Oscars: Every Best Picture Winner Ever Ranked From Worst To Best
19. On The Waterfront (1954)
Marlon Brando is at the height of his powers - and won a Best Actor Oscar for his trouble - in Elia Kazan's haunting and quietly devastating drama about missed opportunities, faded glory and, in more apparent terms, the courage to stand tall in the face of widespread corruption.
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Brando's Terry Malloy remains an all-time classic movie hero filled with shading and ambiguity, and while some knowledge of the movie's political context can make it a little more difficult to enjoy - namely the parallels between Malloy's battle and Kazan testifying against several artists during the Hollywood Communist witch-hunts - it is nevertheless an unassailable classic drama.