Me and Orson Welles Release What month was this film released in theaters? The film was released in the US on November 25, 2009, What were critics reviews of this film? Me and Orson Welles failed to secure any American acquisitions. Its first full screening was at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, running September 4-13, 2008. Did Me and Orson Welles get a DVD release? I don't know.
How much money did Me and Orson Welles make at the box office?
How much money did Me and Orson Welles make at the box office?
Select footage of Me and Orson Welles was screened at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival where financing and sales agency Cinetic Media were looking to sell the film to a distributor. Before its Cannes premiere, The Hollywood Reporter predicted that the film would attract distributors with Linklater's resume and Efron's teen "heartthrob" status to appeal to a younger demographic, but Me and Orson Welles failed to secure any American acquisitions. Its first full screening was at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, running September 4-13, 2008. In spite of its failure to find a buyer at Cannes, Toronto's co-director Cameron Bailey predicted that it would be "one of the hottest films" in the lineup, Anne Thompson of Variety magazine also believed that the film would be one of "only a few lucky winners" to secure a seven-figure deal.  Again, however, the film's distribution rights were not purchased and it went on to show at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. In May 2009, production company CinemaNX announced that it would distribute Me and Orson Welles itself, sharing marketing and advertising costs with Vue Entertainment. Freestyle Releasing was hired as the US distributor with Hart/Lunsford Pictures in exchange for participation in revenues paid the $4 million prints and advertising cost.  It was screened at the Woodstock Film Festival in September 2009, where Linklater was honored as the winner of the 2009 Maverick Award. it opened the New Orleans Film Festival on October 9, 2009; and it was screened at the St. Louis International Film Festival in November 2009.  The film was released in the US on November 25, 2009, and in the UK on December 4, 2009. IndieWIRE reported, "The do-it-yourself release of Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles got off to a very nice start, averaging $15,910 from its four theaters, the highest PTA of all debuting films. ... While Orson Welles is one the first examples of such a high-profile film going to the DIY route, if it proves successful, it's going to be done a lot more in the future." CANNOTANSWER
IndieWIRE reported, "The do-it-yourself release of Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles got off to a very nice start, averaging $15,910 from its four theaters,
Me and Orson Welles is a 2008 period drama film directed by Richard Linklater and starring Zac Efron, Christian McKay, and Claire Danes. Based on Robert Kaplow's novel of the same name, the story, set in 1937 New York, tells of a teenager hired to perform in Orson Welles's groundbreaking stage adaptation of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar who becomes attracted to a career-driven production assistant.

The film was shot in London and New York and on the Isle of Man in February, March and April 2008, and was released in the United States on November 25, 2009, and the United Kingdom on December 4, 2009.

McKay's portrayal of Welles was recognized with a multitude of accolades, and Me and Orson Welles was named one of the top ten independent films of the year by the National Board of Review.

Plot
In New York City in the fall of 1937, 17-year-old high-school student Richard Samuels meets Orson Welles, who unexpectedly offers him the role of Lucius in Caesar, the first production of his new Mercury Theatre repertory company. The company is immersed in rehearsals at its Broadway theater. Charmed by Welles, Richard learns that he is having an affair with the leading actress while his wife is pregnant. Richard finds ambitious production assistant Sonja Jones is attracted to him.

Welles tells Richard a few days before the premiere that he is worried, because he has recently had nothing but good luck; he fears that he will finally have bad luck with the premiere, and that the play will be a flop. During rehearsals Richard accidentally sets off the sprinkler system, soaking the entire theatre. When accused by Welles he denies having anything to do with the deluge, and suggests that the catastrophe was the bad luck that Welles needed to get out of the way.

Welles decides the entire production crew would benefit from a coupling game, and Richard cheats to ensure he is paired with Sonja. Richard spends the night with Sonja, but becomes jealous when she spends the next night with Welles. He confronts Welles, mentions his pregnant wife, and is fired. An apparent reconciliation follows, and Richard performs on the first night. The anti-fascist adaptation of Caesar is a huge success, but after the premiere, Richard is told that Welles only needed him in order to secure a successful first-night production and, that done, he has again been fired.

The broken-hearted but wiser Richard spontaneously recites lines from Julius Caesar in his high school English class, to his classmates' applause. He later meets up with a likely new girlfriend, Gretta Adler, a young aspiring playwright whom he met in a music store at the film's beginning. With Richard's and Sonja's assistance, Adler manages to get a story published in The New Yorker, and she invites Richard out, to help her celebrate.

Cast

 Zac Efron as Richard Samuels
 Christian McKay as Orson Welles
 Claire Danes as Sonja Jones
 Ben Chaplin as George Coulouris
 James Tupper as Joseph Cotten
 Eddie Marsan as John Houseman
 Leo Bill as Norman Lloyd
 Kelly Reilly as Muriel Brassler
 Patrick Kennedy as Grover Burgess
 Travis Oliver as John Hoyt
 Zoe Kazan as Gretta Adler
 Al Weaver as Sam Leve
 Saskia Reeves as Barbara Luddy
 Imogen Poots as Lorelei Lathrop
 Rhodri Orders as Stefan Schnabel
 Michael Brandon as Les Tremayne
 Janie Dee as Mrs Samuels

Production

Holly Gent and Vincent Palmo Jr. adapted the film's screenplay from Robert Kaplow's novel of the same name about a teenager (in reality, the 15-year-old Arthur Anderson, who played Lucius in Welles' production) involved in the founding of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. After receiving funding from CinemaNX, a production company backed by the Isle of Man film fund, and an offer from Framestore Features to co-finance the film, Richard Linklater came on board to direct Me and Orson Welles. Zac Efron signed on as the lead in early January 2008, claiming he decided to take the role of Richard Samuels because "It's a completely different project than I've ever done before," while Claire Danes joined the cast as the protagonist's love interest Sonja Jones in late January.

