The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
89%RT Audience Score: 84%
Awards & Nominations: Nominated for 4 Oscars
4 wins & 4 nominations total
Assembled with bold visual craft and penetrating insight, The Magnificent Ambersons further establishes writer-director Orson Welles as a generational talent
The Magnificent Ambersons is like a time machine that takes you back to turn-of-the-century Indianapolis, but with less awkward small talk and more drama. Orson Welles’ direction and Albert S. D’Agostino’s set designs are so impressive that you can practically taste the emotional sense of America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sure, some critics might say it’s not as good as Citizen Kane, but let’s be real, it’s still pretty magnificent.
Production Company(ies)
Walter Shenson Films, Proscenium Films,
Distributor
RKO Radio Pictures, Criterion Collection
Release Type
Filming Location(s)
Ice & Cold Storage Company – 400 S. Central Avenue, Los Angeles, California, USA
MPAA / Certificate
Not Rated
Year of Release
1942
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Color:Color
Black and White -
Sound mix:Dolby
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Aspect ratio:1.37 : 1
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Runtime:1h 28m
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Language(s):English
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Country of origin:United States
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Release date:Release Date (Theaters): Jul 10, 1942 Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Sep 13, 2011
Genre(s)
Drama
Keyword(s)
starring Joseph Cotten, Tim Holt, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Agnes Moorehead, Richard Bennett, directed by Orson Welles, written by Orson Welles, drama, box office performance, budget, reviewed by Kevin Maher, Pauline Kael, Kevin Thomas, Manny Farber, André Bazin, Nicholas Bell, MPAA rating, RKO Radio Pictures, Criterion Collection, Indianapolis, family, love, tragedy, spoiled heir, turn-of-the-century, automobile, generational talent, Citizen Kane, Albert S D’Agostino, set designs, heart-rending stories, comeuppance, tragedy, remembrance, doomed romance, forgiveness, closure
Worldwide gross: NA
Worldwide gross (inflation-adjusted): NA
Worldwide gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
Worldwide tickets sold (est.): NA
US/Canada gross: NA
US/Canada gross (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada opening weekend:
US/Canada opening weekend (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada opening weekend ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
Budget and Earnings Details
Production budget (est.): NA
Production budget (inflation-adjusted): NA
Production budget ranking: NA
Marketing and distribution budget (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
Box office net earnings to date (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
ROI to date (est.): NA
ROI ranking: NA
Tim Holt – George
Dolores Costello – Isabel
Anne Baxter – Lucy
Agnes Moorehead – Fanny
Richard Bennett – Maj. Amberson
Orson Welles – Director, Producer, Writer
Director(s)
Orson Welles
Writer(s)
Orson Welles
Producer(s)
Orson Welles
Film Festivals
Awards & Nominations
Nominated for 4 Oscars
4 wins & 4 nominations total
Academy Awards
All Critics (45) | Top Critics (15) | Fresh (40) | Rotten (5)
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.
December 13, 2019 | Rating: 5/5
Kevin Maher
Times (UK)
TOP CRITIC
Even in this truncated form it’s amazing and memorable.
January 5, 2015
Pauline Kael
New Yorker
TOP CRITIC
Although reams have been written about the mutilation of Orson Welles’ second feature, what remains of it is nevertheless a major accomplishment.
August 30, 2012 | Rating: 5/5
Kevin Thomas
Los Angeles Times
TOP CRITIC
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.
August 30, 2012
Manny Farber
The New Republic
TOP CRITIC
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.
July 6, 2010
Variety Staff
Variety
TOP CRITIC
The emotional sense of America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is so palpable you can taste it.
April 6, 2007
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader
TOP CRITIC
After the neorealistic revolution of Citizen Kane’s cinematographic achievement, then, The Magnificent Ambersons becomes the consecration, in some sort of stripped-down and ultimately classical way, of a new mode of screen narration.
December 8, 2021
André Bazin
L’Écran Français
The Magnificent Ambersons is a deliciously photographed time capsule, with Albert S. D’Agostino’s impressive set designs belying the craftsmanship and detail which went into recreating turn-of-the-century Indianapolis.
August 18, 2020 | Rating: 4/5
Nicholas Bell
IONCINEMA.com
Welles has a knack for heart-rending stories rife with comeuppance, tragedy, remembrance, doomed romance, and, most superbly, the pleasures of forgiveness and closure.
August 13, 2020 | Rating: 9/10
Mike Massie
Gone With The Twins
True, there are wonderful authentic period touches, excellent dramatic photographic work and fine direction of a wonderful cast. Welles has employed so much subtlety, however… that the resultant effect is vague and even meaninglessly depressing.
July 24, 2020
Film Daily Staff
The Film Daily
Orson Welles continues to be incredible, super original, and an unsurpassable artist from the beginning to the end of the movie. [Full Review in Spanish]
September 17, 2019
Elena de la Torre
Cine-Mundial
In trying so feverishly to be realistic, Welles has drained the life pretty much out of the Indiana family of whom Tarkington once wrote so straight-forwardly that he won a Pulitzer prize for his efforts.
August 9, 2019
Jay Carmody
Washington Star…
Plot
The young, handsome, but somewhat wild Eugene Morgan wants to marry Isabel Amberson, daughter of a rich upper-class family, but she instead marries dull and steady Wilbur Minafer. Their only child, George, grows up a spoiled brat. Years later, Eugene comes back, now a mature widower and a successful automobile maker. After Wilbur dies, Eugene again asks Isabel to marry him, and she is receptive. But George resents the attentions paid to his mother, and he and his whacko aunt Fanny manage to sabotage the romance. A series of disasters befall the Ambersons and George, and he gets his come-uppance in the end.
Trivia
Goofs / Tidbits
The cast includes Joseph Cotten, Tim Holt, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, and Agnes Moorehead.
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