Did Hitchcock make the scariest films

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A.� He did according to the American Film Institute. The institute recently announced its 100 best thrillers, and Hitchcock reinforced his reputation when Psycho came top. He had three in the top 10 - Psycho, The Birds and North by Northwest, and nine in the list altogether, including Vertigo.

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Q.� Who chose the list

A.� It was chosen from 400 nominated films by about 1,800 directors, actors, studio executives and critics. Their brief was to pick�the 'heart-pounding' films of all time, which meant there were entries from all sorts of genres. Everything from westerns to war films and the Wizard of Oz merited a place.

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Q.� What are the�top 30 scariest films ever made, according to the list

A.� 1. Psycho� 2.� Jaws� 3. The Exorcist� 4. North by Northwest� 5. The Silence of the Lambs� 6. Alien� 7. The Birds� 8. The French Connection� 9. Rosemary's Baby� 10. Raiders of the Lost Ark�� 11. The Godfather� 12. King Kong� 13. Bonnie and Clyde� 14.�Rear Window� 15. Deliverance� 16. Chinatown� 17. The Manchurian Candidate� 18. Vertigo� 19. The Great Escape� 20.�High Noon� 21. A Clockwork Orange�� 22. Taxi Driver� 23. Lawrence of Arabia� 24. Double Indemnity� 25. Titanic� 26. The Maltese Falcon� 27. Star Wars� 28. Fatal Attraction 29. The Shining� 30. The Deer Hunter

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Q.� What are the key elements of a Hitchcock thriller

A.� All his films include an element of voyeurism, a murder next door, a threatened blonde (preferably a Grace Kelly or Kim Novak lookalike),� a psychopathic killer, terror in everyday surroundings, a fear of falling or drowning - all whipped together in a set of sequences that mesmorise the audience in terror or laughter.

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Q.� How has Hitchcock acted as a role model

A.� The best Hitchockian movies are said to be the ones that don't try too hard. Stanley Donen's espionage romance - Charade - with Cary Grant and a plot filled with characters with mysterious motives and multiple identities, has been described as the best Hitchcock thriller he never made.

Other directors have embraced key Hitckcock elements of suspense, such as Jonathan Demme's The Last Embrace (cliff-hanging denouement at Niagara), and Robert Benton's Still of the Night, surrounding a tense auction room scene.� Obsession is Brian de Palma's take on Vertigo in which a father falls for his own daughter whom he hasn't seen since birth, and Body Double tries to conflate Rear Window and Vertigo.

Since Hitchock's Psycho, every movie shower scene has either parodied or invoked the Janet Leigh set.

There have been many straightforward remakes of Hitchcock's work such as Rear Window, starring Christopher Reeve, A Perfect Murder, based on Dial M for Murder, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, and even Hitchcock re-shot his 1934 film The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1956.

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By Katharine MacColl