Mr. Arkadin

Mr. Arkadin (1955) — watch online on iFILM, Orson Welles's noir thriller about buried secrets and convenient deaths. Billionaire Gregory Arkadin claims his memory goes blank before 1927. He hires drifter Guy Van Stratten to track down the witnesses of his forgotten past.

The assignment sounds like easy money. It turns into a body count. Every person Van Stratten locates ends up dead shortly after he asks his questions. Welles plays Arkadin himself — massive, bearded, wrapped in a fur coat, radiating menace while pretending to seek truth.

Shot across Spain, France, and Germany with a cast of European character actors, the film is one of Welles's strangest and most personal projects, made the same decade as Touch of Evil. The fragmented editing and paranoid atmosphere keep the real question open until the final scene: who is Gregory Arkadin, and what exactly does he need to stay hidden? Stream Mr. Arkadin (1955) on iFILM.