6 Black And White Movies That Should Never Be Colorized

3) Citizen Kane (dir. Orson Welles)

The Plot: Following the death of millionaire newspaper tycoon, Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles), a group of reporters scramble to decipher the man’s final word: “rosebud.” The enquiry leads to an in-death examination of Kane with interviews from some of the people who were a part of his life; starting from his days as a poor boy to his career in the newspaper business and eventually politics, Kane is redefined and recognized as a man that no one really understood.

Why Black and White?: One of the main reasons this film is consistently ranked as one of the greatest ever made is because of the stylistic achievements and landmarks made by its cinematographer, Gregg Toland. The secrets of the shadows and the messages they are sending have been debated by scholars ever since the picture’s creation; there are just too many to mention.

Needless to say, there’s so much that goes into Orson Welles’ masterpiece that revolves around the cinematography and the color that altering it would miraculously change how any viewer would perceive the film, and not for the better. Citizen Kane is like a tunnel of endless information; the farther you go into it, the more you find out. And so, the original version must continue to be studied and reformulated. After all, there may never be another film like it.