Alfred Hitchcock- The 'father' of the Thriller genre

The acknowledged master of the thriller genre he virtually invented, Alfred Hitchcock was also a brilliant technician who deftly blended sex, suspense and humor. He began his filmmaking career in 1919 illustrating title cards for silent films at Paramount's Famous Players-Lasky studio in London. There he learned scripting, editing and art direction, and rose to assistant director in 1922. That year he directed an unfinished film, No. 13 or Mrs. Peabody . His first completed film as director was The Pleasure Garden (1925), an Anglo-German production filmed in Munich. This experience, plus a stint at Germany's UFA studios as an assistant director, help account for the Expressionistic character of his films, both in their visual schemes and thematic concerns. The Lodger (1926), his breakthrough film, was a prototypical example of the classic Hitchcock plot: an innocent protagonist is falsely accused of a crime and becomes involved in a web of intrigue.

Hitchcock went on to make many 'thriller films', such as 'Notorious', ending his work with the film ''Family Plot', in which two couples are pitted against one another: a pair of professional thieves versus a female psychic and her working class lover. It was a fitting end to a glamorous career and a body of work that demonstrated the eternal symmetry between good and evil.