Thread by @NetflixFilm

Throughout Joe Wright’s THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW, Amy Adams’ character Anna Fox watches dozens of films from the ‘40s and ‘50s. Here’s a breakdown of all the classic movie references (thread)

First is Alfred Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW (1954), from which Wright’s film borrows its central premise as well as stylistic cues.

Anna also watches — while reciting all of the lines to — Otto Preminger’s LAURA (1944). One of the most beloved noirs of all time, Preminger’s film about a hard-boiled detective foreshadows the murder mystery to come in THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW.

The title of Wright’s film, of course, is itself a reference to Fritz Lang’s seminal 1944 film noir THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW, which similarly follows a psychologist involved in a murder investigation.

Anna meets a woman named Jane Russell, who happens to share a name with the Hollywood icon and actress most known for GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (1953) and Howard Hughes’ THE OUTLAW (1943).

Anna falls asleep to Hitchcock’s SPELLBOUND (1945) - the dream sequence within the film designed by Salvador Dalí. Hitchcock’s mystery follows a doctor who is revealed to be an impostor and suspected murderer with amnesia and a psychoanalyst who seeks to unearth the man’s past.

In another scene, Anna is startled awake while playing Delmer Daves’ DARK PASSAGE (1947), in which a man accused of murdering his wife, escapes from prison and undergoes cosmetic surgery to assume a new physical identity as he searches for the real killer.

These films’ shared motifs involving false identities, wrongful accusations, repressed memory, and unsolved murder all factor heavily into the thorny, thrilling plot of THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW.