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Thriller

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog

Year
1927
Length
91 minCriterion presentation Version sources ↓

A landlady begins to suspect that her strange new lodger may be connected to a series of killings across London.

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Language
English
MysteryTense Great first watch · Easy Thriller
1927 poster for The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog

Image: Edward McKnight Kauffer / Wikimedia Commons · source · Public domain

What to expect

Hitchcock turns a boarding house into a machine for producing suspicion. Staircases, shadows, faces, and the imagined weight of footsteps make private fear visible before the director had dialogue available to explain it.

How to ease in

The mystery is deliberately simple. Watch how information moves between the street, the family, and the lodger’s room, and notice how quickly uncertainty becomes a public verdict.

Heads-up

A quick, non-exhaustive note Includes serial murder, mob violence, wrongful accusation, threatened hanging, police pursuit, and period attitudes towards women and crime.
Momo's Note May contain spoilers Who is Momo? →
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I keep listening to footsteps the film cannot let me hear. Hitchcock makes the ceiling feel transparent, as though fear itself has learned to look through the floorboards.

— Momo

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