In the theatre, Christian McKay had portrayed Orson Welles in the one-man play Rosebud: The Lives of Orson Welles at a number of venues, including the Edinburgh Festival and King's Head (London). He reprised the role in the U.S. at the 2007 "Brits Off Broadway" festival, where Linklater saw his performance and then cast McKay as Welles, retaining him over the subsequent objections of the project's producer.

Me and Orson Welles underwent filming in the Isle of Man, Pinewood Studios, London and New York from February to April 2008. Filming in London commenced first in mid-February, before scenes in the Isle of Man were shot February 24–March 14, 2008, where filming locations included Gaiety Theatre and various other parts of Douglas. During filming in Douglas, Efron and Danes believe they sighted a ghost, or "supernatural" being, outside a window on set at Gaiety Theatre.

Filming in Britain resumed in late March for six weeks at Pinewood Studios. Other locations included Crystal Palace Park, where a façade of New York's Mercury Theatre was set up for a scene. Actor James Tupper claimed that the best replica of an old New York theater was in England, while many of the actors who filled the company were from the Royal Shakespeare Company. The production crew only briefly visited New York; photographs were taken and footage shot to be added into the film as digital effects. Every exterior shot was filmed on a single street built at Pinewood Studios with a green screen at one end; different angles and slightly altered set designs were used between shots to make the street appear different each time.

Release
Select footage of Me and Orson Welles was screened at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival where financing and sales agency Cinetic Media were looking to sell the film to a distributor. Before its Cannes premiere, The Hollywood Reporter predicted that the film would attract distributors with Linklater's résumé and Efron's teen "heartthrob" status to appeal to a younger demographic, but Me and Orson Welles failed to secure any American acquisitions. Its first full screening was at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, running September 4–13, 2008. In spite of its failure to find a buyer at Cannes, Toronto's co-director Cameron Bailey predicted that it would be "one of the hottest films" in the lineup, Anne Thompson of Variety magazine also believed that the film would be one of "only a few lucky winners" to secure a seven-figure deal.

Again, however, the film's distribution rights were not purchased and it went on to show at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. In May 2009, production company CinemaNX announced that it would distribute Me and Orson Welles itself, sharing marketing and advertising costs with Vue Entertainment. Freestyle Releasing was hired as the US distributor with Hart/Lunsford Pictures in exchange for participation in revenues paid the $4 million prints and advertising cost.

It was screened at the Woodstock Film Festival in September 2009, where Linklater was honored as the winner of the 2009 Maverick Award. it opened the New Orleans Film Festival on October 9, 2009; and it was screened at the St. Louis International Film Festival in November 2009.

The film was released in the US on November 25, 2009, and in the UK on December 4, 2009. IndieWIRE reported, "The do-it-yourself release of Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles got off to a very nice start, averaging $15,910 from its four theaters, the highest PTA of all debuting films. ... While Orson Welles is one of the first examples of such a high-profile film going to the DIY route, if it proves successful, it's going to be done a lot more in the future."

Reception

Box office
During its theatrical release (November 25, 2009 – February 25, 2010), Me and Orson Welles grossed a total of $1,190,003 in the United States and $2,336,172 worldwide.

Critical response
The film has received positive reviews from critics. It currently holds an 85% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 156 critic reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Me and Orson Welles boasts a breakout performance by Christian McKay and an infectious love of the backstage drama that overcomes its sometimes fluffy tone." It holds a weighted average score of 73 out of 100 on Metacritic from 30 critics.

Film critic Roger Ebert called Me and Orson Welles "one of the best movies about the theater I've ever seen ... not only entertaining but an invaluable companion to the life and career of the Great Man". Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film for its "terrific acting" and called it "a must for lovers and students of the theater". Variety magazine's Todd McCarthy labelled McKay's performance "an extraordinary impersonation" of Welles, though he wrote that "Efron never feels like a proper fit for Richard". Karen Durbin of The New York Times praised McKay in the Welles role, saying he brought "a watchful, assessing and subtly excited gaze that makes him thrilling and a little dangerous."

"I've never seen a backstage movie that was truer to the experience of putting on a show," wrote Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout, who reserved special praise for the design team's recreation of Welles's production of Julius Caesar:

Like most Welles stage shows, alas, this one left few traces. No part of the production was filmed, and nothing else survives but the design sketches and some still photographs taken in 1937. ... What makes Me and Orson Welles uniquely interesting to scholars of American drama is that Mr. Linklater's design team found the Gaiety Theatre on the Isle of Man. This house closely resembles the old Comedy Theatre on 41st Street, which was torn down five years after Julius Caesar opened there. Using Samuel Leve's original designs, they reconstructed the set for Julius Caesar on the Gaiety's stage. Then Mr. Linklater filmed some 15 minutes' worth of scenes from the play, lit according to Jean Rosenthal's plot, accompanied by Marc Blitzstein's original incidental music and staged in a style as close to that of the 1937 production as is now possible.

