The power of the story - adapted from the novel by Patricia Highsmith - lies in its simplicity, and Hitchcock’s piles on the sinister layers as only he can.
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01/01/00
Strangers on a Train (1951)
97
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Reviews Counted:39
Fresh:38
Rotten:1
Average Rating:8.7/10
Runtime: 1 hr 48 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, based on the Patricia Highsmith novel, quickly became one of Alfred Hitchcock's most successful thrillers and remains one of his most popular films. En route from Washington,... [More]
Starring: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G. Carroll
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Reviews for Strangers on a Train
Top CriticHitchcock's favourite device of an ordinary man caught in an ever-tightening web of fear plunges Guy into one of the director's most fiendishly effective movies.
06/27/01
Top CriticHitchcock's handling of the suspense is deadly effective and a quality cast breathe life into some delicious dialogue.
02/04/08
Top CriticHitchcock erects a web of guilt around Granger, who 'agreed' to his wife's murder, a murder that suits him very well, and structures his film around a series of set pieces, ending with a paroxysm of violence on a circus carousel.
02/09/06
Top CriticPatricia Highsmith's malicious writing seems perfectly suited to Alfred Hitchcock.
09/20/04
Two men, a problem, and a crime is an old theme, but the list of works that exploit it perfectly is a short one. Strangers on a Train belongs on it.
07/26/04
Farley Granger became the best-known actor out of the film, but it’s the tour-de-force performance of Robert Walker as Bruno that’s amazing.
06/06/02
Walker's creepy performance ranks among the best found in any Hitchcock film.
09/13/04
the work most necessary for a deeper appreciation of Hitchcock's late masterpieces.
08/01/08
...his basic premise of fear fired by menace is so thin and so utterly unconvincing that the story just does not stand.
01/01/00
Top CriticHitchcock was above all the master of great visual set pieces, and there are several famous sequences in Strangers on a Train.
01/15/04
Top CriticPerhaps none of Alfred Hitchcock's 1950s films is quite as intense as Strangers on a Train.
12/29/02
To ignore the subtext during the runaway carousel climax is to be absolutely blind.
09/06/04
Perhaps Strangers on a Train still hasn't yielded all its secrets.
02/04/08
...one of the original shells for identity-inspired mystery thrillers, in which natural human behavior is the driving force behind the true macabre.
06/23/02
Even more marvelous after a second viewing
02/17/08
As sleek, taut and breezy an entertainment as Hitchcock ever made, and a nice hinge moment, almost exactly in the middle of the black-and-white and color phases of his American career.
11/28/03
Quintessential Hitchcock.
09/02/02
worthy vehicle that displays Hitchcock's narrative ability and explores some of his favorite themes
10/27/04
Of all the films Hithcock made, this is one of his absolute masterpieces.
01/01/00
Latest News for Strangers on a Train
June 21, 2007:
Frank Miller and Clive Owen to Do Some Old-School Film Noir
Now here's a project that sounds pretty damn cool: Frank Miller directing Clive Owen in an adaptation of a Raymond Chandler story -- and it'll probably be the first in a series! More...
April 12, 2005:
Two New "Strangers" to Meet On DreamWorks' "Train"
Variety lets us know that DreamWorks is currently mounting a new interpretation of Patricia Highsmith's novel "Strangers on a Train." Originally turned into a classic... More...
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