Film Forum

U.S., 1954
Directed by Elia Kazan
Screenplay by Budd Schulberg
Starring Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger
Cinematography by Boris Kaufman
Music by Leonard Bernstein.
WINNER Academy Awards – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), Best Supporting Actress (Eva Marie Saint), Best Screenplay, Best Cinematoraphy, Best Art Direction, Best Editing, 1955
Approx. 108 min. DCP.

“I coulda been a contender,” agonizes Marlon Brando’s pigeon-raising ex-pug Terry Malloy, as he gets mixed up in corruption and murder in a Hoboken longshoremen’s union, thanks to brother/mob mouthpiece Rod Steiger, then must face victim’s sister Eva Marie Saint. 

Reviews

“A HEART-CLUTCHER FROM BEGINNING TO END!”
– J. Hoberman, Village Voice

“One of the best performances ever recorded on celluloid.”
– David Shipman

“If there is a better performance by a man in the history of film in America, I don’t know what it is.”
– Elia Kazan

“The performances in the film have a magnificent intelligence and strength, shaped and guided incomparably by Kazan, a master of Broadway and Hollywood.”
– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

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