It’s Citizen Kane. What can I say? The thing is, a movie like Psycho was just as influential, but with its twists exposed, it’s tricks copied, and our understanding of mental illness progressed, much of it doesn’t stand up. It’s more interesting as a case study than as a film in its own right. Citizen Kane has the same legacy and influence, but still stands tall.

It’s no wonder Hearst hated this movie. It’s no petty, lazy hit piece. It’s an incisive critique of an American megalomania that Hearst was just one symptom of. It looks at Hearst and men like him as men: sad, lonely, empty men wanting something they can never give themselves or truly accept from others. Welles kills the role. The clapping scene has been oft parodied, and yet it’s lost none of its power. Welles tries to bend the room to his will with his will alone, defiant and petulant in equal measure. His violent meltdown is a scene that’s been followed by many like it, and it’s still enthralling. Even at his youngest and most charming, Welles never loses sight of that unsettling hollowness at Kane’s core. And the rest of the cast follow his lead.

The fade ins and outs are subtle and graceful. The lighting is breathtaking; the room darkening around Susan as she looks off into old memories was one moment that stood out. The set design is immaculate; Kane’s collection at the end feels like an eerie mirror of the city he tried to control from above. It’s sprawling and yet so sparse, so empty. The film breathes ambition and excels confidence, an assurance in what it’s trying to do. It’s a jigsaw puzzle that fits so perfectly, and it doesn’t matter if you already know what Rosebud is. As Thompson says, it’s just one piece of one man. But the whole picture is one you can’t miss.