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Orson Welles
Orson Welles (1915-1985), American actor, producer, director, and writer, most noted for directing and starring in the landmark motion picture Citizen Kane (1941). He was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rejecting college for world travel, Welles began his acting career in Ireland in 1931 and 1932. He toured the United States with the company of American actor Katharine Cornell, and he then acted and directed with the Federal Theatre Project. In 1937 he was a founder of the Mercury Theatre, which produced innovative stage and radio drama. His 1938 radio version of The War of the Worlds by English author H. G. Wells was so realistic that thousands believed an alien attack was actually occurring.
Welles's first completed motion picture, Citizen Kane, is often cited as one of the finest films ever made. Welles, then 25 years old, coscripted, starred in, and directed this psychological study of an American newspaper tycoon. His innovative expressionistic use of sound and camera techniques greatly influenced later filmmakers. The film was not commercially successful, however, and Welles spent most of the next two decades in Europe, acting and directing and continuing to experiment. He directed films that range from thrillers to television documentaries to works of English playwright William Shakespeare.
After Kane, Welles's greatest films (nearly all of which he both directed and acted in) were The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Stranger (1946), The Lady From Shanghai (1947), Macbeth (1948), Othello (finished in 1952 but not shown in the United States until 1955; reissued in 1992), A Touch Of Evil (1958), and Chimes at Midnight (1966). Other films he directed were Journey into Fear (1943), Mr. Arkadin (1955), The Trial (1963), The Immortal Story (1968; originally for French television), and the semidocumentary F Is for Fake (1974).
What members say |
Filmography
Orson Welles - what members say
review by from the Midlands, England.
A good film, but not the greatest of all time: 18 July 2004
review by A customer from GLASGOW
TOP MOVIE !!! 28 January 2006
review by from London
You've got the touch!! 7 June 2005
Orson Welles - filmography
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Someone to Love
(1987)
Starring: Orson Welles, Henry Jaglom, Andrea Marcovicci
Director: Henry Jaglom
Certificate: 
A Hollywood film director assembles a group of friends and strangers for a social gathering on Valentines Day in a deserted movie theatre where he interviews each one on their opinions on love and loneliness.
 
50%
from 2 members
Currently unavailable
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Transformers - The Movie - Blu-ray
(1986)
Starring: Orson Welles, Robert Stack, Leonard Nimoy
Director: Nelson Shin
Certificate: 
In the year 2005, the Autobots and the Decepticons are still locked in battle, but a deadly new force enters the fray--a giant killer planet known as Unicron (voiced by film legend Orson Welles). The heroic Autobots must fight for their own survival and to save their home planet from destruction. A ..read more »
55%
from 2,328 members
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Transformers - The Movie
on DVD
(1986)
Starring: Orson Welles, Robert Stack, Leonard Nimoy
Director: Nelson Shin
Certificate:
In this theatrically released chapter of the 1984-1987 syndicated animated series, the struggle between the heroic Autobots and evil Decepticons is taken twenty years into the future as both sides must deal with a world-devouring being called Unicron (voiced by Orson Welles). Set in 2005, The ..read more »
67%
from 3,228 members
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Genocide
on DVD
(1982)
Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Orson Welles
Director: Arnold Schwartzman
Certificate: 
Watch now: Included in all packages with LOVEFiLM Instant
Winner of the 1981 Oscar for best documentary, GENOCIDE combines historical narrative with actual stories of ordinary people, in illustrating the Nazi's reign of terror and the millions who fell victim to Hitler's Final Solution.
