The most wanted film in the world is a lost Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece

Entertainment · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Alfred Hitchcock’s 1926 silent drama The Mountain Eagle is considered the most elusive missing film in existence. Despite its status as the only completed feature by the director that is entirely lost, the production was a chaotic, high-altitude ordeal that left Hitchcock relieved the footage vanished forever.

Produced in 1925 at the Emelka Film studios in Munich, The Mountain Eagle was Hitchcock’s second feature. Seeking the creative freedom unavailable in England, he filmed exteriors in Obergurgl, Austria, using the Ötztal Alps to simulate the Kentucky landscape. The shoot was notoriously difficult; Hitchcock suffered from altitude sickness and accidentally destroyed a local village roof while attempting to clear snow for a scene, leading to a tense relationship with the local residents.

The plot follows a widower, J. P. Pettigrew, who harbors a grudge against a man named John Fulton. After Pettigrew’s disabled son flees following a confrontation, Pettigrew attempts to frame Fulton for murder. The film was shelved by British distributors after a poor screening in 1926, only reaching UK theaters in May 1927 following the massive success of Hitchcock’s later work, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog.

Critical reception was lukewarm, with contemporary reviewers criticizing its lack of realism. Hitchcock himself was famously dismissive, describing the film to François Truffaut as an 'awful' and 'very bad movie.' He expressed genuine relief that no prints survived, though film historians continue to hunt for it. While no film prints exist, researchers have recovered various production materials, including a lobby card found in a Massachusetts flea market and a set of 24 behind-the-scenes photographs auctioned in 2012 for $6,000.

Today, the British Film Institute lists it at the top of its '75 Most Wanted' missing films. While some scholars, such as William Rothman, argue the film remains worthy of study, it persists as a ghost of early cinema—a project that nearly ended Hitchcock’s career before it truly began.

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