STEPHEN REBELLO
Stephen Rebello is a screenwriter and the bestselling author of ten nonfiction books. He has written screenplays for Disney, Paramount, and Focus Features. His magazine features and cover stories appeared in GQ, Playboy, Movieline, Hollywood Life, Statement, More, and Cosmopolitan. Born in Southern New England, he is a longtime resident of both Southern California and the Central California coast.
New Release!
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New Release! •
Hitchcockian Thrillers - Must-See Films in the Style of the Suspense Master
Published February 19, 2026
From Bloomsbury Press:
During Alfred Hitchcock's five-decade reign as the screen's internationally celebrated Master of Suspense, he directed 53 motion pictures. In such Hitchcock gold standard classics as The 39 Steps, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds, he staked his claim as the architect, the O.G. of the big screen thriller. He laid down the rules and rhythms of the genre, created an immediately identifiable visual style and vocabulary, experimented constantly with technique, pushed boundaries, defied censors, and shattered the expectations of his audiences -- along with their nerves. In exploiting his private fears and vulnerabilities, Hitchcock was as brilliant at making us think and feel as he was effective at making us scream while invading our nightmares. His films elevated the form and ranked among the biggest box-office successes and most influential picture of their time. They were and are to this day emulated for their recurring themes, visual beauty, use of sound and silence and, more lastingly, they even nudged the culture forward by liberalizing attitudes toward cinematic violence and sexual frankness.
Hitchcockian Thrillers: Must-See Films in the Style of the Suspense Master is a curated, opinionated, authoritative, highly personal, lavishly illustrated guide to nine decades of international moviemaking featuring films by directors – beginning in the era of Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, and Sir Carol Reed and moving right up through today's David Fincher, Steven Soderbergh, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Martin Scorsese – who have all tried to 'do a Hitchcock' one or more times.
Praise for Hitchcockian Thrillers
Criss-Cross: The Making of Hitchcock's Dazzling, Subversive Masterpiece Strangers On A Train
Published September 16, 2025
As entertaining as it is to watch Strangers on a Train, so too is the previously untold backstory that packs all the suspense, drama, fascination, and twists of a thriller. After all, what are the hallmarks of a great Hitchcock film? A larger-than-life, complex cast of characters, each with something to prove, lose, or hide. Check. Tremendous risk, outsized conflict, and emotion as those men and women confront challenges off the set. Check. Feuds, deceptions, unlikely alliances, and double-crosses. Check.
Coming off a 5-year-string of flops, Alfred Hitchcock gambled big on adapting Patricia Highsmith's debut novel, which critics called “preposterous” and “unconvincing," in addition to “unsavory,” and “sick” (1950s code words for “gay” and “perverted”). Each step of the production was fraught with battles, but Hitchcock masterfully stayed several steps ahead of his opponents as he fought to bring his singular vision to life. Strangers on a Train became not only a creative high-water mark and box-office success for Hitchcock, but also kicked off his unmatched decade of classics including Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, The Wrong Man, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho.
Richly documented, meticulously researched, and stylishly written, Criss-Cross is more than an authoritative film book. It is a portrait of an especially politically paranoid, misogynistic, and homophobic era in America, a time of dramatic transition in the entertainment industry, and a day of reckoning for Alfred Hitchcock and a few other talents with whom he made a dark, resonant, sly, and prescient work of art.
Praise for Criss-Cross
