Marlon Brando was in a film.
Marlon Brando . Brando is widely known for his Academy Award-winning performances as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront ( 1954 ) and Vito Corleone in The Godfather ( 1972 ) , as well as his performances in A Streetcar Named Desire ( 1951 ) , Viva Zapata ! The Godfather was then one of the most commercially successful films of all time . The Godfather is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by Albert S. Ruddy , based on Mario Puzo 's best-selling novel of the same name . It stars Marlon Brando and Al Pacino as the leaders of a fictional New York crime family .