Teachout wrote that he "was floored by the verisimilitude of the results", and that "you will never get any closer to the Welles Julius Caesar than by watching Me and Orson Welles, whose DVD version also includes a special feature comprising footage of the reconstructed scenes, not all of which made the final cut."

In 2015, Mercury actor Norman Lloyd (who is portrayed by Leo Bill in the film) praised Christian McKay's performance as Orson Welles as "the best rendition of him I've ever seen." However, he otherwise "hated" the film and he criticized the accuracy of the characters: "It bears no relation to truth, or to what happened when you worked with Orson and so forth. I thought McKay was very good, but the rest of the characters are just ridiculous. They're all made up! I didn't even recognize myself ... and then I thought, Well, thank goodness I can't!" Lloyd named George Coulouris as an example, who was shown as "neurotic and afraid to do his scene", while in reality he was someone "you couldn't stop from acting, for Christ's sake!".

Accolades
Me and Orson Welles was named one of the top ten independent films of 2009 by the National Board of Review. It was listed as one of the year's top ten films by critics including Philip French of The Observer, David Denby of The New Yorker, and Michael Phillips and A. O. Scott of At the Movies.

The film earned two awards from the Austin Film Critics Association – the Austin Film Award to director Richard Linklater. and the Breakthrough Artist Award to Christian McKay. McKay received many accolades for his portrayal of Orson Welles, including Best Supporting Actor awards from the San Francisco Film Critics Circle and the Utah Film Critics Association. He received a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actor nominations from the Boston Society of Film Critics (second place), Broadcast Film Critics Association, Chicago Film Critics Association, Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association, Denver Film Critics Society, Detroit Film Critics Society, Houston Film Critics Society, International Cinephile Society, National Society of Film Critics, New York Film Critics Circle (second place), Online Film & Television Association, Toronto Film Critics Association, and in the Chlotrudis Awards, Independent Spirit Awards and the Village Voice Film Poll (second place). McKay was nominated in the Best Actor category in the Evening Standard British Film Awards, London Critics Circle Film Awards and 2009 San Diego Film Critics Society Awards.

Home media
On August 17, 2010, Warner released Me and Orson Welles on DVD () for exclusive sale at Target in the United States. Entertainment One Films released the DVD in Canada on the same date. The film has not been released on Blu-ray in the U.S., though it is available in the format in Italy and Germany.

Soundtrack
The original motion picture soundtrack for Me and Orson Welles was released on CD November 24, 2009, by Decca Records (5323762).
 "This Year's Kisses", Benny Goodman and His Orchestra
 "I'm Shooting High", Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra
 "Sing, Sing, Sing", Benny Goodman and His Orchestra
 "One O'Clock Jump", Count Basie and His Orchestra
 "Ode to Krupa", Michael J McEvoy
 "Let's Pretend There's a Moon", Jools Holland and His Rhythm and Blues Orchestra featuring Eddi Reader
 "Let's Pretend There's a Moon", Christian McKay
 "Let Yourself Go", Ginger Rogers
 "Solitude", The Mills Brothers
 "Aftershow Jam", Michael J McEvoy featuring Huw Morgan on trumpet
 "They Can't Take That Away from Me", Fred Astaire
 "In a Sentimental Mood" (Instrumental), Benny Goodman and His Orchestra
 "The Music Goes Round and Round", Tommy Dorsey and His Clambake Seven
 "I Surrender Dear", Jools Holland and His Rhythm and Blues Orchestra featuring Eddi Reader
 "You Made Me Love You", Jools Holland and His Rhythm and Blues Orchestra featuring Eddi Reader
 "Have You Met Miss Jones?", James Langton and His Solid Senders
 "Sing, Sing, Sing", James Langton and His Solid Senders

References

External links
 
 
 
 
 Interview with Arthur Anderson

2008 films
2000s comedy-drama films
British films
British comedy-drama films
American comedy-drama films
2000s English-language films
Films directed by Richard Linklater
Films about Orson Welles
Films based on American novels
Films set in 1937
Films set in New York City
Films shot in England
Films about actors
Films about theatre
American films
Julius Caesar (play)
Films shot in the Isle of Man
2008 comedy films
2008 drama films
This is Orson Welles is a 1992 book by Orson Welles (1915–1985) and Peter Bogdanovich that comprises conversations between the two filmmakers recorded over several years, beginning in 1969. The wide-ranging volume encompasses Welles's life and his own stage, radio, and film work as well as his insights on the work of others. The interview book was transcribed by Bogdanovich after Welles's death, at the request of Welles's longtime companion and professional collaborator, Oja Kodar.

In addition to more than 300 pages of interviews, the book includes an annotated chronology of Welles's career, a summary of the alterations made in Welles's 1942 masterpiece, The Magnificent Ambersons, and notes on each chapter by film scholar Jonathan Rosenbaum, who edited the volume.

A second edition of This is Orson Welles was published in paperback in 1998, with a new introduction by Bogdanovich and excerpts of a 58-page memo Welles wrote Universal Pictures about the editing of his 1958 film Touch of Evil. The memo was used to create a director's cut of the film released in 1998.