71%
from 81 members
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The Man Who Saw Tomorrow
(1981)
Starring: Orson Welles
Director: Robert Guenette
Certificate: 
Is it possible that a man who died over four hundred years ago could see through the mists of time and foretell the future? In the year 1555 a French prophet predicated that during the first half of the twentieth century a fanatical German dictator named ''Hister'' would set off a reign of terror ..read more »
60%
from 15 members
Currently unavailable
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F For Fake
on DVD
(1973)
Starring: Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Oja Kodar
Director: Orson Welles
Certificate: 
Watch now: Included in all packages with LOVEFiLM Instant
Four people stand at the centre of this documentary: Elmyr de Hory, who some believe forged more than a thousand masterpieces, many of which hang in some of the world's most famous museums; Clifford Irving, who is not only out to prove what a fake Elmyr is but also wrote a fake biography of Howard ..read more »
70%
from 677 members
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Malpertuis
(1972)
Starring: Orson Welles, Susan Hampshire, Michel Bouquet
Director: Harry Kumel
Certificate: 
Malpertuis is the name of an old, rambling mansion which is in reality a labyrinth where characters from Greek mythology are imprisoned by the bedridden Cassavius (Welles). He manages to keep them (as well as his nephew and niece) prisoners even after his death, through a binding testament. As Jan, ..read more »
70%
from 4 members
Currently unavailable
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Ten Days Wonder
(1971)
Starring: Anthony Perkins, Michel Piccoli, Marlène Jobert
Director: Claude Chabrol
Certificate:
Watch now: Included in all packages with LOVEFiLM Instant
Anthony Perkins, a young sculptor with a weird penchant for waking up in strange hotels with his memory wiped clean and bloodied hands, invites a former professor (Michel Piccoli) to the Gatsby-like provincial manor presided over by his powerful tycoon father (Orson Welles). Welcomed by Welles' ..read more »
62%
from 9 members
Currently unavailable
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Catch 22
on DVD
(1970)
Starring: Martin Balsam, Richard Benjamin, Anthony Perkins
Director: Mike Nichols
Certificate:
Director Mike Nichols and writer-actor Buck Henry followed their enormous hit The Graduate (1967) with this timely adaptation of Joseph Heller's satiric antiwar novel. Haunted by the death of a young gunner, all-too-sane Capt. Yossarian (Alan Arkin) wants out of the rest of his WW II bombing ..read more »
63%
from 3,342 members
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The Kremlin Letter
on DVD
(1970)
Starring: Bibi Anderson, Richard Boone, Nigel Green
Director: John Huston
Certificate:
When American agents in Moscow try to recover a stolen letter implicating America in an anti-Red China plot, they discover a hornet's nest of treason, double agents, murder, and betrayal. Directed by Hollywood maverick John Huston (THE MALTESE FALCON), The Kremlin Letter is an interesting ..read more »
54%
from 39 members
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The Immortal Story
(1968)
Starring: Orson Welles, Jeanne Moreau, Roger Coggio
Director: Orson Welles
Certificate:
The Portuguese colony of Macao in the 19th century. Mr. Clay is a very rich merchant and the subject of town gossip. He has spent many years in China and is now quite old. He likes his clerk Levinsky to read the company's accounts to him at night for relaxation. Tonight Mr. Clay recounts a true ..read more »
55%
from 2 members
Currently unavailable
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Blood and Guns
(1968)
Starring: Tomas Milian, Orson Welles, John Steiner
Director: Giulio Peroni
Certificate:
Watch now: Included in all packages with LOVEFiLM Instant
The Mexican guerilla leader Tepepa (Tomas Milian) and his gang fight against the chief of police, Cascorro (Orson Welles).
37%
from 9 members
Not available for rental
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A Man For All Seasons
on DVD
(1966)
Starring: Robert Shaw, Paul Scofield, Orson Welles
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Certificate:
Adapted by Robert Bolt and Constance Willis from Bolt's hit stage play, A Man for All Seasons stars Paul Scofield, triumphantly repeating his stage role as Sir Thomas More. The crux of the film is the staunchly Catholic More's refusal to acknowledge King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw)'s break from the ..read more »
73%
from 4,852 members
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Orson Welles - The Trial
on DVD
(1963)
Starring: Anthony Perkins, Jeanne Moreau, Orson Welles
Director: Orson Welles
Certificate:
Orson Welles, director of Citizen Kane & Touch of Evil, directs and appears in Kafta's classic tale of an ordinary man trying to make sense ot a world that is governed by bizarrely inexplicable rules and giant unyielding machines of power.
