Citizen Kane
1941 · Orson Welles · 119 min · Drama / Mystery
Citizen Kane rewrote the rules of filmmaking in 1941, and the innovations it introduced still show up in movies made today. Orson Welles delivered something astonishing as a first-time director, and Gregg Toland's cinematography remains a high point of the medium. It doesn't always connect on a gut emotional level, and the weight of its reputation can work against it for newcomers. But the craft on display is extraordinary, and the central question it poses about whether any life can be reduced to a single explanation has only grown more relevant with time.