1941 Box Office Flop Banned by a Tycoon Became the Greatest Film of All Time
It happens. Stellar cinema can bomb at the box office. From The Shawshank Redemption and Mulholland Drive, to The Fabelmans andFight Club, some movies take a hot second to find their audiences. For Citizen Kane, however, the underwhelming box office was the result of causes far beyond audience indifference.
According to IndieWire, the Orson Welles-directed masterpiece drew the ire of the powerful media tycoon the film was about.
A psychological drama recounting the life and death of a man named Charles Foster Kane, the film is an unauthorized cinematic portrait of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Over the course of an hour and 59 minutes, the film unapologetically explores the ego, power, and loneliness of the mogul, with Welles in the leading role.
"Upon its release, Citizen Kane was an immediate critical success, with reviewers praising Orson Welles' inventive direction, his acerbic screenplay with Herman J. Mankiewicz, and the incredible performances of the ensemble cast," IndieWire writes. "During its theatrical run, however, the film struggled, almost entirely because of the interference of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst."
When Hearst got wind of the "boy genius" shredding his reputation on the big screen, he did everything he could to shut the film down, even going so far as to sabotage the film's theatrical run by bribing theater chains to forgo playing it.
"As a result, the movie lost around $160,000," IndieWire shares. "But Hearst couldn't keep the film down forever, and Citizen Kane is now frequently ranked as the single best movie ever made."
Hollywood executives rallied around Hearst in an attempt to gain rights over the film and burn the negative. Efforts also included smearing the film in his newspapers and launching FBI investigations. And at the time, it worked, PBS reports. It would take a quarter century for Citizen Kane to be revived.
"Hearst and Welles were proud, gifted, and destructive - geniuses each in his way," producer Thomas Lennon tells the outlet. "The fight that ruined them both was thoroughly in character with how they'd lived their lives."
Eight and a half decades later, Citizen Kane remains at the top of AFI's 100 Years … 100 Movies. Now, there are best-movie lists, and there is the American Film Institute's list. Think of it like the Supreme Court of all things moving image. The organization's authority, legacy, and near-universal recognition trumps everything else.
Turns out, you simply can't cancel a masterpiece.
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This story was originally published April 25, 2026 at 3:40 PM.