The 1992 audiobook version of This is Orson Welles was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album.

Origin
In 1961 Peter Bogdanovich organized a retrospective of Orson Welles's films, the first in the United States, for the Museum of Modern Art. Welles was not able to attend — he was in Europe, preparing a film — but he did read the monograph Bogdanovich had written to accompany the screening and was favorably impressed by it. In 1968 Welles phoned Bogdanovich to invite him for coffee at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Over the space of two hours the two filmmakers found themselves completely at ease with each other. As they left the restaurant, Welles flipped through the pages of a book Bogdanovich had just written about John Ford, Welles's favorite director; Bogdanovich had brought a copy as a gift, since Welles was quoted in its pages. "Isn't it too bad," Welles said, "that you can't do a nice little book like this about me." They decided to do a book of interviews together.

"Of course it was Welles who suggested the shape of 'the book,' as we called it — we never did arrive at a title we both liked," Bogdanovich wrote. Recorded at intervals in the United States, Mexico and Europe, the interviews were not to be forced into the chronological order of Welles's life. Welles felt they should be more loosely organized, like their conversations. Bogdanovich transcribed the reel-to-reel tapes, organized the interviews into a chapter, and mailed the typed copy to Welles. Months later, Bogdanovich would get the chapter back from Welles, revised and sometimes rewritten.  Some chapters were revised two or three times in this manner.

In 1974, Orson Welles cast Bogdanovich in the role of Brooks Otterlake, a successful director, in the unreleased film The Other Side of the Wind. Welles filmed partly in Bogdanovich's Bel Air home, where Welles and actress Oja Kodar lived off and on for two years. Work on the book continued intermittently through 1975; later in the 1970s the two directors "drifted apart a bit," Bogdanovich later wrote.

For a time, the book was put on hold by Welles when he received a separate offer of $250,000 to write his memoirs. "He had no choice but to agree," Bogdanovich wrote. "This was OK with me; it was his life and one of the few ways he had of getting money to pay not only for his family's expenses, but also for the real work he was doing — his many directing projects." Then, Bogdanovich wrote, the book was literally lost for five years:

Orson never did write his memoirs. Eventually, when he asked what had become of our book, it was lost somewhere in the depths of a storage facility while I was going through a personal and financial crisis (leading to bankruptcy and a kind of general breakdown in the summer of 1985, just a few months before Orson died). During one phone conversation he had said he hoped I wouldn't "just publish" the book after he was dead — implying that I knew where it was and was just hanging on to it. That upset me and so when we finally could get back into storage, and the boxes turned up, I sent all of them over to Orson — not keeping copies of anything — with a note saying, in effect, it was his life, and here it was for him to do as he saw fit. Orson called me as soon as he got it —he was very touched, he said, and thanked me profusely. He went on to explain that there wasn't much he could leave to Oja, and if anything happened to him, he was planning to will the book to her."

After Welles died in October 1985, Oja Kodar asked Bogdanovich to help prepare the book for publication. He  transcribed the materials, resulting in 1,400 pages that were then edited by Jonathan Rosenbaum into the 300 pages of interviews in the book.

Reception

Reviews and commentary
 Todd McCarthy, Variety — The book in question, which is based on hours of conversation between Welles and Peter Bogdanovich, is one I have been eagerly awaiting for fully 20 years, since Bogdanovich first told me about it on the set of Paper Moon. … The extravagantly rich result represents as detailed a reading of Welles' view of his own screen career as I could ever hope for. … The publisher, HarperCollins, has simultaneously released a four-pack volume of audio cassettes under the same title that includes four hours of the Welles–Bogdanovich interview. Some of the material overlaps, but much of it is different from what can be found in the book. And, in any event, it is great just to hear Welles telling these revealing stories himself, in his deep voice and with his infectious laugh.
 Michael Dwyer, The Irish Times — A lively, entertaining and fascinating collection of conversations between Welles and the critic turned director, Peter Bogdanovich, who initiated the project partly to redress the balance after "three very damaging books" about Welles appeared in the late 1960s. … This is the best book of its kind since François Truffaut's classic book of interviews with Alfred Hitchcock.
 The Observer — The creation of this book was itself uncannily like a Welles film: created in fragments, abandoned, then lost, then finally restored by another hand. Welles was always his own shrewdest, most lacerating analyst, as well as his most grandiloquent yarn spinner, and this is a wonderfully eloquent, elegiac book, a meditation on a 'failed' career worth dozens of orthodox successes.

Awards
 The 1992 audiobook version of This is Orson Welles was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album.

References

1992 non-fiction books
Books about film
Works by Orson Welles
Books by Peter Bogdanovich
HarperCollins books
Books of interviews This is a bibliography of books by or about the director and actor Orson Welles.

Books by Orson Welles

Shakespeare studies
 Hill, Roger and Welles, Orson (eds.). Everybody's Shakespeare. Woodstock, Illinois: Todd Press, 1934. (omnibus volume and three separate volumes, with abridged and annotated scripts of The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar and Twelfth Night)
 Welles, Orson, and Hill, Roger (eds.). The Mercury Shakespeare. New York: Harper & Row, 1939. (revised version of the above; omnibus volume and three separate volumes, with abridged and annotated scripts of The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar and Twelfth Night)
 Welles, Orson, and Hill, Roger (eds.). The Mercury Shakespeare: Macbeth. New York: Harper & Row, 1941.

