<Tr> <Th> Budget </Th> <Td> $910,000 </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Box office </Th> <Td> $9.6 million </Td> </Tr> <P> On the Waterfront is a 1954 American crime drama film directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg . It stars Marlon Brando and features Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning, and, in her film debut, Eva Marie Saint . The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard Bernstein . The film was suggested by "Crime on the Waterfront" by Malcolm Johnson, a series of articles published in November--December 1948 in the New York Sun which won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, but the screenplay by Budd Schulberg is directly based on his own original story . The film focuses on union violence and corruption amongst longshoremen while detailing widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfronts of Hoboken, New Jersey . </P> <P> On the Waterfront was a critical and commercial success and received twelve Academy Award nominations, winning eight, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Brando, Best Supporting Actress for Saint, and Best Director for Kazan . In 1997 it was ranked by the American Film Institute as the eighth - greatest American movie of all time and in AFI's 2007 list it was ranked 19th . It is Bernstein's only original film score not adapted from a stage production with songs . </P>

Who starred in the movie on the waterfront