On the Waterfront (restored, colorized)

1954 · crime · drama

On the Waterfront is a 1954 American crime drama film, directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg . It stars Marlon Brando , and features Karl Malden , Lee J. Cobb , Rod Steiger , Pat Henning and Eva Marie Saint in her film debut. The musical score was composed by Leonard Bernstein . The black-and-white film was inspired by "Crime on the Waterfront" by Malcolm Johnson , a series of articles published in November–December 1948 in the New York Sun which won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting , but the screenplay by Budd Schulberg is directly based on his own original story. The film focuses on union violence and corruption among longshoremen , while detailing widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfronts of Hoboken, New Jersey . On the Waterfront was a critical and commercial success and is considered one of the greatest films ever made . It received twelve Academy Award nominations and won eight, including Best Picture , Best Actor for Brando, Best Supporting Actress for Saint, and Best Director for Kazan. In 1997, it was ranked by the American Film Institute as the eighth-greatest American movie of all time ; in AFI's 2007 list, it was ranked 19th. It is Bernstein's only original film score not adapted from a stage production with songs.