Scripts and screenplays

Plays
 Welles, Orson. Miracle à Hollywood, et À Bon Entendeur. Paris: Gallimard, 1952. (two plays, [The Unthinking Lobster, and Fair Warning], only published in French)
 Welles, Orson. Moby Dick—Rehearsed. London: Samuel French, Inc., 1965.   (play).
 France, Richard (ed.), Welles, Orson. Orson Welles on Shakespeare: The W.P.A. and Mercury Theatre Playscripts. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990.  (scripts of 1930s Welles abridgments of Macbeth, Julius Caesar and Five Kings)
 Tarbox, Todd (ed.); Hill, Roger and Welles, Orson. Marching Song: A Play. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.  (first publication of an unperformed play, written in 1932)

Radio plays
 Welles, Orson. His Honor—The Mayor. New York: The Free Company, 1941. (script of radio play broadcast April 6, 1941)

Screenplays
 Fry, Nicholas (ed.), Welles, Orson. The Trial. London: Lorrimer, 1970. (screenplay, first published in French by l’Avant scene du cinema in 1963)
Kael, Pauline, Mankiewicz, Herman J. and Welles, Orson. The Citizen Kane Book. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1971.   (screenplay prefaced by Kael's essay "Raising Kane")
 Comito, Terry (ed.), Welles, Orson. Touch of Evil. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1985 (screenplay).
 Pepper, James and Rosenbaum, Jonathan (eds.), Welles, Orson, and Kodar, Oja. The Big Brass Ring. Santa Barbara, California: Santa Teresa Press, 1987.  (unproduced screenplay)
 Gellert Lyons, Bridget (ed.) Welles, Orson. Chimes at Midnight. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1988. (screenplay)
 Pepper, James and Rosenbaum, Jonathan (eds.), Welles, Orson. The Cradle Will Rock. Santa Barbara, California: Santa Teresa Press, 1994.  (unproduced screenplay)
 Gosetti, Giorgio (ed.), Welles, Orson and Kodar, Oja. The Other Side of the Wind.  Locarno, Switzerland: Cahiers du cinéma/ Locarno Film Festival, 2005. (screenplay of a film which was incomplete at the time of publication - subsequently completed in 2018)

Novels and short stories
 Welles, Orson and others. The Lives of Harry Lime. London: Pocket Books, 1952. (short stories)
 Welles, Orson. Une Grosse Légume. Paris: Gallimard, 1953. (novel ghostwritten by Maurice Bessy, only published in French)
 Welles, Orson. Mr. Arkadin. Paris: Gallimard, 1954. (novel ghostwritten by Maurice Bessy, subsequently translated into English)

Interviews
 Rosenbaum, Jonathan (ed.), Welles, Orson and Bogdanovich, Peter. This is Orson Welles. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.  (revised and expanded in 1998)
 Estrin, Mark W. (ed.), Welles, Orson. Orson Welles Interviews. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2002.

Conversations
 Tarbox, Todd. Orson Welles and Roger Hill: A Friendship in Three Acts. Albany, Georgia: BearManor Media, 2013. 
 Biskind, Peter (ed.), Jaglom, Henry. My Lunches With Orson: Conversations Between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles. New York: Metropolitan Books (Henry Holt and Company), 2013.

Artwork
 Welles, Orson. Les Bravades. New York: Workman, 1996. 
 Braund, Simon (ed). Orson Welles portfolio: Sketches and drawings from the Welles estate. Titan Books, 2019.

Books about Orson Welles

Biographies
 Bessy, Maurice. Orson Welles: An investigation into his films and philosophy. Crown, 1971. (abridged translation of French-language biography, first published in Paris in 1963)
 Brady, Frank. Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989. 
 Callow, Simon. Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu. London: Jonathan Cape, 1995; New York: Viking, 1996.  (biography covering 1915–41)
 __. Orson Welles, Volume 2: Hello Americans. London: Jonathan Cape, 2006; New York: Viking, 2006.  (biography covering 1941–47)
 __. Orson Welles, Volume 3: One-Man Band. London: Jonathan Cape, 2015; New York: Viking, 2016.  (biography covering 1947–65)
 __. Orson Welles, Volume 4. (forthcoming 2019 biography covering 1965–85)
 Feeney, F. X. Orson Welles: Power, Heart and Soul. Raleigh, North Carolina: The Critical Press, 2015. 
 Fowler, Roy Alexander. Orson Welles: A First Biography. London: Pendulum Publications, 1946.
 Heylin, Clinton. Despite the System: Orson Welles Versus the Hollywood Studios. Chicago Review Press, 2005. 
 Higham, Charles. Orson Welles: The Rise and Fall of an American Genius. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985. 
 Leaming, Barbara. Orson Welles. New York: Viking, 1985. 
 McBride, Joseph. Orson Welles. Harcourt Brace, 1977.
 McGilligan, Patrick. Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane. New York: HarperCollins, 2015.  
 Noble, Peter. The Fabulous Orson Welles. London: Hutchinson and Co., 1956. 
 Thomson, David. Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles. New York: Vintage, 1997. 
 Valentinetti, Claudio M. Orson Welles. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1980. 
 Visdei, Anca. Orson Welles. Éditions de Fallois, 2015. 
 Whaley, Bart. Orson Welles: the man who was magic. Ebook, 2011.

