Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane -- the Academy-Award®-winning masterwork that expanded filmmaking frontiers like no other movie in history -- will be released for the first time September 25 as a double-disc DVD in a newly packaged 60th anniversary collector’s edition.

Hailed by critics and filmmakers as the greatest movie ever made, this classic will feature a breathtakingly restored picture and audio and digitally remastered video from the highest quality surviving elements, along with a variety of extras. Citizen Kane will have a suggested retail price of $29.99.

"We began our three-year restoration process by searching for the best available film elements and then applying our latest digital technologies to restore the picture and audio," explained Ned Price, vice president of video mastering for Warner Bros." As a result, Citizen Kane now looks and sounds better than it did even in its original theatrical release."

Citizen Kane, the latest of the "crown jewel" releases from WHV’s vast library of classic films, was chosen as the #1 film of all time on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 Greatest American Movies.

"We’re proud to be releasing the greatest film of all time," said Mike Saksa, WHV’s vice president of U.S. marketing. "With the tremendous appeal, quality and value-added features of the DVD format, many home viewers, who would otherwise not have the opportunity, will be able to enjoy this revered American treasure the way it was meant to be experienced."

The second disc in this double-disc DVD release is The Battle Over Citizen Kane, the two-hour Oscar®-nominated documentary that chronicles the titanic struggle between filmmaker Orson Welles and newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who claimed Citizen Kane was a thinly veiled and slanderous account of his own life. Interviews, film clips, newsreel footage and stills reveal the fascinating behind-the-scenes story of how Hearst used his formidable power to try to stop production and distribution of the film, and how he ultimately sought to destroy Welles himself.

DVD Special Features:

Disc one of the double-disc DVD edition includes Citizen Kane with the following special features:

-Breathtakingly restored picture and audio and digitally remastered video from the highest quality surviving elements

-Two full-length audio commentaries -- one by noted film critic Roger Ebert and the other by writer/director and Welles biographer Peter Bogdanovich

-The 1941 New York movie premiere newsreel

-Gallery of storyboards, rare production photos, call sheets, and other memorabilia

-The original theatrical trailer

-English, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles

Disc two on the Citizen Kane collector’s edition DVD includes the two-hour documentary, The Battle Over Citizen Kane, featuring:

-Interviews with Welles, the stars of Citizen Kane and associates of Welles and Hearst

-Rare footage from Hearst’s San Simeon estate and Welles’ historic
The War of the Worlds broadcast

-Biographical profiles of Welles and Hearst