Hitchcock wins for turning the act of watching into drama. Start with Rear Window (1954): a photographer confined to his apartment studies his neighbours, and our curiosity becomes part of the tension. Notice how a glance, a cut and a withheld detail can carry the scene.
His command of the viewer gives him our edge over Kurosawa. This is an artistic judgment, not an award count. Prefer human warmth or a wider range of genres and Kurosawa or Kubrick could win. Who would you put first, and which criterion would change the order?
Source: BFI.
Photo: Jack Mitchell · CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized and recompressed; original status retained.
