A string of tragedies befalls two generations of a well-to-do family in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Indianapolis. Isabel Amberson receives a proposal from dashing Eugene but opts to marry the dull Wilbur. When Wilbur dies, Eugene again courts Isabel—but her spoiled son threatens the union.

The films of Orson Welles are marked by a fascination with lost Edens and falls from greatness, and none more so than this pungent masterpiece, with its broken ideals and decaying grandeur. Butchered by the studio on release, The Magnificent Ambersons plays like a wounded elegy for its very self.