Studies of Citizen Kane (1941)
 Berthomé, Jean-Pierre and Thomas, François. Citizen Kane. Paris: Flammarion, 1992. 
 Carringer, Robert. The Making of Citizen Kane. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
 Gottesman, Ronald (ed.). Focus on Citizen Kane. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1971.
 __. Perspectives on Citizen Kane. New York: G.K. Hall/Macmillan, 1996.
 Joxe, Sandra, Citizen Kane, Orson Welles. Paris : Hatier, 1990. 
 Kael, Pauline (ed.). The Citizen Kane Book. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1971.
 Lebo, Harlan. Citizen Kane: The Fiftieth Anniversary Album. New York: Doubleday, 1990.
 . Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker’s Journey. New York: WGI Publishing, 2000.
 . Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker’s Journey. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2016. 
 Merryman, Richard. Mank. The Wit, World and Life of Herman Mankiewicz. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1978.
 Mulvey, Laura. Citizen Kane. London: BFI, 1992.
 Naremore, James (ed.). Orson Welles's Citizen Kane: a Casebook. Oxford University Press, 2004. 
 Pizzitola, Louis. Hearst over Hollywood: Power, passion and propaganda in the movies. Columbia University Press, 2002. 
 Roy, Jean. Citizen Kane [de] Orson Welles: étude critique. Paris: Nathan, 1989. 
 Walsh, John Evangelist. Walking Shadows: Orson Welles, William Randolph Hearst and Citizen Kane. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004.

Studies of other individual Welles films

Too Much Johnson (unfinished, 1938)
 Studer, Massimiliano. Alle origini di Quarto potere. Too Much Johnson: il film perduto di Orson Welles. Milano: Mimesis editore, 2018. (about the unfinished film Too Much Johnson). In Italian language

It's All True (unfinished, 1942)
 Benamou, Catherine L. It's All True: Orson Welles's Pan-American Odyssey. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. (about the unfinished film It's All True)

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
 Carringer, Robert. The Magnificent Ambersons: a Reconstruction. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. 
 Perkins, V. F. The Magnificent Ambersons. London: BFI, 1999.

The Stranger (1946)
 Strobel, Ricarda. Propagandafilm und Melodrama: Untersuchungen zu Alfred Hitchcocks "Lifeboat" und Orson Welles' "The Stranger". Berlin: Eissenschaftler-verlag, 1984.

Othello (1952)
 Del Ministro, Maurizio. Othello di Welles. Rome: Bulzoni, 2000. (about Othello) 
 Mac Liammóir, Micháel. Put Money in Thy Purse: The Making of Orson Welles's Othello. London: Methuen, 1952. (revised edition in 1978)

Don Quixote (unfinished, 1955-73)
 Cobos, Juan, and Esteve Riambau. Don Quijote: páginas del guión cinematográfico de Orson Welles. Madrid: Asociación de Directores de Escena de España, 1992. (about the unfinished film Don Quixote) 
 Sciortino, Sigismondo Domenico. Don Chisciotte e il Cinema (dell')Invisibile. Rome: La Camera Verde, 2013. (about the unfinished film Don Quixote)

Touch of Evil (1957)
 Comito, Terry (ed.). Touch of Evil. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1985. (screenplay with literary criticism)

The Trial (1962)
 Trias, Jean-Phillipe. Le Procès d'Orson Welles. Paris: Cahiers du cinéma / CNDP, 2005. (about The Trial)

Chimes at Midnight (1965)
 Gellert Lyons, Bridget (ed.) Welles, Orson. Chimes at Midnight. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1988.
 Riambau, Esteve. Las cosas que hemos visto: Welles y Falstaff. Luces de Gálibo, 2015.

The Deep (unfinished, 1967-70)
 Kovačić, Duško and Rafaelić Daniel. Orson Welles in Hvar

F for Fake (1973)
 Thieme, Claudia. F for Fake and the Growth in Complexity of Orson Welles' Documentary Form. New York: Peter Lang, 1997.

The Other Side of the Wind (unfinished, 1970-6; posthumously completed, 2018)
 Gosetti, Giorgio (ed.). The Other Side of the Wind. Locarno, Switzerland: Cahiers du cinéma/ Locarno Film Festival, 2005. 
 Karp, Josh. Orson Welles's Last Movie: The Making of The Other Side of the Wind. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2015. 
 Yates, Michael. Shoot 'Em Dead: Orson Welles & The Other Side of the Wind. Morrisville, North Carolina: Lulu, 2020.

