The Stranger (1946) is directed by and starring Orson Welles, alongside Edward G. Robinson and Loretta Young. The film follows a war crimes investigator who tracks a high-ranking Nazi fugitive hiding in a quiet Connecticut town under a new identity. Welles plays Franz Kindler, the escaped Nazi mastermind who has buried himself in small-town respectability as a schoolteacher, while Robinson’s character, Mr. Wilson, works to expose him. The tension builds through psychological manipulation, suspicion, and the unraveling of Kindler’s carefully constructed façade, leading to a dramatic confrontation at a church clock tower. Known for its shadowy cinematography, post-war paranoia, and moral urgency, the film stands out as one of the earliest Hollywood movies to show documentary footage of Nazi atrocities and is widely regarded as one of Welles’s more accessible, sharply crafted works.