In Sight and Sound magazine's 2012 poll of the greatest films of all time, Vertigo placed at the top of the list, supplanting Citizen Kane. A favorite among critics, it also made the American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Movies where it ranked in the top 10. Often regarded as Hitchcock's most personal work, the film explores such themes as obsession, exploitation, and voyeurism. In The San Francisco of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo: Place, Pilgrimage, and Commemoration, Douglas A. Cunningham has assembled provocative essays that examine the uniquely integrated relationship that the 1958 film enjoys with the histories and cultural imaginations of California and, more specifically, the San Francisco Bay Area. Contributors to this collection ponder a number of topics such as the ways in which Vertigo resurrects the narratives of San Francisco's violent past; how sightseeing informs the act of watching the film; the significance that landmarks in the film hold in our collective cultural
