Crime fiction has long since become a recognised and successful literary genre. Literary figures such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen and Patricia Highsmith, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett have taken them out of the "poison cabinet" of undemanding trivial literature and made "crime fiction" socially acceptable. Countless films were made based on detective stories, with master directors like Alfred Hitchcock making them the starting point for veritable masterpieces.