1. Citizen Kane - (1941, Orson Welles)
Call me a philistine but I found Citizen Kane disappointing. The first time I watched it I put the DVD in and expected my world to be changed by the time I took the disc out; I didn't have a strong reaction to the film, I didn't really understand or care what Rosebud was and I felt furious that I had parted with £14.99 for the 2-disc special edition. So how has it got to the #1 spot on my list? The answer is this. I don't have the audacity to question the film's status as a classic. When you ask someone to name a classic movies Citizen Kane is just one of those films no cinephile would neglect to mention. It is in many ways the quintessential classic. Thus the hardship it faced on its original release is so shocking, it just had to take the top spot. Welles found himself in a very undesirable war with powerful and unrelenting publisher William Randolph Hearst, who had discovered that the film had been based on him. Hearst then banned any mention or advertising of the film in his papers and reportedly even offered the film's distributor RKO Pictures $805,000 to destroy all copies of the film. Such was the influence of Hearst that the film bombed on its release, losing $160,000. Although it was able to garner some Academy Award nominations, every time the film's name was mentioned the crowd would boo; the fury of Hearst had Holywood terrified into following his will. For a long time Citizen Kane faded into obscurity. It was only in the 1950s after the death of Hearst that the film began to air on television and rapidly was re-evaluated as a classic.