Citizen Kane

AFI Ranking: 1st
Release Year: 1941

Citizen Kane is often considered the greatest film of all time.  Of course, because of this, there is much debate on whether or not it should hold this title. 

JP and I watched it with his family when we were at Hilton Head.  JP and I both felt as far as the plot goes it was somewhat anticlimatic at the end and overall somewhat boring. However, as I've read about it, I've discovered that apparently the film did a lot for the film industry.  It's flashbacks, its uses of symbolism, its camera moves, its cuts, its deep focus, its structure, its sets, its sound track are a vitrual catalogue of superb examples of what you can do in a film.  Everything that matters in cinema since 1940 has been influenced by Kane.(source)

At least now we know the significance of the word Rosebud.  I always wondered where the people who made SimCity got that word as a secret secret passcode.