Claim: Marlon Brando appeared in a film.

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 soundtrack score was composed by Leonard Bernstein . 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 .   In 1989 , On the Waterfront was deemed `` culturally , historically or aesthetically significant '' by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry .