Movies: Orson Welles

The extraordinary life of Orson Welles (1915-85), an enigma of Hollywood, an irreducible independent creator: a musical prodigy, an excellent painter, a master of theater and radio, a modern Shakespeare, a magician who was always searching for a new ...

In French Equatorial Africa, an idealist campaigns to save the African elephant, gaining support from a nightclub hostess and an ex-soldier. His cause attracts a mix of characters, including a U.S. commentator, a government aide opposed to him, and a...

Hosted by Orson Welles, this documentary utilizes a grab bag of dramatized scenes, stock footage, TV news clips and interviews to ask: Did 16th century French astrologer and physician Nostradamus actually predict such events as the fall of King Louis...

Don Quixote, accompanied by Sancho Panza, wander the roads of Spain protecting the weak and doing good deeds in the name of his beloved Dulcinea. (Orson Welles' Don Quixote was filmed between 1957 and 1972, left unfinished at his death in 1985, and ...

A story of how World War II affected the lives of a German family and an American family, both of whom had sons and fathers fighting in the war....

Documentary about the battle between Orson Welles and William Randolph Hearst over Welles' Citizen Kane (1941). Features interviews with Welles' and Hearst's co-workers also acts as a relatively complete biograph of Hearst's career....

A celebration of the life and career of one of America's most influential and celebrated filmmakers and comedians—Buster Keaton—whose singular style and fertile output during the silent era created his legacy as a true cinematic visionary....

Two sets of identical twins are accidentally switched at birth. One pair, Phillipe and Pierre DeSisi, are aristocratic and haughty, while the other, Charles and Claude Coupé, are poor and dim-witted. On the eve of the French Revolution, both sets fin...

Witty narration follows the history of Versailles Palace; founded by Louis XIII, enlarged by autocratic Louis XIV, whose personal affairs and amours, and those of his two successors, are followed in more detail to the start of the Revolution, after w...

In 2001 Jack Cardiff (1914-2009) became the first director of photography in the history of the Academy Awards to win an Honorary Oscar. But the first time he clasped the famous statuette in his hand was a half-century earlier when his Technicolor ca...

In 1918, Elizabeth MacDonald learns that her husband, John Andrew, has been killed in the war. Elizabeth bears John's son and eventually marries her kindly boss. Unknown to her, John has survived but is horribly disfigured and remains in Europe. Year...

Four young women driving across the desert to Las Vegas have their road trip turned upside-down when they pick up a handsome, seemingly-friendly hitchhiker. When their car breaks down near a roadside motel in the middle of nowhere, they find themselv...

As his life comes to its end, famous Hollywood director Orson Welles puts it all on the line at the chance for renewed success with the film The Other Side of the Wind....

A family setting out for a new life across the sea is shipwrecked on a deserted island. The family members collaborate to create a home for themselves in the jungle environment....

Blake Pellarin is on the campaign trail to become president of the United States. While making a stop in St. Louis, a chance encounter brings his past back to haunt him....

Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself emperor and fights the English, Austrians and Russians in 1802....

After an unauthorized letter suggesting U.S. support for a Russian attack on China is sent to Moscow, a former naval officer and his team go undercover to retrieve it. Their plans are disrupted when a cunning politician raids their hideout....

Four short films by four different directors dealing with the principles of modern life....

A documentary about the life and films of director John Ford....

This film was not intended to stand by itself, but was designed as the cinematic aspect of Welles' Mercury Theatre stage presentation of William Gillette's 1894 comedy about a New York playboy who flees from the violent husband of his mistress and bo...