Citizen Kane

 

A still of Citizen Kane [bfi.org.uk]

 Director: Orson Welles

Production Country: U.S.

Year: 1941

Kane and Vertigo don't top the chart by divine right. But those two films are just still the best at doing what great cinema ought to do: extending the everyday into the visionary.

In the last decade I've watched this first feature many times, and each time, it reveals new treasures. Clearly, no single film is the greatest ever made. But if there were one, for me Kane would now be the strongest contender, bar none.

All celluloid life is present in Citizen Kane; seeing it for the first or umpteenth time remains a revelation.