Film snobs like to say that this, the second feature from Orson Welles, is even better than Citizen Kane. That's a stretch, but it's certainly exquisitely beautiful film-making - there are frames in there to die for.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 13, 2019

Even in this truncated form it's amazing and memorable.

| Jan 5, 2015

Ambersons is not another Citizen Kane, but it is good enough to remove Director Welles for keeps from the novice or one-picture-prodigy class.

| Mar 12, 2013

Although reams have been written about the mutilation of Orson Welles' second feature, what remains of it is nevertheless a major accomplishment.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 30, 2012

While telling this story, haltingly and clumsily, the movie runs from burdensome through heavy and dull to bad. It stutters and stumbles as Welles submerges Tarkington's story in a mess of radio and stage technique.

| Aug 30, 2012

Orson Welles devotes 9,000 feet of film to a spoiled brat who grows up as a spoiled, spiteful young man. This film hasn't a single moment of contrast; it piles on and on a tale of woe, but without once striking at least a true chord of sentimentality.

| Jul 6, 2010

The emotional sense of America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is so palpable you can taste it.

| Apr 6, 2007

A masterpiece in every way (but ignore the awkward ending the studio tacked on without Welles's approval).

| Apr 6, 2007

This is Orson Welles' lost movie, one he might have been able to rescue, had he been less brash -- and a film he and others believed to be superior to Citizen Kane.

| Apr 6, 2007

All in all, The Magnificent Ambersons is an exceptionally well-made film, dealing with a subject scarcely worth the attention which has been lavished upon it.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 8, 2006

Hacked about by a confused RKO, Welles' second film (from the novel by Booth Tarkington) still looks a masterpiece.

| Feb 9, 2006

I must say that I much prefer it to Citizen Kane (1941). So sue me.

| Feb 26, 2004

A pretty sensational movie.

Full Review | Feb 18, 2004

Welles' technical brilliance shines through, securing the film its classic status.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 5, 2002