Hours of Classic Crime and Mystery Movies. Discover Our Film Noir and Alfred Hitchcock Collections

Above you’ll find Alfred Hitch­cock­’s Num­ber Sev­en­teen, free to watch in its entire­ty. Released in 1932, the film finds a gang of jew­el thieves des­per­ate to hide their lat­est boun­ty, a dia­mond neck­lace. Just when they think they’ve found the per­fect house in which to stash it — the Num­ber Sev­en­teen of the title — their plans begin to unrav­el when var­i­ous out­siders (includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to a sneaky police detec­tive) turn up there. Hitch­cock deliv­ers this sto­ry with an odd mix of sus­pense and com­e­dy, and, per­haps as a result, it has­n’t been one of his most wide­ly seen pic­tures. But you can watch it with a click of a mouse, just as you can any of the films in our col­lec­tion of 21 Free Hitch­cock Movies Online. There you can expe­ri­ence many evenings of enter­tain­ment from the Eng­lish-turned-Amer­i­can mas­ter of twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry cin­e­mat­ic sus­pense. From his Daphne du Mau­ri­er adap­ta­tion Jamaica Inn to his ear­ly hit The 39 Steps to his British ver­sion of The Man Who Knew Too Much, Hitch­cock deliv­ers ship­wrecks, con­spir­a­cies, para­noia, and uneasy roman­tic intrigue — all at no charge.

And if you watch all 21 free Hitch­cock pic­tures, don’t wor­ry; we’ve got more crime and mys­tery in store for you. Look no fur­ther than our col­lec­tion of Free Film Noir Movies. Just above, we’ve embed­ded He Walked by Night, a grit­ty tale of post­war Los Ange­les star­ring Drag­net’s Jack Webb. The film would go on to pro­vide the basis for Drag­net itself. Or per­haps you’d pre­fer to watch The Lady from Shang­hai, star­ring and direct­ed by Orson Welles, which mix­es film noir tra­di­tions with Welles’ own idio­syn­crat­ic, some­times per­fec­tion­ist and some­times down­right anti-per­fec­tion ten­den­cies; “the weird­est great movie ever made,” crit­ic Dave Kehr called it. If you’re look­ing for more noir Welles, our col­lec­tion also con­tains The Stranger, his pre­vi­ous film. Star­ring Edward G. Robin­son as a Nazi hunter, it came out as the first film after the Sec­ond World War to actu­al­ly include footage of con­cen­tra­tion camps. Both our noir and Hitch­cock col­lec­tions con­tain a great deal of his­to­ry as well as a great deal of craft. They may not make movies like these any­more, but now it’s eas­i­er than ever to watch the ones they made back then.

Relat­ed con­tent:

500 Free Movies Online

Alfred Hitch­cock: A Rare Look Into the Filmmaker’s Cre­ative Mind

François Truffaut’s Big Inter­view with Alfred Hitch­cock (Free Audio)

Orson Welles Explains Why Igno­rance Was the Genius Behind Cit­i­zen Kane

100 Great­est Posters of Film Noir

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.