Under Capricorn

Under Capricorn (1949) is Alfred Hitchcock's period thriller you can watch online on iFILM, starring Ingrid Bergman and Joseph Cotten. Set in 1830s Sydney, it was shot immediately after Rope — another experiment in sustained long takes — but turns away from suspense mechanics toward something closer to gothic melodrama. Runtime: 118 minutes.

Young Irish aristocrat Charles Adare arrives in colonial New South Wales and falls into the orbit of Sam Flusky, a self-made man with a convict past and a house that polite society won't enter. His wife Henrietta — once from the same Anglo-Irish world as Charles — is barely functional, her days blurred by alcohol and controlled by a housekeeper who seems to own the place. Charles starts pulling at the thread. What he finds is a crime years old that neither of them can name out loud.

Dismissed on release and overshadowed by the Hitchcock films around it, Under Capricorn has gradually found its defenders, and the reason is Bergman. She plays a woman carrying guilt that isn't entirely hers with a stillness that's more unsettling than any chase scene. Watch Under Capricorn (1949) online on iFILM.