---
title: 'Citizen Kane (1941)'
type: 'film'
director: 'Orson Welles'
released: '1941-01-01'
runtime_minutes: 119
certification: 'PG'
genres:
  - 'Drama'
  - 'History'
  - 'Mystery'
countries:
  - 'United States'
themes:
  - 'The Cost of Ambition'
  - 'Stairs and Levels'
  - 'Time Out of Order'
canonical: 'https://cinepixo.com/movies/citizen-kane-1941'
review_count: 0
imdb: 'https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033467/'
publisher: 'CinePixo'
---

# Citizen Kane (1941)

1941 · PG · 119 min · Drama, History, Mystery · United States


## Synopsis

Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film directed, produced by, and starring Orson Welles and co-written by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz, and was Welles's first feature film. The quasi-biographical film examines the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, a composite character based on American media barons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, and Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick, as well as aspects of the screenwriters' own lives.

## Credits

- **Director:** [Orson Welles](https://cinepixo.com/people/orson-welles)
- **Screenplay:** [Orson Welles](https://cinepixo.com/people/orson-welles), [John Houseman](https://cinepixo.com/people/john-houseman), [Herman J. Mankiewicz](https://cinepixo.com/people/herman-j-mankiewicz)
- **Producer:** [Orson Welles](https://cinepixo.com/people/orson-welles), [George Schaefer](https://cinepixo.com/people/george-schaefer-2)
- **Director of Photography:** [Gregg Toland](https://cinepixo.com/people/gregg-toland)
- **Original Music Composer:** [Bernard Herrmann](https://cinepixo.com/people/bernard-herrmann)
- **Editor:** [Robert Wise](https://cinepixo.com/people/robert-wise)

## Cast

- [Joseph Cotten](https://cinepixo.com/people/joseph-cotten) as Jedediah Leland
- [Erskine Sanford](https://cinepixo.com/people/erskine-sanford) as Herbert Carter
- [Charles Bennett](https://cinepixo.com/people/charles-bennett-2) as the entertainer
- [Orson Welles](https://cinepixo.com/people/orson-welles) as Charles Foster Kane
- [Paul Stewart](https://cinepixo.com/people/paul-stewart) as Raymond
- [Gus Schilling](https://cinepixo.com/people/gus-schilling) as John
- [William Alland](https://cinepixo.com/people/william-alland) as Jerry Thompson
- [Georgia Backus](https://cinepixo.com/people/georgia-backus) as Bertha Anderson
- [Sonny Bupp](https://cinepixo.com/people/sonny-bupp) as Charles Foster Kane III
- [Philip Van Zandt](https://cinepixo.com/people/philip-van-zandt) as Mr. Rawlston
- [Agnes Moorehead](https://cinepixo.com/people/agnes-moorehead) as Mary Kane
- [Harry Shannon](https://cinepixo.com/people/harry-shannon) as Jim Kane
- [Gregg Toland](https://cinepixo.com/people/gregg-toland) as an interviewer
- [Roland Winters](https://cinepixo.com/people/roland-winters)
- [Ruth Warrick](https://cinepixo.com/people/ruth-warrick) as Emily Monroe Norton Kane

## Themes & motifs

- [The Cost of Ambition](https://cinepixo.com/topics/the-cost-of-ambition) (theme) — The film opens with the man already dead and spends two hours asking what he traded for the empire; the answer is a word nobody in the room hears the meaning of.
- [Stairs and Levels](https://cinepixo.com/topics/stairs-and-levels) (motif) — Welles shoots Kane from below until the ceilings press down on him, then strands Susan at the foot of Xanadu's staircase: rank measured in where the camera has to stand.
- [Time Out of Order](https://cinepixo.com/topics/time-out-of-order) (motif) — The life arrives in fragments, ordered by whoever happens to be remembering it — the newsreel first, so the shape is known before the man is.

Editorial, not imported: every axis and every sentence above was written here.

## Criticism on CinePixo

No reviews published yet.

Official site: http://www2.warnerbros.com/citizenkane/
Source: https://cinepixo.com/movies/citizen-kane-1941
Film facts: Wikidata (Q24815); synopsis from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Reviews, themes and notes are the work of this site's members.