The best Orson Welles’s drama movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Orson Welles’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Orson Welles.
Citizen Kane
8.3/10
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.
King of Kings
7/10
Who is Jesus, and why does he impact all he meets? He is respected and reviled, emulated and accused, beloved, betrayed, and finally crucified. Yet that terrible fate would not be the end of the story.
A Man for All Seasons
7.7/10
A depiction of the conflict between King Henry VIII of England and his Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, who refuses to swear the Oath of Supremacy declaring Henry Supreme Head of the Church in England.
Moby Dick
7.3/10
In 1841, young Ishmael signs up for service abroad the Pequod, a whaler sailing out of New Bedford. The ship is under the command of Captain Ahab, a strict disciplinarian who exhorts his men to find Moby Dick, the great white whale. Ahab lost his his leg to that creature and is desperate for revenge. As the crew soon learns, he will stop at nothing to gain satisfaction.
Shogun
7.8/10
An English navigator becomes both pawn and player in the deadly political games in feudal Japan.
The Magnificent Ambersons
7.6/10
The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.
Chimes at Midnight
7.6/10
The culmination of Orson Welles’s lifelong obsession with Shakespeare’s robustly funny and ultimately tragic antihero, Sir John Falstaff; the often soused friend of King Henry IV’s wayward son Prince Hal. Integrating elements from both Henry IV plays as well as Richard II, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor.
The Trial
7.6/10
An unassuming office worker is arrested and stands trial, but he is never made aware of his charges.
Catch-22
7.1/10
A bombardier in World War II tries desperately to escape the insanity of the war. However, sometimes insanity is the only sane way to cope with a crazy situation.
Is Paris Burning?
6.8/10
Near the end of World War II, Gen. Dietrich von Choltitz receives orders to burn down Paris if it becomes clear the Allies are going to invade, or if he cannot maintain control of the city. After much contemplation Choltitz decides to ignore his orders, enraging the Germans and giving hope to various resistance factions that the city will be liberated. Choltitz, along with Swedish diplomat Raoul Nordling, helps a resistance leader organize his forces.
Jane Eyre
7.5/10
After a harsh childhood, orphan Jane Eyre is hired by Edward Rochester, the brooding lord of a mysterious manor house to care for his young daughter.
Macbeth
7.4/10
A Scottish warlord and his wife murder their way to a pair of crowns.
The Long, Hot Summer
7.3/10
Ben Quick arrives in Frenchman's Bend, MS after being kicked out of another town for allegedly burning a barn for revenge. Will Varner owns just about everything in Frenchman's Bend and he hires Ben to work in his store. Will thinks his own son, Jody, who manages the store, lacks ambition and despairs him getting his wife, Eula, pregnant. Will thinks his daughter, Clara, a schoolteacher, will never get married. He decides that Ben Quick might make a good husband for Clara to bring some new blood into the family.
Waterloo
7.3/10
After defeating France and imprisoning Napoleon on Elba, ending two decades of war, Europe is shocked to find Napoleon has escaped and has caused the French Army to defect from the King back to him. The best of the British generals, the Duke of Wellington, beat Napolean's best generals in Spain and Portugal, but now must beat Napoleon himself with an Anglo Allied army.
The Stranger
7.3/10
A man working for the War Crimes Commission suspects that an important Nazi official has folded himself into a quaint Connecticut town.
Duel in the Sun
6.7/10
Beautiful half-breed Pearl Chavez becomes the ward of her dead father's first love and finds herself torn between her sons, one good and the other bad.
The Lady from Shanghai
7.5/10
A romantic drifter gets caught between a corrupt tycoon and his voluptuous wife.
Othello
7.5/10
When a secret marriage is planned between Othello, a Moorish general, and Desdemona, the daughter of Senator Brabantio, her old suitor Roderigo takes it hard. He allies himself with Iago, who has his own grudge against Othello, and the two conspire to bring Othello down. When their first plan, to have him accused of witchcraft, fails, they plant evidence intended to make him believe Desdemona is unfaithful.
Compulsion
7.4/10
Two close friends kidnap and murder a young boy and are defended in court by a renowned attorney who makes an impassioned plea against capital punishment.
Journey into Fear
6.5/10
An American ballistics expert in Turkey finds himself targeted by Nazi agents. Safe passage home by ship is arranged for him, but he soon discovers that his pursuers are also on board.
