you.

[@macc.1132]

I really enjoyed Olivier's character in Rebecca. I think he has the right amount of guilt (thinking he killed Rebecca) and bitterness (thinking Rebecca got the best of him, after making him a cuckold). He can't move on without the rescue by the second Mrs. De Winter. Olivier also seemed like he could have landed a stunning beauty like Rebecca was supposed to be - they would have been a sophisticated and "gorgeous" British upper class, and I don't know who I would choose from Hollywood at the time that could convey that. Cary Grant - but he must've tied up with "the Philadelphia Story" and even then, I'm not sure he'd make a good Maxim. Ray Milland, David Niven, Leslie Howard ... it's very hard to envision even those British actors up to Rebecca's standards!

[@davepugh8815]

Perfect rankings! (Spellbound, however, was from 1945)

[@arnesahlen2704]

I think he meant Suspicion

[@davepugh8815]

@@arnesahlen2704 no he was talking about Spellbound

[@JimBobH13]

I think your list is great. I especially like that you rated Janet Leigh so high; she rarely gets her due. Personally, I would have swapped your No. 1 and No. 2 choices, but I can't fault your decision.

[@maplestreetmovies]

@@JimBobH13 thanks for watching!! Yes, it was hard deciding between those top 2!

[@mathiassluth3194]

Here's my ranking of those i have seen 1. Janet Leigh - Psycho 2. Claude Rains - Notorious 3. Judith Anderson - Rebecca 4. Joan Fontaine - Rebecca 5. Albert Bassermann - Foreign Correspondent 6. Laurence Olivier - Rebecca I have tried not to be too biased. If you can not already tell, i don't like Rebecca very much.

[@MichaelMoorePDX]

Both Janet & Judith were so good. I think i would give them a tie. Janet gave her character such an inner life -- her romance and its pitfalls, her conflicts about stealing the money, her hard-edged empathy for Norman -- you could read it all in her line delivery and her face. Judith simply was Mrs. Danvers, she brought everything Dumaurier put in the novel to the screen.

[@maplestreetmovies]

AMEN!!

[@macc.1132]

1940 was a stacked year for Best Supporting Actress, too, if only for Jane Darwell in Grapes of Wrath and Ruth Hussey in The Philadelphia Story as Judith Anderson's competition. But I agree, Anderson would have been my pick, an all-time best movie villain. There needs to be more discussion about narration to start Rebecca =) Sets everything up perfectly, and the line is quite famous because of that delivery: "Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again" said by Fontaine is just as good a start to a Hitchcock film as there ever has been.

[@maplestreetmovies]

@@macc.1132 very good point!!

[@arnesahlen2704]

Intriguing view on Olivier in Rebecca🤔. Have you seen lots of pre-Dean/Clift/Brando tortured male roles? Set L.O. by Brett or Hammer in same role. L's haunted eyes, push-pull moods: to me ideal.

[@maplestreetmovies]

@@arnesahlen2704 thanks for sharing! I’ve seen a fair bunch of early tortured male roles but thought of a few I just would’ve preferred - even James Stewart, Gregory Peck, Gary Cooper, I would even say Henry Fonda could pull it off.

[@AlexandreFilho1705]

i would probably put Joan Fontaine at #1 cuz the Mrs. de Winter role seem very difficult to nail. the movie depends on her face and her inability to be a calm, cool woman, and she delivers, not unlike her sister and rival Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress. and the other ingenues that played Mrs. de Winter on later adaptations did not do as good as Fontaine.

[@p.w.e.2374]

Janet Leigh...She plays her kinda cranky with a tinge of guilt...But you think of her for the rest of the film~!

[@jamesacoffey9006]

I can't disagree with your placement of these performances.

[@josephpanzarella1417]

Worth noting. 8 of the 9 were between 1940-1947. 5 of them were 1940-41. At a certain point the academy decided that Hitchcock films were "frivolous" "unimportant entertainment" and really not worthy of Oscar consideration.

[@Joe-bd4xc]

Joan Fontaine's best scene in Rebecca is when she quietly and demurely steps down the stairs to surprise Maxim with her party dress only to be ripped to pieces by her husband's words of hate and disgust because REBECCA wore it first !!!😮

[@maplestreetmovies]

@@Joe-bd4xc ugh that scene is so hard to watch for me 🥲😂 she’s trying so hard and is instantly beaten. Ms Danvers is a great villain!

[@Kjt853]

Robert Walker deserved a nomination for “Strangers on a Train.” Olivier bothers me in “Rebecca.” Maxim should be brooding and menacing; Olivier comes across with a “tennis, anyone?” attitude. FWIW, film critic Pauline Kael called it one of Olivier’s rare bad performances.

[@jdt5976]

Show more clips from the actual performances.

[@maplestreetmovies]

@@jdt5976 thanks for the tip! Always hard to balance what I can and can’t show because of copyright reasons - and I work full-time so it adds more to the editing process 🤣 but I appreciate it and think it’s a totally fair suggestion!

[@jordicamps7379]

When you read the novel Rebecca written by Daphne du Meurier, you understand the amazing job that Hitch did. The film is 100% the novel because it is perfect from beginning til end. Anderson and Fontaine deserved not only the nominations but the oscar prizes. But Olivier performance is the weakest piece in the film. For me Cary Grant would have been much better than Olivier in this role. And Rebecca is one of the best films from hitchcock and one of the best made in the 40s.

[@maplestreetmovies]

@@jordicamps7379 it would’ve been awesome to see Grant in it! It’s definitely on my reading list!

[@ConanTheLibrarian-n5q]

1) Joan Fontaine's Oscar for SUSPICION was a consolation prize for not getting the Academy Award for REBECCA. 2) When Diana Rigg, a great actress in her own right, played Mrs. Danvers for a television version of REBECCA, her performance lacked the menace of the original. 3) Ingrid Bergman should have been nominated for Best Actress for SPELLBOUND. 4) I am gonna commit cinematic heresy and say that PSYCHO is one of most overrated films in cinematic history. Yes, Janet Leigh is the best thing about the film but Vera Miles? John Gavin? C'mon already. PSYCHO is more sensational (in the negative) than good film

[@maplestreetmovies]

@@ConanTheLibrarian-n5q thanks for sharing your take on these films! I always appreciate hearing new perspectives!

[@CaptainCoconut]

🗿

[@maplestreetmovies]

@@CaptainCoconut excellent point

[@asaintpi]

You were spot on with Mrs. Danvers as your No. 1, though I loved Fontaine almost as much. Their scenes together were spellbinding. Jane Darwell won Supporting that year, but that statuette should have gone to Judith Anderson.

[@maplestreetmovies]

@@asaintpi I’m so torn! I absolutely love Jane Darwell in her role. I would’ve wanted a tie! 😂