Citizen Kane (1941)

Orson Welles' groundbreaking 1941 masterpiece, *Citizen Kane*, delves into the complex life and legacy of its titular character. As detailed, newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event. The film, told largely through a series of fragmented flashbacks and recollections, attempts to piece together the identity of this enigmatic figure, exploring his rise to power, his ambitions, his loves, and his ultimate isolation. Despite its towering reputation as a character study and cinematic innovation, *Citizen Kane* is fundamentally structured as a profound mystery, earning its place on any "Best Mystery Movies" list. The film opens with Kane's death, his final, enigmatic utterance being a single word: "Rosebud." A newsreel editor, intrigued by this dying whisper, dispatches a reporter, Jerry Thompson, to uncover its meaning, believing it holds the key to understanding the colossal, contradictory figure that was Charles Foster Kane. Thompson's subsequent investigation, piecing together interviews with Kane's former associates, friends, and estranged wife, serves as the film's narrative backbone, a quest for a truth that is constantly elusive and shaped by individual memory and perspective. The film expertly builds suspense not around a conventional "whodunit," but a "what-was-it" and "who-was-he," drawing the audience into the reporter's attempt to decipher the man behind the myth, culminating in a silent, poignant revelation that redefines the very nature of a cinematic mystery.