Orson Welles in the context of "Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement"

Magic is a performing art in which audiences are entertained by tricks, effects, or illusions of seemingly impossible feats, using natural means. It encompasses the subgenres of close-up magic, parlor magic, and stage magic, among others. It is to be distinguished from paranormal magic which are effects claimed to be created through supernatural means. It is one of the oldest performing arts in the world.

Modern entertainment magic, as pioneered by 19th-century magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, has become a popular theatrical art form. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, magicians such as John Nevil Maskelyne and David Devant, Howard Thurston, Harry Kellar, and Harry Houdini achieved widespread commercial success during what has become known as "the Golden Age of Magic", a period in which performance magic became a staple of Broadway theatre, vaudeville, and music halls. Meanwhile, magicians such as Georges Méliès, Gaston Velle, Walter R. Booth, and Orson Welles introduced pioneering filmmaking techniques informed by their knowledge of magic.

The following films have been voted the best in national and international surveys of critics and the public.

Some surveys focus on all films, while others focus on a particular genre or country. Voting systems differ, and some surveys suffer from biases such as self-selection or skewed demographics, while others may be susceptible to forms of interference such as vote stacking.

The Shadow is a fictional character created by American magazine publishers Street & Smith and writer Walter B. Gibson. Originally created to be a mysterious radio show narrator and developed into a distinct literary character in 1931 by Gibson, The Shadow has been adapted into other forms of media, including American comic books, comic strips, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles.

The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program Detective Story Hour, created to boost sales of Street & Smith's monthly pulp Detective Story Magazine. When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine", Street & Smith launched a magazine based on the character, and hired Gibson to create a concept to fit the name and voice and to write a story featuring him. The first issue of the pulp series The Shadow Magazine went on sale April 1, 1931.

Edward Fairfax Rochester (often referred to as Mr Rochester) is a character in Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel Jane Eyre. The brooding master of Thornfield Hall, Rochester is the employer and eventual husband of the novel's titular protagonist, Jane Eyre. He is regarded as an archetypal Byronic hero.

Actors who have portrayed Rochester on screen include Orson Welles (1943), Stanley Baker (1956), Timothy Dalton (1983), William Hurt (1996), Ciarán Hinds (1997), Toby Stephens (2006) and Michael Fassbender (2011).

Othello is the titular protagonist in Shakespeare's Othello (c. 1601–1604). The character's origin is traced to the tale "Un Capitano Moro" in Gli Hecatommithi by Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio. There, he is simply referred to as the Moor.

Othello was first mentioned in a Revels account of 1604 when the play was performed on 1 November at Whitehall Palace with Richard Burbage almost certainly Othello's first interpreter. Modern notable performers of the role include Paul Robeson, Orson Welles, Richard Burton, James Earl Jones, Laurence Fishburne, Laurence Olivier, Patrick Stewart, and Avery Brooks.

Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. He is best known for his silent films during the 1920s, in which he performed physical comedy and inventive stunts. He frequently maintained a stoic, deadpan facial expression that became his trademark and earned him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".

Keaton was a child vaudeville star, performing as part of his family's traveling act. As an adult, he began working with independent producer Joseph M. Schenck and filmmaker Edward F. Cline, with whom he made a series of successful two-reel comedies in the early 1920s, including One Week (1920), The Playhouse (1921), Cops (1922), and The Electric House (1922). He then moved to feature-length films; several of them, such as Sherlock Jr. (1924), The General (1926), Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), and The Cameraman (1928), remain highly regarded. The General is perhaps his most acclaimed work; Orson Welles considered it "the greatest comedy ever made...and perhaps the greatest film ever made".