One of the most playful of Hitchcock’s British thrillers, Sabotage doesn’t waste one second of its taut runtime, ratcheting up the suspense in pointillistically beautiful ways. Sylvia Sidney is the unsuspecting wife of a London cinema owner (Oskar Homolka) whom a Scotland Yard detective (John Loder) comes to believe is behind a string of terrorist attacks. The gripping centerpiece – involving a boy, a film canister and a ticking time bomb – is one of the most heart-stopping moments of pure suspense in all of Hitchcock’s canon. (American Genre Film Archive)