Studies of multiple Welles films
 Rosenbaum, Jonathan (trans.), Bazin, André. Orson Welles. Harper and Row, 1978.
 Bogdanovich, Peter. The Cinema of Orson Welles. New York: Film Library of the Museum of Modern Art, 1961.
 Cowie, Peter. The Cinema of Orson Welles. Da Capo Press, 1973.
 Drössler, Stefan, (ed.). The Unknown Orson Welles. Munich: Filmmuseum München/belleville Verlag, 2004. (about Welles's unfinished films; text in three languages)  
 Garis, Robert. The Films of Orson Welles. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
 Gear, Matthew Asprey. At the End of the Street in the Shadow: Orson Welles and the City. Wallflower Press/Columbia University Press, 2016.
 Gottesman, Ronald (ed.). Focus on Orson Welles. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1976.
 Hel-Guedj, Johan-Frederik. Orson Welles, la règle du faux. Michalon, 1997. 
 Higham, Charles. The Films of Orson Welles. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970.
 Howard, James. The Complete Films of Orson Welles. Citadel Press, 1991.
 McBride, Joseph. Orson Welles. Da Capo Press, 1996. (heavily revised edition of a 1972 monograph)
 ___. What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? A Portrait of an Independent Career. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2006.
 Nagel, Elsa. L'Art du Mensonge et de la Vérité: Orson Welles, Le Procès et Une Histoire Immortelle. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1997. (about The Trial, The Immortal Story and F for Fake)  
 Naremore, James. The Magic World of Orson Welles. Urbana, Chicago and Springfield, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2015.  (centennial anniversary edition, first published by Oxford University Press in 1978, revised edition published by Southern Methodist University Press in 1989)
 Rasmussen, Randy. Orson Welles: Six Films, Scene by Scene, New York: McFarland, 2006
 Rippy, Marguerite. Orson Welles and the Unfinished RKO Projects: A Postmodern Perspective. Southern Illinois University Press, 2009.

Studies of Welles's theatre work
 Anderegg, Michael. Orson Welles, Shakespeare and Popular Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
 France, Richard. The Theatre of Orson Welles. Lewisburg, Pennsylvania: Bucknell University Press, 1977.

Studies of Welles's radio work
 Cantril, Hadley. The Invasion From Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1940. 
 Gallop, Alan. The Martians are coming ! The true story of Orson Welles'1938 panic broadcast. Stroud: Amberley Publishing, 2011. 
 Gosling, John. Waging the War of the Worlds: A history of the 1938 radio broadcast and resulting panic. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2009 (including the original script by Howard Koch) 
 Heyer, Paul. The Medium and the Magician: Orson Welles, the Radio Years. Ottawa: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. 
 Koch, Howard. The Panic Broadcast: The whole story of Orson Welles ' legendary radio show invasion from Mars. New York: Avon, 1970.
 Schwartz, A. Brad. Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles's War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News. New York: Hill & Wang, 2015.

Memoirs prominently featuring Welles
 Anderson, Arthur, An Actor's Odyssey: Orson Welles to Lucky the Leprechaun. Albany: BearManor Media, 2010. . 
 Bond, Dorian. Me and Orson Welles: Travelling Europe with a Hollywood Legend. The History press, 2018. 
 Castle, William, Step Right Up! I'm Gonna Scare the Pants Off America: Memoirs of a B-Movie Mogul. New York: Putnam, 1992. 
 Cotten, Joseph, Vanity will get you somewhere. San Francisco: Mercury House, 1987. 
 Everett, Rupert, Red carpets and other bananas skins. Abacus, 2007. 
 Feder, Chris Welles. In My Father's Shadow: A Daughter Remembers Orson Welles. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2009. 
 Graver, Gary, with Rausch, Andrew J. Making Movies with Orson Welles; A Memoir. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2008. 
 Heston, Charlton. In the Arena: An Autobiography. Simon & Schuster, 1995.
 Gómez, Andrés Vicente. El Sueño Loco [A Crazy Dream] (Ayuntamiento de Malaga, Malaga, 2001). 
 Hill, Roger. One man's time and chance: A memoir of eighty years 1895-1975. Woodstock public library, 1977.
 Holiday, Billie with Dufty, William, Lady Sings the Blues. New York: Doubleday, 1956.
 Houseman, John. Run Through: A Memoir. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972. 
 ___. Front and Center: A Memoir. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979. 
 ___. Final Dress: A Memoir. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983.
 ___. Unfinished Business: A Memoir, London: Chatto & Windus, 1986.
 Huston, John. An Open Book. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1980. 
 Lindsay-Hogg, Michael. Luck and Circumstance: A Coming of Age in Hollywood, New York and Points Beyond. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. 
 McCambridge, Mercedes. The Quality of Mercy: An autobiography. New York: Time Books, 1981. 
 Mac Liammóir, Micháel. All for Hecuba: An Irish Theatrical Biography. Dublin: Branden Books, 1967.
 Tasca di Cuto, Alessandro. 'Un Principe in America''. Sellerio Editore, 2004.; English translation, as ''A Prince in America'''. 2011.

