Orson Welles' film Citizen Kane has been consistently ranked as one of the best films ever made. A masterpiece of technique and storytelling, the film helped to change Hollywood film-making and still exerts considerable influence today. However, at the time of its premiere in 1941, it was a commercial failure that spelled disaster for Welles' Hollywood career.

Citizen Kane tells the story of millionaire press magnate Charles Foster Kane (played by Welles). The film opens with Kane on his death bed in his magnificent Florida castle, Xanadu, murmuring the word "Rosebud." A newsreel reporter (William Alland) searches for clues to the meaning of the word and to the meaning of Kane himself. Interviewing many people intimately connected with Kane, the reporter learns that the millionaire was not so much a public-minded statesman as he was a tyrannical, lonely man. The reporter never learns the secret of Kane's...