Citizen Kane

1941 American drama film directed by Orson Welles

Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama movie starring Orson Welles in his first full-length movie. There are rumors that its story is based on the life of the famous businessmen William Randolph Hearst, Howard Hughes, and Samuel Insull. Welles said that his character, Kane, was based on more than one famous person. In F for Fake (1974), he said that Kane was going to be based on Hughes but that Welles became inspired by Hearst.

Citizen Kane
Original 1941 logo
Directed byOrson Welles
Written byOrson Welles
Herman J. Mankiewicz
Produced byOrson Welles
Richard Baer (associate - uncredited)
StarringOrson Welles
Joseph Cotten
Ruth Warrick
Everett Sloane
George Coulouris
Ray Collins
Agnes Moorehead
Production
companies
Distributed byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer (theatrical)
Paramount Pictures (1991 re-release)
Warner Bros. (DVD)
Release date
May 1, 1941
Running time
119
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$686,033 (estimated)

Welles worked closely with his cinematographer, Gregg Toland, who was in charge of the camera and the lights. Together, they worked on a new style, "deep focus." Usually, if something close to the camera is in focus, everything that is far away is out of focus. In deep focus, every object is in focus at the same time.

Its working title, before the movie was finished, was RKO 281.

Many have called Citizen Kane the best movie of all time. In 1998, it was number one on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Years... 100 Movies.

It is in some ways is like The Power and the Glory (1933).

The last living crew member was director Robert Wise. Also known for making The Sound of Music (1965), he died on September 14, 2005.

Other websites change