What is the best acting performance of Orson Welles?

From a 26-year-old reinventing cinema to a giant of European art film, Welles brought volcanic charisma to heroes, villains, and morally ambiguous titans across five decades. Where do you stand?

1

Charles Foster Kane (Citizen Kane)

The rise and fall of a media magnate obsessed with power and lost innocence in Citizen Kane (1941).

2

Harry Lime (The Third Man)

A charming, amoral black-market racketeer in post-war Vienna in The Third Man (1949).

3

Hank Quinlan (Touch of Evil)

A corrupt, imposing border-town police captain in Welles's own noir masterpiece Touch of Evil (1958).

4

Falstaff (Chimes at Midnight)

The jovial, larger-than-life knight that Welles considered his greatest performance in Chimes at Midnight (1965).

5

Gregory Arkadin (Mr. Arkadin)

A mysterious billionaire who hires a man to investigate his own forgotten past in Mr. Arkadin (1955).

6

Othello (Othello)

The noble Moorish general destroyed by jealousy in Welles's acclaimed Shakespeare adaptation Othello (1951).

7

Mr. Rochester (Jane Eyre)

The brooding, dark-secreted master of Thornfield Hall in the gothic romance Jane Eyre (1943).

8

Father Mapple (Moby Dick)

The passionate, fire-and-brimstone preacher delivering a legendary sermon in Moby Dick (1956).

9

Jonathan Wilk (Compulsion)

A brilliant, morally ambiguous defense attorney loosely based on Clarence Darrow in Compulsion (1959).

10

Will Varner (The Long Hot Summer)

A domineering Mississippi patriarch who sizes up a charismatic drifter in The Long Hot Summer (1958).

11

The Advocate (The Trial)

A looming, labyrinthine lawyer in Welles's surreal adaptation of Kafka's The Trial (1962).

12

General Dreedle (Catch-22)

A blunt, war-weary general in Mike Nichols's satirical anti-war epic Catch-22 (1970).

13

Unicron (Transformers: The Movie)

Welles's final completed role: the booming voice of the planet-devouring chaos god Unicron in Transformers: The Movie (1986).

14

Le Chiffre (Casino Royale 1967)

The villainous gambler in the satirical spy spoof Casino Royale (1967).