Psycho

Snubbed: Anthony Perkins 

Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. 1960, U.S. 109 mins. 4K DCP. With Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam. Hitchcock’s epochal film fragmented and reconstituted the horror genre forever after, thrilling and terrifying audiences with the possibilities of the medium. Psycho’s grimly ironic tale of petty office thief Marion Crane, who meets her untimely, violent, and nonsensical end during a chance rest stop at the Bates Motel, garnered Hitchcock a Best Director nod for his sheer chutzpah and Leigh a supporting actress nomination for her doomed not-really-protagonist. Yet the film is impossible to conceive without Perkins’s sui generis performance as the ultimate momma’s boy Norman Bates: at once pathetic and chivalrous, frightening and timid, dangerous and sympathetic. Of course, it’s unsurprising that the Academy chose to ignore this unlikely monster, whose perversity was perhaps too far ahead of its time. 

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. Review safety protocols before your visit.