Orson Welles made a extraordinary feature-length directorial debut with this classic drama, a perennial fixture of critics' polls of the best films of all time.
In 1940, newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane (Welles) dies after uttering the word 'Rosebud'. An anonymous reporter (William Alland) is assigned the task of uncovering the meaning of Kane's dying word, and in the course of his enquiries he receives varying accounts of his life from former colleagues Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten) and Bernstein (Everett Sloan), and ex-wife Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore).
The film, which Welles also produced and co-wrote, was not-so-loosely based on the life of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.
Citizen Kane was recently voted no. 3 of the 100 Greatest Films of All Time in Sight and Sound's once-a-decade critics' poll. Browse more Greatest Films of All Time here.
