'Citizen Kane' is a 1941 American drama film by Orson Welles, its producer, co-screenwriter, director and star. The picture was Welles's first feature film. Nominated for Academy Awards in nine categories, it won an Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Welles. Considered by many critics, filmmakers, and fans to be the greatest film ever made, 'Citizen Kane' was voted as such in five consecutive British Film Institute Sight & Sound polls of critics, and it topped the American Film Institute's 100 Years .. 100 Movies list in 1998, as well as its 2007 update. 'Citizen Kane' is particularly praised for Gregg Toland's cinematography, Robert Wise's editing, Bernard Herrmann's music, and its narrative structure, all of which have been considered innovative and precedent-setting.

The quasi-biographical film examines the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, a character based in part upon the American newspaper magnates William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick, and aspects of the screenwriters' own lives. Upon its release, Hearst prohibited mention of the film in any of his newspapers.

While a critical success, 'Citizen Kane' failed to recoup its costs at the box office. The film faded from view after its release, but was subsequently returned to the public's attention when it was praised by such critics as André Bazin and given an American revival in 1956.

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