The Most Important Film Ever Made? Examining the Claim

For decades, Citizen Kane (1941) held the top spot on virtually every credible poll of the greatest films ever made. In recent years, other titles have claimed that crown in certain lists — but the conversation still begins, inevitably, with Orson Welles' debut feature. The question worth asking in the 2020s is not whether it deserves its reputation, but why it still matters to audiences and filmmakers today.

What Orson Welles Actually Did

When Welles arrived in Hollywood at 25 years old, he was given an almost unprecedented level of creative control — the result of RKO Pictures misjudging how much trouble a young radio wunderkind could cause. What Welles did with that freedom was systematically break and rebuild the visual language of cinema.

Working with cinematographer Gregg Toland, Welles deployed techniques that were either entirely new or used in radical new combinations:

  • Deep focus photography: Every plane of the frame, from foreground to background, was in sharp focus simultaneously, transforming what the eye notices within a single shot.
  • Low-angle shots: Ceilings became part of the composition — something almost no film had done before, because it required building fully-roofed sets.
  • Non-linear narrative: The story of Charles Foster Kane is told through flashbacks, contradictory testimonies, and shifting perspectives — a structure that feels bold even now.
  • Overlapping dialogue: Welles brought his radio background to film, allowing conversations to feel naturalistic rather than theatrically staged.

The Story and Its Themes

Beneath the technical fireworks lies a genuinely compelling story. Citizen Kane traces the rise and fall of a media magnate — widely understood to be inspired by William Randolph Hearst — through the eyes of a reporter investigating the meaning of his dying word: "Rosebud."

The film is ultimately about the corruption that accompanies unchecked power, the impossibility of retrieving lost innocence, and the way great men construct myths around themselves that obscure their fundamental emptiness. These themes have not aged a day.

Why Young Filmmakers Still Study It

Film schools around the world use Citizen Kane as a foundational text not because it is the most entertaining film ever made — it isn't, necessarily — but because it demonstrates that cinema is a language, not a window. Every choice Welles made was deliberate and meaningful. The way a shot is framed, how light falls, where characters are positioned within the frame — all of it communicates something.

Directors from Steven Spielberg to Alfonso Cuarón to Paul Thomas Anderson have cited Kane as a formative influence. Its DNA is visible in everything from There Will Be Blood to The Social Network.

How to Watch It Today

If you've never seen Citizen Kane, approach it not as an obligation but as a puzzle. Resist the urge to look for spectacle. Instead, notice how Welles uses the camera, pay attention to transitions, and listen to the score by Bernard Herrmann — among the finest ever composed for film. Watch it twice if you can. The second viewing rewards in ways the first cannot.

Citizen Kane is not a museum piece. It is a living, breathing argument for what cinema can do when a filmmaker is given the freedom — and the audacity — to try something genuinely new.