66%
from 478 members
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The Trial
on DVD
(1963)
Starring: Anthony Perkins, Jeanne Moreau, Elsa Martinelli
Director: Orson Welles
Certificate:
THE TRIAL is Orson Welles's claustrophobic adaptation of Franz Kafka's surreal tale of fear and paranoia in a nameless society. Tinged with background jazz, filmed in shadowy black and white--mostly with direct light--THE TRIAL looks like a classic film noir, with angled close-ups and characters ..read more »
69%
from 489 members
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Compulsion
on DVD
(1959)
Starring: Orson Welles, Diane Varsi, Dean Stockwell
Director: Richard Fleischer
Certificate: 
Compulsion is a compelling stylish thriller that sees two callous law students murder a young boy in cold blood to prove their intellectual superiority. Having been raised by wealthy, snobbish families, Artie Straus is a sadistic bully and Judd Steiner (Dean Stockwell) a timid introvert. The two ..read more »
68%
from 135 members
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Ferry To Hong Kong
on DVD
(1959)
Starring: Curt Jurgens, Orson Welles, Sylvia Syms
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Certificate:
FERRY TO HONG KONG stars Curt Jurgens as Mark Conrad, an Austrian exile and Orson Welles as blustery ferry-boat captain Cecil Hart. Banned from both Hong Kong and Macao, Conrad is forced to spend his life on Hart's ferry, shuttling endlessly between the two countries and irritating everyone with ..read more »
62%
from 13 members
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Touch Of Evil
on DVD
(1958)
Starring: Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles
Director: Orson Welles
Certificate:
Welles plays the racist Captain Hank Quinlan, a grotesque, troubled, and powerful figure who runs his small U.S. border town according to his own version of the law. Quinlan's brutishness and vulgarity contrast starkly with the idealism and playboy good looks of Charlton Heston as Mike Vargas, a ..read more »
71%
from 6,104 members
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Touch Of Evil - Blu-ray
(1958)
Starring: Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles
Director: Orson Welles
Certificate:
Orson Welles's TOUCH OF EVIL is nothing short of a masterpiece. Beginning with a three-minute-plus tracking crane shot, the film explodes onto the screen, literally--the marvelously expressive opening shot ends with a car blowing up, and that detonation sets into motion a classic noir tale of ..read more »
85%
from 2 members
Not available for rental
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Moby Dick
on DVD
(1956)
Starring: Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, Orson Welles
Director: John Huston
Certificate:
Watch now: Included in all packages with LOVEFiLM Instant
The sole survivor of a lost whaling ship relates the tale of his captain's self-destructive obsession to hunt the white whale, Moby Dick.
67%
from 732 members
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Mr. Arkadin
on DVD
(1955)
Starring: Robert Arden, Paola Mori, Michael Redgrave
Director: Orson Welles
Certificate:
A dying man's final words send two people to Gregory Arkadin (Orson Welles), a mysterious and much-feared billionaire who lives on a Xanadu-like castle. In Welles's noirish MR. ARKADIN, Robert Arden stars as Guy Van Stratten, an adventurer and fortune hunter who is interested in Arkadin's money--..read more »
56%
from 613 members
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Orson Welles' Othello
(1952)
Starring: Orson Welles, Suzanne Cloutier, Michael MacLiammoir
Director: Orson Welles
Certificate:
Anyone interested in making a low-budget movie ought to see Orson Welles' screen adaptation of William Shakespeare's Othello, a striking example of how much can be achieved with very little money. For years, stories about this singularly troubled movie circulated more widely than the film itself; ..read more »
64%
from 482 members
Not currently released
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Trent's Last Case
on DVD
(1952)
Starring: Margaret Lockwood, Orson Welles, Michael Wilding
Director: Herbert Wilcox
Certificate:
Based on the famous novel by E.C. Bentley, Michael Wilding stars as journalist Philip Trent, who is convinced that the death of Sigsbee Manderson (Orson Welles) was really murder. Manderson's wife (Lockwood) and his secretary John Marlowe (John McCallum) are under suspicion but there's a twist in ..read more »
59%
from 152 members
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The Third Man - Blu-ray
(1949)
Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Trevor Howard
Director: Carol Reed
Certificate:
Watch now: Included in all packages with LOVEFiLM Instant
This classic noir mystery, from the team of Carol Reed and Graham Greene, is generally considered to be the best filmwork of both of these estimable talents. THE THIRD MAN features Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins, a pulp novelist who has come to post-WWII Vienna with the promise of work from his ..read more »
78%
from 352 members
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The Third Man
on DVD
