More than a contender: Marlon Brando’s greatest performances – ranked!
20. A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)
A minor picture with curiosity value: Charlie Chaplin’s final film as a director, starring Brando and Sophia Loren, a comedy in the style of the Hollywood Golden Age, based on the tall tales of a real-life Russian singer and in fact originally conceived by Chaplin in the 30s for Paulette Goddard. Brando plays an American diplomat who is astonished to find that the Russian countess (Loren) he was charmed by in Hong Kong has stowed away in his cabin on the voyage home. Brando does his best and this method legend was sufficiently in awe of Chaplin to submit to his old-fashioned way of working: acting out for Brando the required line-readings and movements. (Oh, to have had fly-on-the-wall location footage of these moments.) Certainly, Brando would never again be so submissive with a director.
19. The Freshman (1990)
As The Godfather becomes ever more important in film history, so there may be a kind of gathering tacit consensus among cinephiles that this should be tactfully overlooked or just forgotten about: a film in which Brando risked devaluing his brand by actually spoofing the Vito Corleone persona. He plays shady New York businessman Carmine Sabatini, who astounds freshfaced film student Matthew Broderick with his resemblance to the legendary Don Corleone, with Brando doing all the wheezing, grandfatherly, adenoidal mannerisms. Sabatini gives Broderick’s character a job as a delivery boy, which may be a subtle reference to Apocalypse Now. A sprightly, watchable movie.
18. Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
This Technicolor seafaring spectacular had Brando aboard the HMS Bounty playing high-minded naval officer Fletcher Christian, who will no longer tolerate the arrogance and cruelty of Captain William Bligh, a role fiercely and theatrically dispatched by Trevor Howard. It is an intriguing faceoff, and a big Hollywood stage for Brando to grandstand. It is always interesting to hear Brando doing a stagey Britspeak accent, but this is a clenched and formal role for him.
With Eli Kazan directing, John Steinbeck writing and Brando in the