Director: Orson Welles

Cast: Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead, Ruth Warrick, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford

Country: U.S.
Year: 1941
Running Time: 119 min
Format: 35mm

Since its release in 1941, Citizen Kane has drawn superlatives from every corner. Nominated for nine Oscars, it tops the AFI list of 100 Greatest American Movies, and is regularly hailed as the greatest film ever made. For sixty years, every aspect of the film has been studied and praised. Scores of books have been written, and Spielberg paid a huge sum for the prop sled. The filmmaker was 25 year old Orson Welles and this was his first movie.

A fictionalized account of the life of William Randolph Hearst, Citizen Kane describes the unstoppable quest for power of a quintessential American businessman. Kane built an unprecedented media empire that he delighted in using any way he wanted. He was driven by childhood ghosts and a passion for people and stories. He liked upending whatever apple cart happened to be in front of him, and he liked building things that were bigger and better than anything else. That same messianic energy eventually destroyed his empire, and drove away his wife, his mistress, and all his associates. Finally, he is left alone in his magnificent mansion to utter that one word.

The original nitrate negatives of Citizen Kane no longer exist.

--Jed Dietz

Robert Novak writes "Inside Report," one of the longest running syndicated columns in the nation, which he started with the late Roland Evans. It runs in 150 newspapers. He is a commentator for CNN where he appears on and is co-executive producer of Capital Gang. He is one of the new hosts of Crossfire. He has written five books of political commentary and is the 2001 winner of the National Press Club's award for lifetime achievement in journalism.