...the ultimate Welles film...

Full Review | Mar 1, 2023

A monumental film in cinema history.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 19, 2022

This is an adult film, technically and psychologically adult, recognizing the ultimate obscurity in which every human life moves; one of the few, the very few, films to present not an abstraction, but a man.

Full Review | Aug 9, 2022

Orson Welles, who plays Kane, produces and directs, has driven to the heart of his subject with a fierce, thrusting energy that is rare and refreshing.

Full Review | Feb 17, 2022

A distinctly out-of-the-rut production and a great piece of cinema artistry.

Full Review | Feb 17, 2022

Perhaps the film's most resonant quality is that, through the film's story and production, Welles inspires the same investigative process about himself and his picture.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 14, 2022

"Citizen Kane" forever changed the way movies were made and interpreted. It's still relevant and unique 80 years after its release. Is it the greatest movie ever? Maybe, maybe not. The most influential? Without a doubt, yes.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 9, 2022

I can't think of an American-made film that stands up to multiple viewings quite like 'Kane'...it never feels like Welles and company are showing off, just showing what a movie can do.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 2, 2021

Welles is the most exciting thing that's happened since sound.

Full Review | Jun 10, 2021

I particularly like the structure of the film, especially the use of the news reel footage and the newspaper headlines to move the plot forward.

Full Review | Mar 24, 2021

We aren't going to quibble about the genius business. Time will take care of that and if Welles goes down in history as one well be happy to have been among those who enjoyed the results of his great talent.

Full Review | Mar 2, 2021

The sheer brilliance and audacity of Citizen Kane... make the film the most astounding cinematic achievement of the season. It ranks with Disney's Fantasia as a milestone in motion picture technique.

Full Review | Mar 2, 2021

Ordinary standards will not serve for Citizen Kane; extravagance of idea for serious ends is not common enough in the cinema to provide a yardstick.

Full Review | Mar 2, 2021

Citizen Kane Is a triumph not only for Orson Welles, but for his entire company as well.

Full Review | Mar 2, 2021

Everything that Welles has to say in his capacity of author, actor and director is individual and striking. The grouping of the characters, the odd camera angles, the revealing little character glimpses are all superb.

Full Review | Mar 2, 2021

Whether the story of Charles Foster Kane is a biography of one man or a composite of many, as Orson Welles claims, matters not so much as the fact that here we have a completely new approach to film biography.

Full Review | Mar 2, 2021

[It] is my opinion that Mr. Welles has been sympathetic and kind. He reveals great respect for people, and a knowledge of their powers and talents.

Full Review | Mar 2, 2021

It is daring, different, thrilling and revolutionary, a power play of startling brilliance.

Full Review | Mar 2, 2021

This first screen effort of Orson Welles is of such vast difference to other pictures, in subject material, in treatment, in technique, in cast and in performance that the best advice perhaps is, "See what you think."

Full Review | Mar 2, 2021

Welles has grasped the art of the photoplay in a single venture. He has accomplished in one picture what Hollywood veterans have been aiming at tor years.

Full Review | Mar 2, 2021