Actor: Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando’s arrival in A Streetcar Named Desire is the conventional dividing line in American screen acting. The naturalism, the mumbling, the refusal to hit marks and project, made everything before it look like recitation and everything after it possible.

On the Waterfront won him Best Actor, and the taxi scene with Rod Steiger is probably the most analysed two minutes in American film. The Godfather won him a second, which he refused, sending Sacheen Littlefeather to decline it on behalf of Native American representation.

The middle career was erratic and he was openly contemptuous of the profession, using cue cards and earpieces and taking work for money.

Last Tango in Paris and Apocalypse Now are the late achievements, and the former has since been reassessed considerably in light of Maria Schneider’s account of the production.