What Are the Best Marlon Brando Movies?

10. Viva Zapata! (1952)

• Director: Elia Kazan
• Writer: John Steinbeck
• Cast: Marlon Brando, Jean Peters, Anthony Quinn, Joseph Wiseman

Coming right on the heels of Streetcar, this was Brando’s second collaboration with Elia Kazan and a passion project written by John Steinbeck. The casting is not one you'd do today, but Brando plays legendary Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. It was reported that Brando studied photos of Zapata and pored over the history in order to become this man.

9. Guys and Dolls (1955)

• Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
• Writer: Joseph L. Mankiewicz (based on the musical by Jo Swerling & Abe Burrows)
• Cast: Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Jean Simmons, Vivian Blaine

Let's start with the one that doesn't match any of the others... Marlon Brando in a musical. This is such a fun film because they fill it with legends like Frank Sinatra and Vivian Blaine, who can actually sing! So no one really questions it when Brando doesn't do it much, or sounds different than the others. He thrives as the smooth gambler Sky Masterson, and his chemistry with Jean Simmons is electric. It’s a baffling, audacious, and weirdly perfect performance from him.

8. Sayonara (1957)

• Director: Joshua Logan
• Writer: Paul Osborn (based on the novel by James A. Michener)
• Cast: Marlon Brando, Miiko Taka, Red Buttons, Miyoshi Umeki, James Garner

Even though Brando is a movie star, he did a lot of gritty films. But this was one that let him be a polished sex symbol. It's a Technicolor "message movie" where he plays Major "Ace" Gruver, a hotshot Korean War pilot and good-ol'-boy Southerner who is forced to confront his own deep-seated prejudice when he falls for a Japanese performer. It's a little cheesy, but I think a lot of fun for the era. Brando’s performance is all subtlety as you watch his entire worldview shift through internal moments of realization.

7. Julius Caesar (1953)

• Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
• Writer: Joseph L. Mankiewicz (based on the play by William Shakespeare)
• Cast: Marlon Brando, James Mason, John Gielgud, Louis Calhern, Greer Garson

At the time, critics were already calling him "The Mumbler," so Brando ignored them and took on Shakespeare. In this movie, he starred opposite classical acting titans like John Gielgud, and he steals the entire movie. Brando plays Mark Antony, a dangerous political operator who wants the best for Rome. When he delivers the "Friends, Romans, countrymen" speech, he doesn't just recite the verse; he becomes it. This was him showing the world his method and brilliance.

6. The Wild One (1953)

• Director: László Benedek
• Writer: John Paxton & Ben Maddow
• Cast: Marlon Brando, Mary Murphy, Lee Marvin, Robert Keith

I love a good B-movie, and this one is about a biker gang that terrorizes a small town. But this movie was more about Brando becoming a star than anything. He plays Johnny Strabler, a guy with a tilted cap, leather jacket, and Triumph motorcycle. He set the look for any and all bikers moving forward. The look goes back to him. And he delivered the line that defined a generation: "Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?" ... "Whaddaya got?"

5. Last Tango in Paris (1972)

• Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
• Writer: Bernardo Bertolucci & Franco Arcalli
• Cast: Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, Jean-Pierre Léaud

I'll just say up front it's probably impossible for many people to separate this movie and performance from the controversy around it and its toxic production, so if you want to skip this section, I get it.

But if you can, Brando's performance is one of the most raw and intense ever filmed. He plays Paul, a grieving American widower who begins a purely sexual affair with a young Parisian woman. Much of his dialogue was improvised and pulled from the wreckage of his own life. The famous monologue over his wife’s body isn't acting; it’s a terrifying and hypnotic deconstruction of himself.

4. Apocalypse Now (1979)

• Director: Francis Ford Coppola
• Writer: John Milius & Francis Ford Coppola
• Cast: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, Laurence Fishburne

By the late '70s, Brando had become more myth than man, and this film pushed him over the edge into otherworldly legend. The entire movie is a journey upriver into the heart of madness, and at the end of it is Brando’s Colonel Kurtz. He’s barely in the movie, but his presence is all-encompassing. When he finally appears, shaven-headed and massive, he’s a black hole of intellect and insanity. He improvised most of his dialogue to create a man who has "gone over the edge." His final, whispered monologue on "the horror" is the dark, philosophical anchor of the entire film. And even though he was a bear on set, he gave Coppola all he needed.

3. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

• Director: Elia Kazan
• Writer: Tennessee Williams & Oscar Saul (based on the play by Tennessee Williams)
• Cast: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden

This movie signified the moment Brando became a symbol of raw charisma. This movie is a sweltering pressure cooker. It pitted Brando’s primal Stanley Kowalski against the fragile, fading illusions of Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh). Stanley is a monster—a bully, a domestic abuser—but Brando plays him with such an unapologetic life force that you can’t look away. The iconic "STELLA!" changed 50s cinema and Hollywood forever.

2. The Godfather (1972)

• Director: Francis Ford Coppola
• Writer: Mario Puzo & Francis Ford Coppola (based on the novel by Mario Puzo)
• Cast: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton

It's so crazy to think this role almost never happened because Brando was considered "unbankable" at the time. They even made him screen-test for the part. When he got it, his career took off immediately again. Brando's Vito Corleone, with cotton-stuffed jowls and a raspy, labored whisper that forces you to lean in and also fear him. He transformed into a man of immense power and weariness with the world and its corruption. He both loves his family and strikes fear into his enemies. It's a landmark performance.

1. On the Waterfront (1954)

• Director: Elia Kazan
• Writer: Budd Schulberg
• Cast: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint

This is probably the greatest performance in American film history. It changed all acting afterward. People just decided to play real characters and not be stagey. It legitimately sent a ripple effect across the world.

Brando plays Terry Malloy, a broken-down ex-boxer and dockworker who "coulda been a contender." He’s a man trapped between a corrupt union and his own conscience. This isn't just Brando's best performance; it's the high-water mark that every actor since has been trying to reach.

Summing It All Up 

Ranking a career like Brando's is wild. I mean. I almost included some goofy roles because he just has so many fun ones. But these are the ten films that stand as monuments to his genius. He was a rebel, a mumbler, a god, and a monster, and cinema is unimaginable without him.