Reception
Upon its release, the film received rave reviews from critics. On the critics' website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 100% "Certified Fresh" rating, based on 50 reviews. In 1989, this film was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Film critic Roger Ebert lauded the film, stating that Brando and Kazan changed acting in American movies forever and then adding it to his "Great Movies" list. The New York Times critic A. H. Weiler also hailed the film as a masterpiece, calling it "an uncommon powerful, exciting, and imaginative use of the screen by gifted professionals."
It is also on the Vatican's list of 45 greatest films of all time, compiled in 1995.
The film earned an estimated $4.2 million in rentals at the North American box office in 1954.
Read more about this topic: On The Waterfront
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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