This thriller from Alfred Hitchcock is more interesting today for its use of continuous long takes. The plot sees two homosexual student murderers (Farley Granger and John Dall) giving a party in a posh New York apartment for academic James Stewart and relatives of the young victim, whose body is present in a trunk from which they serve the drinks. Curiously devoid of suspense, the film is more an intriguing cerebral exercise, famous as an experiment in technique, than a characteristic Hitchcockian entertainment. Based on the real-life Leopold and Loeb case, it remains historically interesting, but both subject (see Richard Fleischer's 1959 film Compulsion) and technique have moved on, and Rope, today, is a disappointing addition to the great director's canon of work.

Two young men attempt to prove they committed the perfect murder by hosting a dinner party for the family of a classmate they just strangled to death.