Home / Thrillers & Suspense · Romance
The new Mrs. de Winter arrives at Manderley and finds that Rebecca still has a place in every room.
1940 · Gothic romantic thriller · United States · 130 minutes · Black and white
Synopsis
A young woman marries widower Maxim de Winter and moves into his Cornwall estate, Manderley. There she finds the house still arranged around the memory of his first wife, Rebecca. The housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, is devoted to her former mistress, and Maxim grows distant whenever his new wife asks about the past.
Watch the film
Meet the cast
Laurence Olivier portrait by Allan Warren, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Film credits
Director · Alfred Hitchcock
Producer · David O. Selznick
Screenplay · Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison
Adaptation · Philip MacDonald and Michael Hogan, from Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel
Cinematography · George Barnes
Editing · Hal C. Kern and James E. Newcom
Music · Franz Waxman
Art direction · Lyle Wheeler
Production company · Selznick International Pictures
Distributor · United Artists
Production and film notes
This was Hitchcock’s first Hollywood film and the beginning of his collaboration with David O. Selznick. It won Academy Awards for Best Picture and for George Barnes’s black-and-white cinematography. The Criterion Collection
Hitchcock keeps the second Mrs. de Winter’s first name from us. At Manderley, the housekeeper and the rooms themselves tell her what the first Mrs. de Winter was like, long before she can make up her own mind about Rebecca. BFI
Related films
The 39 Steps (1935) · Hitchcock’s earlier British thriller follows a man on the run.
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) · Judith Anderson also appears in this noir about the past intruding on a marriage.