The late film scholar Gilberto Perez referred to Orson Welles as “a director with an immediately recognizable style if there ever was one.” Perhaps no other filmmaker, with the exception of Alfred Hitchcock or Stanley Kubrick, has been as globally discussed by film critics and connoisseurs. Welles’ films—many of which were made under considerable scrutiny and now precariously exist in contested multiple versions—remain enduring cinematic pleasures of the highest order.

On the occasion of his centennial year, the Northwest Film Center offers a primer of Welles’ work. While it proudly features some of his most lauded masterpieces, the series also dives deeper into some of Welles’ lesser-known work, as well as a handful of films he acted in and sometimes surreptitiously produced and directed. In grasping to capture Welles’ allure, film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum’s reflection speaks for many cinema lovers: “Though I wouldn’t necessarily call him my favorite, he remains the most fascinating for me, both due to the sheer size of his talent, and the ideological force of his work and his working methods…a major part of Welles’ talent as a filmmaker consisted of his refusal to repeat himself—a compulsion to keep moving creatively that consistently worked against his credentials as a ‘bankable’ director, if only because banks rely on known quantities rather than on experiments.”