Skip to main content
On the Waterfront film image; man with his hands behind his back standing in front of group of other men

Remembering his first encounter with this seminal 50s masterwork, director Martin Scorsese recalled “the faces, the bodies, the way they moved . . . the voices, the way they sounded. They were like the people I saw every day. It was as if the world that I came from, that I knew, mattered.”

The film is rightly famous for Marlon Brando’s definitive performance as Terry Malloy, a New York dockworker (and once a promising boxer) who loses faith in his union and his smarter but corrupt older brother Charlie (Rod Steiger) after a whistleblower is murdered. As a rationale for naming names during the McCarthy era the movie is blatantly self-serving. Directed on location with staggering fervor by Elia Kazan, On the Waterfront is not American neo-realism, not quite, but in Boris Kaufman’s concrete greys, on the rooftops, and in the actors’ breath in the cold winter mornings the film transcends its blunt ideological premise through the sensitivity of its playing… Without this movie we’d probably never have had Mean Streets or Raging Bull, The Godfather or The Wire… It gives us De Niro, Pacino, and all their ilk… More than that, it gives us a portrait of ourselves, striving to take our place on the screen.

The acting and the best dialogue passages have an impact that has not dimmed; it is still possible to feel the power of the film and of Brando and Kazan, who changed American movie acting forever.

Roger Ebert

Director

Elia Kazan

Cast

Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Rod Steiger, Karl Malden, Lee J Cobb

Credits
Country of Origin

USA

Year

1954

Language

English

Awards

8 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Director and Actor

19+
108 min

Book Tickets

Wednesday June 25

6:00 pm
Hearing Assistance
VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Book Now

Thursday June 26

5:30 pm
Hearing Assistance
VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Book Now

Friday June 27

9:00 pm
Hearing Assistance
VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Book Now

Credits

Screenwriter

Budd Schulberg

Cinematography

Boris Kaufman

Editor

Gene Milford

Original Music

Leonard Bernstein

Art Director

Richard Day

Also in This Series

Getting Real charts the evolution of screen acting in American film from 1945-1980, diving into the psychological realism which took audiences somewhere deeper and more authentic than ever before.

The Heiress

Dir. William Wyler
115 min

Olivia de Havilland won the Oscar for playing Catherine, a shy and insecure young woman who blossoms under the courtship of handsome gentleman caller Morris (Montgomery Clift). Her wealthy father, Ralph Richardson, looks on with severe skepticism.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

A Place in the Sun

Dir. George Stevens
122 min

George (Montgomery Clift) takes a job in his uncle's firm. But before he can break into the family's charmed inner circle and fall in love with socialite Angela (Elizabeth Taylor), he becomes embroiled with a factory girl (Shelley Winters).

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

A Streetcar Named Desire

Dir. Elia Kazan
122 min

"I don't want realism. I want magic!" declares Blanche du Bois, the tragic heroine who meets her nemesis in her sister's husband, Stanley Kowalski, in Tennessee Williams' great play. Brando's performance as Stanley is a turning point in American acting.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

On the Waterfront

Dir. Elia Kazan
108 min

Marlon Brando's definitive performance as Terry Malloy, a New York dockworker (and once a promising boxer) who loses faith in his union and his smarter but corrupt older brother Charlie (Rod Steiger) after a whistleblower is murdered.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

East of Eden

Dir. Elia Kazan
115 min

Salinas, 1917. Cal Trask's forlorn attempts to win the affection of his self-righteous father (Raymond Massey) represented James Dean's first leading role in the cinema, and his emotionally raw performance ennobled misunderstood youth everywhere.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Rebel Without a Cause

Dir. Nicholas Ray
111 min

Kids turned bad in the 1950s -- and their newly comfortable middle-class parents couldn't understand why. Ray points the finger right back at them: "You're tearing me apart!" rails Jim Stark (James Dean), speaking for his generation.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Giant

Dir. George Stevens
198 min

This was the Yellowstone of its time: a big, sweeping modern Western built around an imposing ranch and family dynamics -- except Giant is much more subversive. James Dean strikes it rich as Jett Rink, much to the disgust of his former boss, Rock Hudson.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
The Fugitive Kind
The Fugitive Kind film image; woman sits behind a brooding man with a guitar

The Fugitive Kind

Dir. Sidney Lumet
121 min

Sidney Lumet's movie brings together two of the greatest actors of the period, Brando and Anna Magnani, reason enough to check out this underrated poetical drama about a handsome musician who washes up in a small southern town.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Hustler

Dir. Robert Rossen
135 min

Prime Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson, a hungry pool shark who knows he's the sharpest guy in the room. Jackie Gleason and George C Scott have other ideas.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Hud

Dir. Martin Ritt
112 min

Landmark modern western with Brandon de Wilde from Shane worshipping the wrong hero, Paul Newman’s eponymous heel. According to Paul Schrader, this movie marks the birth of the cynical (anti-)hero in American cinema.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre