Rear Window (1954)

Hitchcock's 1954 thriller is the purest film ever made about the photographer's itch to watch. James Stewart's L. B. Jefferies is a photojournalist stuck at home with a broken leg, so he turns his telephoto lens on the apartments across the courtyard, and the movie quietly makes you complicit in every look. It is also the rare film where the camera becomes a weapon: when the threat finally comes through the door, Jeff's only defense is a stack of flashbulbs. Watch it as a thriller first, then again as a sly essay on whether looking is ever innocent.