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Sorry to be such a fogey. Youthful loves remain the most passionate in art as in life, although the ultra-high esteem for Hitchcock reflected in this list is a more recent development. Teaching has taught me that no filmmaker’s work more richly rewards close attention. This list also reflects a belief that postwar Hollywood was film history’s greatest source of great films. Odd that at the time it was widely considered the nadir for many good, logical reasons (the blacklist, declining attendance, technical gimmickry and so on), but art moves in mysterious, not always logical ways.