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?

Charles Foster Kane (Citizen Kane)

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

1/14

Harry Lime (The Third Man)

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

2/14

Hank Quinlan (Touch of Evil)

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

3/14

Falstaff (Chimes at Midnight)

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

4/14

Gregory Arkadin (Mr. Arkadin)

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

5/14

Othello (Othello)

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

6/14

Mr. Rochester (Jane Eyre)

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

7/14

Father Mapple (Moby Dick)

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

8/14

Jonathan Wilk (Compulsion)

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

9/14

Will Varner (The Long Hot Summer)

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

10/14

The Advocate (The Trial)

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

11/14

General Dreedle (Catch-22)

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

12/14

Unicron (Transformers: The Movie)

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

13/14

Le Chiffre (Casino Royale 1967)

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

14/14