Citizen Kane · reception & legacy

1941 · Orson Welles

How Citizen Kane has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

A box-office disappointment in 1941 — William Randolph Hearst's papers refused to advertise it and pressured theatres — it was rediscovered after the war (championed by French critics and a 1950s re-release) and topped the Sight & Sound greatest-films poll every decade from 1962 to 2002.

What's debated

The eternal fight: is it genuinely the greatest film ever made, or the ultimate 'homework movie' whose reputation now works against anyone watching it fresh?

Its footprint

'Rosebud' is one of the most famous words in movie history, parodied everywhere from The Simpsons to Peanuts — and Kane's slow, defiant solo clap lives on as one of the internet's most-used reaction GIFs.

Where it stands

The default answer to 'greatest film of all time' for over half a century — less a movie than the benchmark other movies get measured against, until Vertigo finally dethroned it in the 2012 Sight & Sound poll.

★ Did you know? Welles was just 25, directing his first feature, and RKO gave him a near-unheard-of contract with final cut — yet the film won only one Oscar (Original Screenplay, shared with Herman J. Mankiewicz) and lost Best Picture to How Green Was My Valley.

Named by the director

Influences Orson Welles has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

Stagecoach (1939) — Welles said he screened Ford's Stagecoach dozens of times as his 'textbook' while preparing to direct Kane.
John Ford — Asked which directors he'd learned from, Welles famously answered 'the old masters — by which I mean John Ford, John Ford and John Ford.'