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Holmes and Hitchcock Not Included: Ten Classic Whodunnits
Spoiling the endings of these gripping thrillers should be a criminal offence
Who doesn’t enjoy a great whodunnit? Even when you know the identity of the killer, the films I’ve selected for this article bear repeat viewings. That said, if you’ve not seen any of these, you’re in for a compelling treat. Just don’t let anyone spoil them for you.
When it came to choosing films for this list, I found it impossible to ignore Agatha Christie. She is the goddess of whodunnits and is rightly represented with two adaptations of her exceptional work. However, I chose to omit Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detective, partly because the Sherlock Holmes mysteries aren’t always confined to the murderous, and partly because the best screen version of Holmes — namely the scrupulously faithful ITV series starring Jeremy Brett — is television, not film, so doesn’t qualify. The Holmes adaptations on film are rather more variable, and although some are outstanding (Billy Wilder’s much underrated The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, for instance), I ultimately decided none quite fit the criteria for this selection.
Nor did I find space for Alfred Hitchcock. This is deliberate, as he is constantly celebrated elsewhere (including by me, here), and I wanted to make…
