In May 1941, it premiered in a New York cinema and was a box-office bomb. Now, 85 years later, Citizen Kane is considered by many to be the greatest film ever made.

The black-and-white film by Hollywood’s wonder boy Orson Welles – who was 25 at the time – tells the story of fictional media mogul Charles Foster Kane, in whom contemporaries believed they could easily recognise media mogul William Hearst (1863-1951).

The film was a flop – at least at first – so what is it about this work of cinema history that makes it so acclaimed?

In 1952, the team behind Sight and Sound magazine, published by the British Film Institute, had the idea of asking critics to name the “Greatest Films of All Time”. This tradition has been repeated every 10 years since.

In 1962, 1972, 1982, 1992 and 2002, Citizen Kane topped that prestigious list. In the most recent list, from 2022, Citizen Kane ranked third, behind Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) in second place – meaning Citizen Kane is no longer the best film of all time.

In a likely surprise to most, first place was given to Chantal Akerman’s feminist work Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). Meanwhile, Citizen Kane is ranked 113th on IMDb’s list of the top 250 films, while the uplifting prison story The Shawshank Redemption (1994) is first.