The Magnificent Ambersons

1942 Directed by Orson Welles

Real life screened more daringly than it’s ever been before!

The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.

Joseph Cotten Dolores Costello Anne Baxter Tim Holt Agnes Moorehead Ray Collins Erskine Sanford Richard Bennett Orson Welles Don Dillaway Georgia Backus Harry A. Bailey Olive Ball Jack Baxley William Blees

Alternative Title

위대한 앰버슨가

romance drama

88 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Rick Burin ★★★★★ 25

*SOME SPOILERS. ALSO, IF YOU AREN'T INTERESTED IN ORSON WELLES, YOU WILL FIND THIS BORING. EVEN IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN ORSON WELLES, YOU MAY FIND THIS BORING*
"Something had happened. A thing which years ago had been the eagerest hope of many, many good citizens of the town. And now it came at last: George Amberson Minafer had got his comeuppance. He got it three times filled and running over. But those who had so longed for it were not there to see it, they never knew it. Those who were still living had forgotten all about it and all about him."
But when George Orson Welles, the infuriating, profligate wunderkind of American cinema got his comeuppance - three…
Review by SilentDawn ★★★★★ 1

93/100
"Rosebud" in motion. Within its artificial snowflakes are the rampaging feelings of jealousy and the crumbling foundations of success, and in that sense, it's the film that is inseparably Orson Welles. The Magnificent Ambersons is flawed in a truly fascinating way, and while Welles' original cut could've been, as he claimed, better than Citizen Kane, we will never know. And yet, the tattered vision of The Magnificent Ambersons glows with unrestrained darkness and distinct beauty.
Above all, It proves that the soul of true art can be lessened, but never removed. Family is everything, even if demons roam the shadows.
Review by FernandoFCroce

"J'aime le souvenir de ces époques nues." (Baudelaire) There's no nostalgia like a modernist's nostalgia, Orson Welles on the "disappearing miasma" of Midwestern aristocracy is an ornate procession of engravings, half fondness and half dread. The whirlwind of changing fashions (a Cocteau joke given Keatonesque spark) launches the preamble, an introduction to 19th-century Indianapolis where a smashed bass viol scotches a serenade and halts a courtship. (Minnelli swiftly picks up on its musicality in Meet Me in St. Louis.) The poet turned inventor (Joseph Cotten) and the fragile doyenne (Dolores Costello), keeping them apart is the Oedipal grip of her son (Tim Holt)—willful scion, "princely terror," aspiring yachtsman. The aggrieved frenzies of the maiden aunt (Agnes Moorehead, sublimely pinched) and…
Review by Michael Strenski ★★★½ 1

"I wrote the script and directed it. My name is Orson Welles. This is a Mercury Production."
--the most heartbreaking line in the film.
Review by SilentDawn ★★★★★ 3

*Was a 93, now a 100*
"George Amberson-Minafer walked home through the strange streets of what seemed to be a strange city. For the town was growing... changing... it was heaving up in the middle, incredibly; it was spreading incredibly. And as it heaved and spread, it befouled itself and darkened its skies. This was the last walk home he was ever to take up National Avenue, to Amberson Edition, and the big old house at the foot of Amberson Boulevard. Tomorrow they were to move out. Tomorrow everything would be gone."
A nostalgia for the living. My favorite of Welles' films, which puts it right at the top of almost everything, really. Its cracks and fissures of space, structure (both familial and societal), and movement convey a deep-focus eruption of decay, one which observes like a ghost on its first day, curious and forever yearning.
Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★½ 1

84/100
Third viewing, last seen 1996. Tried to pretend this time that it's exactly the film Welles intended, rather than get sucked into a useless vortex of speculation. I failed miserably. And I'm not even convinced that it's wrong to mentally compensate for known studio interference. No living soul* knows how the original ending played, for example, but I'm inclined to just ignore the blatantly terrible scene with which Wise replaced it—to treat the fadeout following the comeuppance narration ("Those who were still living had forgotten all about it, and all about him") as The End. Frankly, I don't understand why Welles didn't end the film there in the first place—it couldn't possibly be more perfect. Though I suppose that…
Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★★ 1

The Magnificent Ambersons is an evaluation of a bygone era, together with being an impressive and creative analysis of a family circle. It's the second film produced and directed by Orson Welles and is an adaption from Booth Tarkington's 1918 novel which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, a distinction that the author obtained more than once, and populated with characters both unusual yet strangely authentic. A significant amount of the effectiveness of the film resides with the dialogue which the cast, especially Joseph Cotten and Dolores Costello, deliver impressively.
The screenplay investigating the dynamics of the family from the early twentieth century features occasional narration to give a few moments of explanation to set up who the characters are…
Review by Dragonknight 1

Film #8 of Project 40
”I wrote the script and I directed it. My name is Orson Welles.”
What happened to Orson Welles’ original version of The Magnificent Ambersons is one of the most disgraceful behind the scene stories of the entire history of cinema without a shadow of a doubt. RKO cut almost an hour of Welles’ version,destroyed the excised footage, replaced the original melancholic ending with Disney propaganda, heavily edited Bernard Herrmann’s score and even more shamefully ran this untouchable classic along with vulgar comedies as part of double bill programs. If you’re looking for a story of folly, ignorance and narrow-mindedness you’ll find it here. As a result of RKO’s annoying decision The Magnificent Ambersons has become…
Review by <Todd> ★★★★½ 2

