Citizen Kane  

I have seen it.. It's director Orson Welles is regarded as genuise and you have to watch "Making of Citizen Kane" - a film by itself.

In 1998, voted #1 film of all time by the American Film Institute.

Was voted the 2nd Greatest film of all time by Entertainment weekly.

Voted #6 in Total Film's 100 Greatest Movies Of All Time list (November 2005).

Despite all the publicity, the film was a box office flop and was quickly consigned to the RKO vaults.At 1941's Academy Awards the film was booed every time one of its nine nominations was announced. It was only re-released for the public in the mid-1950s.

There are films that are great to watch themselves but only a few extend beyond themselves to influence other film makers as well. It has influenced an entire generation of film makers who started making films in the 1960s till date.

Its lead character - Charles Foster Kane - was based upon the real life media baron of those days - William Randolph Hearst. He tried in vain to stop the making of this film and went even to the extent of burning the reels of this film to prevent its release. It somehow escaped all this and saw the light of the day. I find myself awestruck each time I think about the fact that, this film was an effort of a 25 year old first time film maker who doubled up as the lead character as well. The great makeup effects they achieved in such a small film in those days to portray him as an old man is unbelievable.

The cinematography techniques introduced in this film are being used till date and the non-linear narrative introduced in this film was brought back into limelight by Quentin Tarantino is very much in vogue today courtesy the new generation film makers like Christopher Nolan and Alejandro González Iñárritu.

A true classic is one that survives over a period of time and this movie has survived all these decades despite its commercial failure, lack of big name actors. When you put all of the above together it truely deserves its No:1 ranking in AFI Top 100 list for its sheer influence over decades of film making to this date.