Coming from modest means, but made heir to an unexpected fortune, Orson Welles’ Charles Foster Kane (based loosely on real-life publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst) sets out to be a different type of American millionaire. At 25, he opens a newspaper, promising to adhere to a public statement of high-minded principles. As we chart the course of Kane’s life, though, we see the slow, inexorable influence of money and power on even the most well-intentioned man. He can have anything, and does—gathering a parade of sexual partners and sycophants along the way—but it’s never enough. Real friends, once trusted to tell him the truth, begin to feel like annoying hinderances to getting his way. There’s no grand comeuppance for Kane, just the quiet realization that none of it brought him any more happiness than a childhood toy. The slow decline from youthful idealism into cynicism and joyless accumulation plays as Shakespearean tragedy, minus the usual bloodletting.
Where to stream: HBO Max
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