Psycho 1960

Critics score:
96 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Andrew Sarris, Village Voice: Hitchcock is the most-daring avant-garde film-maker in America today. Read more

Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader: Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 masterpiece blends a brutal manipulation of audience identification and an incredibly dense, allusive visual style to create the most morally unsettling film ever made. Read more

Wanda Hale, New York Daily News: The obvious thing to say is that Hitch has done it again; that the suspense of his picture builds up slowly but surely to an almost unbearable pitch of excitement. Read more

Bosley Crowther, New York Times: [Hitchcock's] denouement falls quite flat for us. But the acting is fair. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: With the exception of Halloween, no latter-day horror/thriller has been capable of generating as many goosebumps. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: What makes Psycho immortal, when so many films are already half-forgotten as we leave the theater, is that it connects directly with our fears. Read more

Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon.com: All those who still get a chill every time they step into a hotel shower, say aye. That, you see, is the power of Psycho. Read more

Paine Knickerbocker, San Francisco Chronicle: [Hitchcock] has very shrewdly interwoven crime, sex and suspense, blended the real and the unreal in fascinating proportions and punctuated his film with several quick, grisly and unnerving surprises. Read more

TIME Magazine: Director Hitchcock bears down too heavily in this one, and the delicate illusion of reality necessary for a creak-and-shriek movie becomes, instead, a spectacle of stomach-churning horror. Read more

David Jenkins, Time Out: It blazed a bloody trail for the much-loved slasher cycle, but it also assured us that a B-movie could be A-grade in quality and innovation. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: The best that can be said is there are bats in the belfry and a well-preserved corpse in the basement. What else can one do but scream? Read more

Variety Staff, Variety: An unusual, good entertainment, indelibly Hitchcock, and on the right kind of boxoffice beam. Read more