"Why, I expect to lead an honorable life, I expect to contribute my fair share to charities, and take part in...well in movements" - George w/o a job,
- Orson Welles Ranked: boxd.it/3KWHC
- 5X5 Director's Challenge ( boxd.it/3IUJC ) Orson Welles (2/5)
The Ambersons could kick the shit out of the Kardashians.
Rich people are crazy. In The Magnificent Ambersons, a piece of shit rich boy gets in the way of his mom remarrying because he is a piece of shit rich boy... it's great. Orson Welles can direct the shit of actors and Anne Baxter is fucking great as Lucy Morgan. The star here though is Tim Holt as George, one of the most annoying persons who needs…
Review by Jake Cole ★★★★★ 2

Honestly, if only the original ending could have survived I think this would be untouchable even in its mangled, rushed-second-half form. The confluence of Welles' interests in radio, theatre and cinema makes this arguably more revealing of its maker's mindset than the touted (auto)biography of KANE.
Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★½

I find there to be a mild bemusement when thinking of Orson Welles expecting mass audiences to empathize with George Amberson Minafer
Review by Arthur Tuoto ★★★★★

Será que existe melhor exemplo do paradoxo essencial que rege a natureza industrial do cinema que esse filme? O paradigma da obra que é concebida pelos mesmos mecanismos que atentam contra a sua integridade. A evidência definitiva de que a maior ameaça ao cinema está nessa perversa apropriação... Ainda assim o monumento está ali, ou pelo menos algo próximo dele, e já é gigante. Esse Welles pós-Cidadão Kane novamente intui muito bem uma certa condição sobre a propriedade que se confunde com a identidade, que a corrompe em vários sentidos, anulando os traços humanistas básicos de um indivíduo. A relação da família com a cidade é quase sempre mediada pela posse, tem essa raiz opressora ainda mais forte na figura…

Recent reviews

Review by Francesco Colombo

Poor Orson. I'll not review this, because it's bad, but as long as the movie is reported as an Orson Welles' picture, which, in fact, is not (thanks to rko), I'll never vote it as low as it deserves. Poor Orson.
Review by Nicole Ewing ★★★

I don’t think I’d call them, magnificent..?
I think there’s a great movie hiding underneath, but the studio butchered Welles vision
Review by Ivan ★★★★

Little Georgie really did get his comeuppance :/
Review by JealousCactus ★★★★

I wish we lived in a world where the directors cut of this existed, but despite being butchered the movie is still fantastic.
Review by Fin Morris ★★★

It's well shot and directed. It's well acted, and the script they're reading from is eloquent and poetic.
I just feel nothing really watching this. I'd be interested to see the original cut, but... well.
Review by Oliver Hollander ★★★★½

This can't help but feel like Michelangelo's David with its head lopped off.
The daft ending that was quickly filmed and tacked on by RKO in Orson Welles' absence (he was having a grand old time in Brazil, fair play to him) is grotesque, stupid, and an affront to any serious film fan. Sadly, this studio interference is now probably the most well-known thing about the film.
Sad because the rest of it really is magnificent. Less energetic and show-offy than Citizen Kane, it can be seen in many ways to be a more mature work. The filmmaking is amazing when you pay attention to it, but its technical grandeur takes a back seat to the plot. The ensemble cast…
Review by Nashville Dude ★★★★★

Orson Welles Study: Entry #4
One thing I've learned from reading through Simon Callow's multi-part biography of Welles (I'm still early in the second volume), is that Welles absolutely self-sabotaged on the heels of Citizen Kane. I honestly think Callow goes easy on him, but even so, he's pretty clear-eyed in his depiction of a Welles desperate to shirk responsibility for completing his work (in this case, Ambersons) in lieu of fucking around in Rio during and after Carnival.
Weirdly, this makes me appreciate The Magnificent Ambersons that much more. That the surviving 88-minute cut is still such an idiosyncratic piece of work is testament to the peculiarity of Welles's construction, and to the editing acumen of Robert Wise. This…
Review by chr1sm1chael5 ★★★★

It's less of a film than I remember, more just a bundle of parts. You know the messiness that led to that, but trying to raise this to the heights of Kane is over stretching. Kane was a one off, Welles was never even close again. This is closer to the real filmmaker - too imperfect to be great.
Review by Daniel Zynda ★★★★★

Bei Citizen Kane denkt man immer zuerst an diese "Bester Film aller Zeiten" Sache, bei Welles zweitem Spielfilm, "The Magnificent Ambersons" (1942) daran, wie der Film von den Produzenten verstuemmelt wurde.
Natuerlich macht es traurig zu wissen das wir hier den Film nicht so sehen wie Welles ihn haben wollte. Ursprunglich war der Film gut eine Stunde laenger, das empfand selbst Welles als zuviel und empfahl gar leichte Kuerzungen. Etwa 20 minuten vielen 'raus. Dennoch kam der Film beim Testpublikum nicht an, Welles selbst war mittlerweile nicht mehr vor Ort, befand sich in Suedamerika fuer seinen "It's all true" (ein Film der erst Dekaden spaeter aufgefuehrt wurde), also hatte man freie Hand und kuerzte den Film um weitere 40 minuten…
Review by Benjamin Orr

This has one of the best end credits ever.
Review by Sam ★★★★

georgie is peak kenyon kid
Review by Cameron McMurdie ★★★★

This was obviously a movie with a lot of background issues that effected the film in different ways. For example, the editing was a bit all over the place.
That being said, it the same way as all Orson Welles movies, it was very well shot and acted, with immaculate camerawork and lighting. It may have it's problems, but I didn't mind that as much, because you can tell there is a really amazing film in there somewhere.