Other
 Orson Welles, Cahiers du cinéma, Éditions de l'Étoile, 1986. 
 Anile, Alberto. Orson Welles in Italy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013. (English translation of book first published in Italian in 2006)
 Beja, Morris, ed. Perspectives on Orson Welles. G. K. Hall, 1995.
 Berg, Chuck and Erskine, Tom (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Orson Welles. Checkmark Books, 2003.
 Berthomé, Jean-Pierre and Thomas, François. Orson Welles at Work. London: Phaidon, 2008. (English translation of book first published in French in 2006)
 Ciment, Michel. "Les Enfants Terribles" in American Film, December 1984. 
 Cobos, Juan. Orson Welles: España como obsesión, Editiones de la Filmoteca, Institut  de Valencià de Cultura, España, 1993. 
 Conrad, Peter. Orson Welles: The Stories of His Life. London: Faber and Faber, 2003.
 D'Angela, Toni (ed.). Nelle terre di Orson Welles. Alessandria: Edizioni Falsopiano, 2004.
 Davies, Anthony. Filming Shakespeare's Plays. Cambridge University Press, 1988.
 Drazin, Charles. In Search of the Third Man. Limelight, 2000.
 Duncan, Paul. Orson Welles: Pocket Essentials. London: Pocket Books, 2000.
 Gilmore, James N. and Gottlieb, Sidney (ed.). Orson Welles in focus: Texts and contexts. Indiana university bloomington, 2018. 
 Gosling, John. "Waging the War of the Worlds". McFarland & Company, Inc, 2009.
 Greene, Graham. The Third Man. London: Faber and Faber, 1991.
 Hormiga, Gustavo (2002). "Orsonwelles, a new genus of giant linyphiid spiders (Araneae) from the Hawaiian Islands". Invertebrate Systematics 16: 369–448.
 Ishaghpour, Youssef. Orson Welles, cinéaste, une caméra visible, éditions de la différence, 2001. (Three volumes)  :
 Volume 1 : Mais notre dépendance à l'image est énorme..., 2001.
 Volume 2 : Les films de la période américaine, 2001.
 Volume 3 : Les Films de la période nomade, 2001.
 Jorgens, Jack J. Shakespeare on Film. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977.
 Müller, Adalberto, Orson Welles: Banda de um homem Só. Azouge, 2015. 
 Naremore, James. "The Trial, the FBI Vs Orson Welles" in Film comment, vol. 27, n° 1, 22-27, 1991 (about FBI files on Welles)
 Riambau, Esteve. Orson Welles: Un España immortal, Editiones de la Filmoteca, Institut  de Valencià de Cultura, España, 1993. 
 Ramón, David. La Santa de Orson Welles, D.R. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, 1991. 
 Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "Orson Welles's Essay Films and Documentary Fictions", in Placing Movies. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
 _. "The Battle Over Orson Welles", in Essential Cinema. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.
 _. "Orson Welles as Ideological Challenge" in Movie Wars. A Capella Books, 2000.
 _. Discovering Orson Welles. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. 
 Shakespeare Bulletin, Volume 23, Number 1, Spring 2005: Special Welles issue.
 Simon, William G., (ed.). "Special Welles issue", in: Persistence of Vision: The Journal of the Film Faculty of the City University of New York; Number 7, 1989.
 Simonson, Robert. "Orson's Shadow Talkback Series Continues May 4 with Welles's Daughter." May 3, 2005.
 Taylor, John Russell. Orson Welles: a Celebration. Pavilion, 1986.
 ___. Orson Welles. Pavilion, 1998.
 Thomas, François. "Orson Welles et le remodelage du texte shakespearien" in Actes des congrès de la Société française Shakespeare 16 | 1998, 171-182   
 Tonguette, Peter Prescott. Orson Welles Remembered: Interviews With His Actors, Editors, Cinematographers and Magicians. New York: McFarland, 2007. 
 Walters, Ben. Welles. London: Haus Publishing, 2004. 
 Whaley, Barton. Orson Welles: The Man Who Was Magic, Lybrary.com, 2005. 
 White, Rob. The Third Man. London: BFI, 2003.
 Wood, Bret. Orson Welles: a Bio-Bibliography. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1990.

Written fiction featuring Welles as a character

Graphic novels
Camus, David and Abadzis, Nick. The Cigar That Fell In Love With a Pipe: Featuring Orson Welles & Rita Hayworth. SelfMadeHero, New York, 2014.

Novellas
 Newman, Kim. Anno Dracula: The Other Side of Midnight. London, 2000. (subsequently integrated into Newman's 2013 novel Johnny Alucard, in a rewritten form)

Novels
 Brown, Robert Dwight. Orson Welles' Lost War of the Worlds Screenplay. New York: Allonymous Books, 2013.
 Chabon, Michael. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. New York: Random House, 2000.
 Ferrario, Davide. Dissolvenza al nero (Fade to Black). Rome, 1994.
 Kaplow, Robert. Me and Orson Welles. San Francisco: MacAdam/Cage, 2003. 
 Newman, Kim. Anno Dracula: Dracula Cha Cha Cha. Avon Books, London, 1998.
 _. Anno Dracula: Johnny Alucard. Titan, London, 2013.

Operas
 Hagen, Daron Orson Rehearsed. (Unpublished, though libretto included with 2021 CD release) 2018.

Plays
 Druxman, Michael B. Orson Welles: A One-Person Play in Two Acts. Createspace, New York, 2011.
 Pendleton, Austin. Orson's Shadow. Dramatists Play Service, New York, 2006.
 Pettigrew, Joel. Mercury Man: The Last Performance of Orson Welles. (Unpublished) 2018.
 Wollman, Chris. The Sacred Beasts. (Unpublished) 2017.

References

External links
 The Mercury Shakespeare at HathiTrust (original from the University of Michigan)

Books about film directors
Bibliographies of people
Works by Orson Welles
Bibliographies of American writers
Bibliographies by writer
bibliography