Gaslight

Gaslight (1944) is George Cukor's psychological thriller, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Newlywed Paula moves into the London townhouse where her aunt was murdered years earlier, with her charming pianist husband Gregory at her side. Then small things start to go wrong.

Objects vanish and turn up in her pockets. The gas lamps dim on their own each evening, yet Gregory insists the light never changes and the flickering is all in her head. Bit by bit he convinces Paula she is losing her grip on reality. Ingrid Bergman plays a woman being unmade with quiet precision; Charles Boyer is the husband behind the cold smile. A curious Scotland Yard man (Joseph Cotten) starts asking questions no one wants answered.

This is the film that handed the language the word "gaslighting." Bergman took home her first Oscar for the role, and a seventeen-year-old Angela Lansbury made her screen debut as the insolent maid. Cukor builds dread not from violence but from the airless rooms of a Victorian house, where the most dangerous person is the man you married. Stream Gaslight (1944) online on iFILM.