Erskine Sanford

In the most dazzling debut feature in cinema history, twenty-five-year-old writer-producer-director-star Orson Welles synthesized the possibilities of sound-era filmmaking into what could be called the first truly modern movie. In telling the story of the meteoric rise and precipitous fall of a William Randolph Hearst-like newspaper magnate named Charles Foster Kane, Welles not only created the definitive portrait of American megalomania, he also...

"Orson Welles's beautiful, nostalgia-suffused second feature--the subject of one of cinema's greatest missing-footage tragedies--harks back to turn-of-the-twentieth-century Indianapolis, chronicling the inexorable decline in the fortunes of an affluent family. Adapted from an acclaimed Booth Tarkington novel and featuring restlessly inventive camera work and powerful performances from a cast including Joseph Cotten, Tim Holt, and Agnes Moorehead,...

Eleventh century Scottish nobleman Macbeth is led by an evil prophecy and his ruthless yet desirable wife to the treasonous act that makes him king. But he does not enjoy his newfound, dearly-won kingship.

Citizen Kane: Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance. The battle over Citizen Kane: American experience documentary about the making of Citizen Kane and Orson Welles estate. RKO 281: Orson Welles produces his greatest film, Citizen Kane, despite the opposition of the film's de facto subject, William Randolph Hearst.