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North by Northwest Details

1959 Certificate PG
  • Rated:
  • 80
  • from 20,756 members

An advertising executive is mistaken for a spy and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive. Read more

Starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Leo G. Carroll
Director Alfred Hitchcock
Genres Action/Adventure, Drama, Romance, Thriller

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North by Northwest

An advertising executive is mistaken for a spy and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive.

Starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Leo G. Carroll, Martin Landau, Josephine Hutchinson, Jessie Royce Landis, Philip Ober
Director Alfred Hitchcock
Studio WARNER HOME VIDEO
Run time DVD: 2 hrs 10 mins
Blu-ray: 2 hrs 16 mins
Certificate Certificate PG
Collections 100 must-see movies, 100 Top Thrillers
Genres Action/Adventure, Drama, Romance, Thriller
Language DVD: English
Blu-ray: English
Released DVD: 07 Jun 2004
Blu-ray: 16 Nov 2009
Production year: 1959
Format DVD
  • Critics' reviews (3) of North by Northwest

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  • 5 stars out of 5

    This Hitchcock classic contains extra-generous helpings of the ingredients that make his films so unmissable. Action, intrigue, romance and comedy are blended throughout with consummate skill; the attack by the crop-dusting plane and the finale on Mount Rushmore are simply the icing on the cake. Rarely did Hitchcock have as much fun with his favourite “innocent in peril” theme or make such inventive use of famous landmarks. In his fourth and final collaboration with the “Master of Suspense”, Cary Grant is the personification of suaveness as he tackles a nest of enemy agents, led by a rather disengaged James Mason.

    • Radio Times
  • 4 stars out of 4

    Delightful chase comedy-thriller with a touch of sex, a kind of compendium of its director's best work, with memories of The 39 Steps, Saboteur and Foreign Correspondent among others.

    • Halliwell's Film Guide
  • Most helpful member's review of North by Northwest

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  • 14 out of 14 people found this review helpful

    Rated - 5 stars

    The Master at Work

    Hitchcock had already made most of his classic Paramount films (Vertigo, Rear Window) earlier in the 50s before creating North by Northwest. The result is one of the most pure Hitchcock films - concentrated storytelling with engaging characters. The film's final screen minute contains more plot than many directors manage to cram into ten.

    Cary Grant is back after Jimmy Stewart was pensioned off as Hitch's leading man. He is completly at home as the smooth, charming advertising executive, caught up in events way beyond his control.

    The Hitchcock obsession with stunning blonde actresses finds a home in Eva Marie Saint - introduced to us in one of cinema's most alluring seduction scenes. Confident, sexy and yet tantalisingly unavailable.

    If you like film, and enjoy watching first class actors under the direction of a master story-teller, then this is for you.

      • db from London
  • Most recent members' review of North by Northwest

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  • 1 out of 1 person found this review helpful

    Rated - 4 stars [Highly rated reviewer]

    Tense

    Taut and tense, although I'm not sure I'm a fan of Hitchcock who knows how to get the most tension out of a scene but there's something about his films that I don't find engaging. The scene at the bus stop was nothing short of a masterpiece with pretty much nothing happening for about ten minutes, even though you know something is going to happen. It's about the third time I've seen this film and although it is enjoyable I'm not pulled in to the film enough to rate it as a great.

      • McClennan from St Helens
  • News and features

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    The Early Hitchcock Collection

    The Essential Guide to Alfred Hitchcock

    • 09 Sep 2008

    The Essential Guide to Alfred Hitchcock Born 1899, Leytonstone, England Died 1980, Bel Air, USA More books have been written about Alfred Hitchcock than any other filmmaker, alive or dead. He was the self-styled “master of suspense”. In a career that stretched to half a century, he directed more than 50 films – and rarely strayed from his favourite genre. The son of a grocer, and a devout Catholic, Hitchcock often attributed his fascination with (and fear of) the law,... Read more

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Rating breakdown

20,756 Member ratings
  • 100
3,944
  • 90
2,885
  • 80
5,131
  • 70
3,318
  • 60
2,568
  • 50
1,284
  • 40
617
  • 30
401
  • 20
395
  • 10
213

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    • North By Northwest - BLU-RAY Version
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    • NORTH BY NORTHWEST is a suspense thriller that finds Cary Grant in the role of Roger Thornhill, a Manhattan advertising executive mistaken for a spy. Considered by many to be the prototypical pure ...

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    • An advertising executive is mistaken for a spy and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive....