Psycho is a 1960 American psychological horror film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock and written by Joseph Stefano. It was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. The film centers on an encounter between a secretary, Marion Crane, who ends up at a secluded motel after stealing money from her employer, and the motel's owner-manager, Norman Bates, and its aftermath.
Psycho is now considered one of Hitchcock's best films and praised as a major work of cinematic art by international film critics and scholars. Often ranked among the greatest films of all time, it set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behavior, and sexuality in American films, and is widely considered to be the earliest example of the slasher film genre.
