10 Marlon Brando Best Movies That You Should Watching Update 04/2024

Marlon Brando Best Movies

For the majority of his acting career, Marlon Brando received high praise. According to Rotten Tomatoes, these are his 10 best films.

It is almost universally agreed that Marlon Brando is the greatest film actor of all time. In addition to inventing the term “method acting,” Brando had a direct impact on the next generation of actors. Without Brando, there would be no De Niro, Nicholson, Pacino, DiCaprio, or any other major Hollywood actor since the 1950s. That’s how significant Brando was.

As a result, between 1952 and 1990, Brando was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won two of them. On the other hand, his acting career has been marked by some of the most well-received roles ever played. According to Rotten Tomatoes, these are Marlon Brando’s 10 best films.

1. The Freshman (1990) 93%

The Freshman (1990)

Brando’s formal Godfather run ended with Coppola’s famed gangster trilogy’s first film, but he clearly had a great time recreating his part as Don Vito Corleone’s lookalike in the film The Freshman!

Clark Kellogg (Matthew Broderick) is an aspiring filmmaker who arrives in New York and is mugged by a small-time crook. Importer Carmine “Jimmy the Toucan” Sabatini (Brando) resembles Vito Corleone from The Godfather, and Clark is able to link him to the thief.

2. Superman (1978) 94%

Richard Donner’s casting of Brando and Gene Hackman opposite Christopher Reeve in the original Superman picture was a perfect precursor to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s A-list ensembles. That was quite the casting coup, looking back.

It follows Jor-El (Brando) as he decides to send his infant son, Kal-El (Reeve), back to Krypton, where he was born, with the help of Ned Beatty, Margot Kidder, Glenn Ford, and Terrence Stamp. There, Superman learns about his ancestry and utilizes it to fight evil in Metropolis. Even the Oscar for best visual effects went to the film.

3. Sing Your Song (2011) 95%

Sing Your Song (2011)

For the 2011 documentary Sing Your Song, which commemorates the courageous advocacy of singer/film star Harry Belafonte, archival footage from Brando was used. The legacy of Brando continues even after his death.

Benny Belafonte was an important figure in the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. As he pushed for global racial and economic fairness, Belafonte had a significant impact both at home and abroad, as this film shows. Archive video of Belafonte and Brando together was chosen because Brando was one of Belafonte’s closest pals.

4.  Julius Caesar (1953) 95%

Brando was nominated for a third consecutive Academy Award as Marc Antony in the Shakespearean rendition of Julius Caesar. For its art direction, the film also won an Oscar.

Actors like James Mason and John Gielgud co-starred alongside Brando in this tragic tale of ambition gone wrong, betrayal, and murder. Julius Caesar was played by Louis Calhern. Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the film’s director, shot the movie in 35 days.

5.  A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) 98%

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Brando was nominated for his first Academy Award for his performance as Stanley Kowalski in the film adaption of Tennessee Williams’ playA Streetcar Named Desire. Three years after working with the same director, he won his first Oscar.

English teacher Blanche DuBois goes through a nervous breakdown while living with her sister Stella and brother-in-law Stanley in sweltering and humid New Orleans in Elia Kazan’s Streetcar. Stanley (Brando) is a hot-tempered monster with his own destructive notions about how to treat women. Blanche has an explosively hostile relationship with him.

6. On The Waterfront (1954) 99%

“I could have had a shot at making it to the finals. I could’ve made it somewhere!” In one of the most renowned monologues in film history, Brando portrays heartbreak like no other. This was the first time in Brando’s long and distinguished cinematic career that he was recognized with an Academy Award nomination as well as a win.

On the Waterfront tells the story of Terry Malloy, a disillusioned stevedore and former prizefighter who lives in the shadow of his prosperous older brother. After witnessing his boss’s murder, Terry struggles with existential anxiety unlike anyone other. For better or worse, this picture marked a turning point in the career of actor Marlon Brando.

7. The Godfather (1972) 98%

The Godfather (1972)

In The Godfather, which has been recognized as one of the greatest films of all time, Brando won his second Oscar for Best Leading Actor, eighteen years after winning his first. In addition, it was selected the year’s best picture.

The Godfather is presently ranked No. 2 on IMDb’s Top 250 list with a perfect score of 100/100 on Metacritic. The operatic epic by Francis Ford Coppola, depicting an Italian organized crime family going through a period of transitory dominance, is absolutely without equal in terms of quality. Adapted for the screen by Coppola from a novel by Mario Puzzo, the film received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

8. Sayonara (1957) 100%

As an American Air Force pilot stationed in Kobe who falls in love with a beautiful Japanese woman in the film Sayonara, one of Brando’s lesser-known roles is played by the actor.

When it comes to American-Japanese marriage, Major Lloyd Gruver (Brando) is fiercely opposed. When the cocky pilot is transferred to Japan, he falls hopelessly in love with the country’s most famous performer, Hana-ogi (Miiko Taka).

9. Heart Of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991) 100%

Heart Of Darkness A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991)

Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now production was as challenging as the war-torn subject matter it dealt with. To make the legendary Vietnam War picture, director John Ford had to overcome a slew of difficulties, which the documentary Heart of Darkness explores in great depth.

The film chronicles the harrowing logistical challenges experienced by the production team, using footage secretly recorded by Francis’s wife Eleanor. Among these include oppressive heat, untamed forests, incompetent foreign regimes, desperate performers, and a well of one’s own insecurities. To help tell the story of the enormous enterprise, Brando is on hand as Colonel Kurtz.

 10. Apocalypse Now: Final Cut (2019) 100%

The Final Cut of Apocalypse Now, the most recent of the film’s three alternate edits, has the highest audience approval rating. Despite the fact that the 2001 Redux had an RT score of 93% and the original had an RT score of 98 percent, the 2019 version wins out.

U.S. soldiers in Vietnam are charged with finding rogue Colonel Kurtz (Brando), a decorated soldier who is believed to have gone nuts while hiding out in an isolated cave. Captain Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen), whose journey of self-discovery matches Kurtz’s, is the narrator of the film. Best Sound and Cinematography awards were given to the film.