Marlon Brando was in a movie.
Marlon Brando . He received further praise for his performance as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront , and his portrayal of the rebel motorcycle gang leader Johnny Strabler in The Wild One proved to be a lasting image in popular culture . 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 , in her film debut , Eva Marie Saint . The film was suggested 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 amongst 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 received twelve Academy Award nominations , winning 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 and 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 . The Wild One is a 1953 American film directed by László Benedek and produced by Stanley Kramer . The Wild One is considered to be the original outlaw biker film , and the first to examine American outlaw motorcycle gang violence . The film 's screenplay was based on Frank Rooney 's short story `` The Cyclists ' Raid '' , published in the January 1951 Harper 's Magazine and anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 1952 .