Alfred Hitchcock remains the quintessential cinematic auteur - the director as hero. Debate over his status as an obsessive and dictatorial artist has raised pressing questions about the relation between individual authorship and contexts, influences, and collaborators. Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most famous, revered, and widely imitated filmmakers of all time. This companion is the most ambitious and comprehensive volume ever published on the Master of Suspense, considering the full range of his career - from his earliest contributions to other directors' silent films to his uncompleted last film. Thirty chapters by the world's leading Hitchcock experts cover well-established approaches as well as cutting-edge scholarship and tackle the most puzzling and complex problems in Hitchcock's films and contemporary film studies. Placing Hitchcock and his works in their cultural and intellectual contexts, essays explore the genres with which his work is most closely associated, his relationships with his performers and other leading collaborators, the verbal and visual style of his films, his rise to prominence as the quintessential Hollywood auteur, the ideological and ethical implications of his films, and the enduring legacy he left to filmmakers and audiences alike. Accessible and yet sophisticated, this companion is essential reading for scholars, film enthusiasts, and anyone interested in this hugely influential filmmaker.