“Citizen Kane” Is the Greatest Movie Ever Made—So Why Did I Fall Asleep?

First of all, you’re not alone. Falling asleep during Citizen Kane is practically a rite of passage for people who claim to “love film” but only got into it after Tarantino started name-dropping obscure spaghetti westerns. It’s the movie you’re supposed to appreciate, not necessarily enjoy. Which raises the obvious question: if it’s so great, why does it feel like homework?

Here’s the thing: Citizen Kane wasn’t designed to entertain you the way Star Wars or The Matrix does. It wasn’t made to be “great” in the sense that you’d want to watch it a dozen times. It’s great because it broke every rule of filmmaking when movies were still figuring out their rules in the first place. Orson Welles didn’t just make a movie—he detonated the medium.

But let’s back up. If you snoozed somewhere around Kane’s endless campaign speeches or the “Rosebud” flashbacks, you probably missed what makes this movie revolutionary. Before Citizen Kane, movies were mostly linear, visually flat, and narratively simplistic. Welles, a 25-year-old genius who was either too smart to care or too cocky to know better, decided to blow all that up.

Here’s what’s great about Citizen Kane:

1. The Storytelling
   Instead of a straightforward narrative, Citizen Kane gives you a jigsaw puzzle. The movie starts with the death of Charles Foster Kane—enigmatic newspaper tycoon, egomaniac, and maybe the loneliest man on Earth—and works backward. It’s not a biography; it’s an autopsy. You see Kane’s life through the fractured perspectives of people who knew him, loved him, or hated him. The truth about who he was is left deliberately ambiguous. This kind of fragmented storytelling wasn’t just rare in 1941—it was practically alien. Welles made audiences do the work, forcing them to piece together Kane’s life themselves.

2. The Visuals
   Citizen Kane looks like it was shot by someone who’d seen the future of cinema. Gregg Toland’s cinematography is legendary for a reason. Deep focus shots let everything in the frame stay in focus at once, giving scenes an eerie, hyper-real quality. Low-angle shots make Kane look like a literal giant in some scenes and a broken man in others. The camera moves in ways that still feel modern. It’s not just impressive; it’s beautiful. Watching it today, you can see the DNA of every director who’s ever been called “visionary.”

3. The Themes
   Kane’s story is an American tragedy. It’s about the emptiness of success, the way ambition corrodes relationships, and the delusion that you can buy happiness. If those ideas sound like clichés now, it’s because Citizen Kane said them first. Kane is a warning wrapped in a character study: here’s what happens when you have everything and end up with nothing.

4. The Rosebud Thing
   Yes, “Rosebud” is overhyped. But it’s not about the sled—it’s about what the sled represents. It’s the one uncorrupted memory Kane has, the symbol of the innocence he lost and could never regain. The genius of Welles isn’t just that he made this the movie’s final twist; it’s that he doesn’t let it explain everything. Rosebud isn’t the “key” to Kane—it’s just one part of a much larger, messier story.

So why did you fall asleep? Probably because Citizen Kane isn’t paced for modern audiences. It’s a slow burn, and its emotional weight isn’t handed to you on a platter. You’re supposed to sit with it, think about it, and argue with yourself about whether it’s as good as everyone says. It’s not an easy watch—it’s an important one.

The truth is, Citizen Kane isn’t “great” because it’s the most entertaining movie ever made. It’s great because it broke everything we thought we knew about movies and rebuilt it into something smarter, deeper, and endlessly influential. Every innovative film you love owes something to Citizen Kane. You don’t have to love it, but you probably should thank it. Or at least stay awake long enough to see why it matters.