Plot: Phoenix officeworker Marion Crane is fed up with the way life has treated her. She has to meet her lover Sam in lunch breaks and they cannot get married because Sam has to give most of his money away in alimony. One Friday Marion is trusted to bank $40,000 by her employer. Seeing the opportunity to take the money and start a new life, Marion leaves town and heads towards Sam's California store. Tired after the long drive and caught in a storm, she gets off the main highway and pulls into The Bates Motel. The motel is managed by a quiet young man called Norman who seems to be dominated by his mother.

Tags: based on novel, bathroom, beauty, bird, black bra, black brassiere, blockbuster, blood, bra removing, brassiere, california, car in water, cellar, controversial, corpse, dating, director cameo, divorcé, domineering mother, embezzlement, fall down stairs, famous score, female removes her clothes, female removes her dress, first of series, fly, good versus evil, hardware store, hidden corpse, highway patrol, hotel, house breaking, impersonation, independent film, jail, loss of girlfriend, loss of sister, matricide, missing person, motel, motel clerk, mother son relationship, murder, nude woman murdered, old dark house, one word title, overhead camera shot, partial female nudity, peep hole, phoenix arizona, phone booth, premarital sex, private detective, psychiatrist, psychological drama, psychopath, rainstorm, realtor, recluse, rural, scream, secretary, serial killer, sheriff, shower, shower curtain, shower murder, slasher, small town, split personality, stabbed in the chest, stabbed to death, stabbing, stolen money, swamp, swinging light, talking, taxidermy, toilet, twist in the end, used car dealer, villain played by lead actor, voice over, voyeurism, show all tags.