(1949)
Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Trevor Howard
Director: Carol Reed
Certificate:
Watch now: Included in all packages with LOVEFiLM Instant
This classic noir mystery, from the team of Carol Reed and Graham Greene, is generally considered to be the best filmwork of both of these estimable talents. THE THIRD MAN features Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins, a pulp novelist who has come to post-WWII Vienna with the promise of work from his ..read more »
75%
from 20,875 members
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The Lady From Shanghai
on DVD
(1948)
Starring: Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Everett Sloane
Director: Orson Welles
Certificate:
The Lady From Shanghai, a complex, involving puzzle-within-a-puzzle mystery story, is a showcase for Orson Welles, showing his singular talents and sensibilities as few other films have. The story is superficially simple: a seaman Michael O'Hara (Welles) is hired as a crew member on the yacht of ..read more »
69%
from 1,637 member
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Orson Welles' Macbeth
on DVD
(1948)
Starring: Orson Welles, Jeanette Nolan, Dan O'Herlihy
Director: Orson Welles
Certificate:
A dark, moody screen version of the classic tragedy about a presumptuous Scottish prince's quest for power through patricide--in keeping with both the play's spirit and Welles' vision. As with his other masterpieces, Welles effectively mixes the use of shadow and oblique camera angles to achieve ..read more »
62%
from 631 members
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Orson Welles Collection
(5 discs)
on DVD
(1946)
Starring: Orson Welles
Director: Orson Welles
Certificate:
Features THE STRANGER, directed and starring Welles; THE TRIAL, Welles' adaptation of the Kafka classic; the mad-for-TV production KING LEAR; the Italian epic DAVID AND GOLIATH, and the features THE HERB SHRINER SHOW, HOLLYWOOD REMEMBERS ORSON WELLES and HOLLYWOOD COUPLES - ORSON WELLES AND RITA ..read more »
62%
from 203 members
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The Stranger
on DVD
(1946)
Starring: Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young
Director: Orson Welles
Certificate:
Watch now: Included in all packages with LOVEFiLM Instant
Orson Welles directed and stars in THE STRANGER, a tense black-and-white thriller that Welles made for maverick producer Sam Speagle. Welles portrays Charles Rankin, a respected academic at a prominent Connecticut college. He seems to have the perfect life: a beautiful new wife, Mary (Loretta Young)..read more »
69%
from 226 members
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Orson Welles - The Stranger
on DVD
(1946)
Starring: Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young
Director: Orson Welles
Certificate:
Orson Welles directed and stars in THE STRANGER, a tense black-and-white thriller that Welles made for maverick producer Sam Speagle. Welles portrays Charles Rankin, a respected academic at a prominent Connecticut college. He seems to have the perfect life: a beautiful new wife, Mary (Loretta Young)..read more »
62%
from 434 members
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Follow The Boys
on DVD
(1944)
Starring: George Raft, Vera Zorina, Grace McDonald
Director: A. Edward Sutherland
Certificate:
A screen star organises all-star USO shows for the troops after being turned down himself for active duty. Features musical acts and guest stars galore, including Orson Welles, Dinah Shore, Marlene Dietrich, Donald O'Connor and many, many more.
53%
from 35 members
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The Magnificent Ambersons
on DVD
(1942)
Starring: Joseph Cotten, Delores Costello, Anne Baxter
Director: Orson Welles
Certificate:
The sweeping saga of a prominent wealthy family's attempt to adapt to the changing times at the close of a decadent age. Though mutilated by studio executives before studio release, this film remains a masterpiece of directorial artistry, as Welles refined the techniques of shadow, quick-cutting, ..read more »
71%
from 1,284 member
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Citizen Kane
on DVD
(1941)
Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead
Director: Orson Welles
Certificate:
CITIZEN KANE is Orson Welles's greatest achievement--and a landmark of cinema history. The story charts the rise and fall of a newspaper publisher whose wealth and power ultimately isolates him in his castlelike refuge. The film's protagonist, Charles Foster Kane, was based on a composite of Howard ..read more »
71%
from 25,501 members
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The Last Sailors
on DVD
Starring: Orson Welles
Certificate:
Orson Welles narrates this story of the men from all corners of the world who, with their ancient craft, still harness the wind and the sea for their livelihood.
54%
from 25 members
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Orson Welles facts
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...ere first big screen appearance, there isn't a weak link to be seen. But it is Orson Welles who steals the show as Charles Foster Kane, he commands your attention whenever...
