When the term “auteur” came out of France in the mid-1950s, it was with reverence that critics and filmmakers of that country looked to a prolific British filmmaker making movies in America. Decades into his career by then, Alfred Hitchcock had produced a body of work and established an artistic thumbprint like nothing before. Today he’s called the “master of suspense,” but that almost underplays all that he brought to the screen. In truth, he was the master of manipulation — expertly employing every cinematic device available to him (dialogue, performance, music, location, cinematography) in order to draw exactly what he wanted out of his audience, precisely when he wanted it. With this series we celebrate in 21 films the ultimate auteur, a director who not only contributed to the language of film but in the process create a genre entirely his own: Hitchcock.