Twitter

Alfred Hitchcock was born on August 13, 1899, and in honor of the famed auteur’s 116th birthday, we’re celebrating our second annual Hitchcock Week on Decider. Click here to follow our coverage.

In 2012, we were graced with not one but two biopics of one of the greatest directors in cinematic history. It was just like back in 1998 when we got Deep Impact and Armageddon, only this time the only big round things threatening our dear planet were Anthony Hopkins and Toby Jones in fat suits and prosthetic chins.

Both Hitchcock and The Girl followed the making of some of the real-life Alfred Hitchcock’s classic films: the former depicted the behinds-the-scenes drama on (and off) the set of Psycho, while the latter, focusing on the perfective of actress Tippi Hedren, was about the filming of The Birds and Marnie. Both are strange little biopic nuggets. The Girl, a co-production between HBO and the BBC, feels very much like a TV movie compared to the flashy and star-studded Hitchcock, which hit theaters just a month after The Girl premiered on HBO.

Let’s start with The Girl, which follows Hedren (played by the always eager Sienna Miller) and her disastrous professional relationship with Hitchcock — which turned sour once he pushed the boundaries of “professionalism.” After grooming her to be his personal starlet, Hedren maintains that he made sexual advances toward her. In the film, Hitchcock is played by Toby Jones, who has the ignoble distinction of always being the Deep Impact to a more famous actor’s Armageddon. He sort of pales in comparison to Anthony Hopkins’ Hitchcock, just like he did when he attempted to portray Truman Capote in the infamously silly Infamous just months after Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for playing the same guy in Capote.

While The Girl portrays Hitchcock as a full-blown sexual predator, Hitchcock lets the director off the hook — a little bit, at least. Yes, he’s drive to madness by the spirit of serial killer Ed Gein, who was the inspiration for Norman Bates, and also his wife Alma (played here by the luminous Helen Mirren, who is much more glamorous than Imelda Staunton’s Alma Reville in The Girl), who was getting cozy with a handsome playwright. Hitchcock makes the director out to be flawed. Creepy? Sure. Sort of like a mixture between Hannibal Lecter and The Penguin, as played by Danny DeVito in Batman Returns? Absolutely. But he had feelings, too!

So which one is better? Well, I happened to enjoy The Girl more. Hitchcock seemed… Well, I’ll put it bluntly: real dumb. (In one scene, Hitchcock is in therapy, and his therapist is Ed Gein? Also, a lot of gay jokes about Anthony Perkins. Oh, and a lot of shadow gimmicks, as if the movie is constantly turning to you and saying, “Get it???“) But Hitchcock, with its bigger budget and more famous stars, is probably more fun for you to watch. So really, you could watch either of them — or, and this is crazy, watch neither. Up to you!

Find out where to stream The Girl and Hitchcock.

Like what you see? Follow Decider on Facebook and Twitter to join the conversation, and sign up for our email newsletters to be the first to know about streaming movies and TV news!

Photos: Everett Collection