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In May 1941, it premiered in a New York cinema and was a box-office bomb. Now, 85 years later, Citizen Kane<\/em> is considered by many to be the greatest film ever made.<\/p>\n The film was a flop \u2013 at least at first \u2013 so what is it about this work of cinema history that makes it so acclaimed?<\/p>\n In 1952, the team behind Sight and Sound magazine, published by the British Film Institute, had the idea of asking critics to name the \u201cGreatest Films of All Time\u201d. This tradition has been repeated every 10 years since.<\/p>\nThe black-and-white film by Hollywood\u2019s wonder boy Orson Welles<\/span> \u2013 who was 25 at the time \u2013 tells the story of fictional media mogul Charles Foster Kane, in whom contemporaries believed they could easily recognise media mogul William Hearst (1863-1951).<\/div>\nIn 1962, 1972, 1982, 1992 and 2002, Citizen Kane<\/em> topped that prestigious list. In the most recent list, from 2022, Citizen Kane<\/em> ranked third, behind Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s Vertigo<\/em><\/span> (1958) in second place \u2013 meaning Citizen Kane<\/em> is no longer the best film of all time.<\/div>\nIn a likely surprise to most, first place was given to Chantal Akerman\u2019s feminist work Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles<\/em> (1975). Meanwhile, Citizen Kane<\/em> is ranked 113th on IMDb\u2019s list of the top 250 films, while the uplifting prison story The Shawshank Redemption<\/em><\/span> (1994) is first.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n