Welles' genre-warping free-form cinematic essay uses a series of famous frauds and hoaxes to explore the slippery line separating reality and deception. The film focuses on notorious art forger Elmyr de Hory and Elmyr's biographer, Clifford Irving, who also wrote a celebrated fraudulent Howard Hughes autobiography. Along the way, Welles also reflects on his adventures into trickery with War of the Worlds and a romantic tryst that world famous artist Pablo Picasso once had with the mysterious, but beautiful Oja Kodar.
F for Fake has since been credited as the main influence on the "MTV" style of editing that came to prominence in the 1980's, whist also appearing on Time Out's 50 Greatest Documentaries list.
