Movie · 1976 · Thriller, Mystery, Drama · 1h 39m · PG · English
Curator score: 4.7/10 (44K ratings)
A bizarre story of love.
Overview
A wealthy New Orleans businessman becomes obsessed with a young woman who resembles his late wife.
Ratings
Curator score: 4.7/10
IMDb: 6.7/10
Letterboxd: 3.52/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 77%
Metacritic: 59
TMDB: 6.7/10
Director
Brian De Palma
Production
Yellowbird Productions, Columbia Pictures
Cast
Cliff Robertson, Geneviève Bujold, John Lithgow, Sylvia Kuumba Williams, Wanda Blackman, J. Patrick McNamara, Stanley J. Reyes, Nick Kreiger, Stocker Fontelieu, Don Hood, Andrea Esterhazy, Thomas Carr, Tom Felleghy, Nella Simoncini Barbieri, John Creamer, Regis Cordic, Loraine Despres, Clyde Ventura, Fain M. Cogrove, Robert Harper
Where to watch
Artiflix
Curator Review
Verdict
A lush, twisted melodrama that turns Hitchcockian suspense into operatic obsession. It’s less interested in airtight plotting than in mood, grief, and the sickly beauty of romantic fixation, with a finale that lingers long after the logic has faded.
Best for
Brian De Palma fans
Viewers who like Hitchcock echoes and cinematic homage
Fans of baroque, emotionally heightened thrillers
People who enjoy 1970s mystery melodrama
Viewers open to pulpy excess and formal bravura
Skip if
You want a tightly rational mystery
You dislike overt homage or self-conscious style
You prefer restrained performances and realism
You need a thriller with constant forward momentum
Overview
Obsession is one of those movies that feels like it’s haunted by another movie, but in a way that becomes its own strange identity. De Palma takes the bones of a classic romantic thriller and pushes them into something more feverish, more mournful, and more perversely beautiful. The result is less a puzzle than an emotional ruin, staged with real visual confidence.
Worth noting
What stands out most is how seriously it treats longing, guilt, and the fantasy of preserving the past. The film’s New Orleans setting, Herrmann’s score, and the controlled, almost ceremonial camera work give it a funereal grandeur. It can feel overripe, even ridiculous, but that excess is part of the appeal.
Bottom line
If you come in expecting a clean thriller, it may frustrate you. If you’re willing to let it operate as a gothic melodrama with thriller machinery, it becomes a rewarding watch: elegant, deranged, and deeply committed to its own obsessions.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Josh Lewis (4★) · 1290 likes
De Palma: Ok, so Vertigo, right?
Schrader: I'm listening...
De Palma: ... But incest.
Schrader: Holy shit.
Patrick Willems (3.5★) · 799 likes
When John Lithgow shows up in the opening scene talking about "New Awluhns" you know it's gonna be a good time
Filipe Furtado (5★) · 686 likes
Yes, the plot is lifted pretty heavily from Vertigo (even more than Body Double), but in many ways this really is postwar Hollywood melodrama done through giallo's distorted lens. So, a way of thinking about how a certain form of painting with emotion can be turned into another. Hermann's wonderful score actually feels like the movie's organizing principle more than Schrader's script; De Palma's images just act towards giving the music a physical presence. Bonkers and delirious perverse, pretty much… more Yes, the plot is lifted pretty heavily from Vertigo (even more than Body Double), but in many ways this really is postwar Hollywood melodrama done through giallo's distorted lens. So, a way of thinking about how a certain form of painting with emotion can be turned into another. Hermann's wonderful score actually feels like the movie's organizing principle more than Schrader's script; De Palma's images just act towards giving the music a physical presence. Bonkers and delirious perverse, pretty much… more
Sean Fennessey (4★) · 610 likes
"I don't just like movies like this; I relish them. Sometimes overwrought excess can be its own reward." One of my favorite Ebert quotations, and a feeling I carry with me through movies that don't necessarily "work" but work on me.
laird (4★) · 463 likes
I was enjoying this as an essay about itself/about remaking VERTIGO (and probably some other stuff I missed while in the bathroom), then that masterful final sequence hit and the needle went from 3 1/2 to four stars, because I realized I kind of cared about these tragic characters too.
If the critics and nerdlingers who decried this for being "nothing but a Hitchcock knock-off" only knew what the popular cinema landscape was like now, they would probably kill their own wife and daughter for something even remotely as technically well executed and idiosyncratic as this.