Winner of eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, and Best Director, On the Waterfront is a powerful, brilliantly performed saga that focuses on the dreams, despair, and corruption of New York City longshoremen. Marlon Brando (in a career-defining performance) is ex-boxer Terry Malloy, who is driven to confront union corruption after growing close to a woman (Eva Marie Saint) whose brother was murdered for cooperating with authorities. Rod Steiger, Lee J. Cobb, and Karl Malden co-star under Elia Kazan‘s potent direction; scripted by Budd Schulberg. Despite being originally released 64 years ago, the film has lost none of its triumphant power, and remains a landmark achievement in American cinema. If it has been awhile since you have checked it out, watch the trailer above and then revisit the film to see how its themes still echo through society.
