The Magnificent Ambersons

film by Welles [1942]

Written by

Lee Pfeiffer

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

The Magnificent Ambersons, American dramatic film, released in 1942, that was director Orson Welles’s much-anticipated follow-up to his masterpiece Citizen Kane (1941). The film, which was based on the 1918 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Booth Tarkington, is as infamous for its production problems as it is famous for its artistic merit. In the early years of the 20th century, the Ambersons are the most socially prominent family in their Indiana town. George Amberson Minafer (played...