Return to index Talkback E-mail this to a friend
 
From the TIME Archive
Archive Collection:
Oscar Greats

TIME Magazine:
Best of the Archive

Browse:
Movies Covers

 
GREAT PERFORMANCES
Movie Magic
Great roles and the performers who brought them to life
GUILTY PLEASURES
Lowbrow, High Praise
Even critics have their secret favorites. Take a look at ours

Richard Corliss' picks
Richard Schickel's picks

TOP SHORT FILMS
Selected Short Subjects
Ten small movies with grand achievements

BEST SOUNDTRACKS
Top Scores
Music that makes these movies
TALKBACK
Your thoughts on our list:

The one movie I feel should have definitely made the list (of top 3 movies, let alone 100), is Seven Samurai. Maybe this was an oversight because you didn't want more than two Kurosawa films on the list? If this was the case, I feel Seven Samurai is a better movie than Yojimbo.
—John Ferrigno

Here are three of my top ten list that didn't make it: Lacombe, Lucien, Hard Times and Samurai Trilogy.
—Rick Ackerman

Send us your thoughts >>
AUDIO FROM AUDIBLE.COM
Charlie Rose
gets in depth with TIME'S film critics on the ALL-TIME 100 Movies list.
Download it now on
Audible.com

Listen to Corliss & Schickel talk about the list
ALL-TIME 100 BEST NOVELS

100 Best Novels
TIME's Richard Lacayo and Lev Grossman select the best novels since 1923

50 Coolest Websites »
Best and Worst of 2004 »

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Directed By: Elia Kazan
Screenplay: Tennessee Williams (play); Oscar Saul (adaptation)
Cast: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden

Previous Next: Sunrise
EVERETT COLLECTION
 
t has been called the best adaptation of a great play ever made, and we're not going to dispute that judgment. Marlon Brando, repeating his stage performance as Stanley Kowalksi—half child, half animal, all menacing masculinity—is simply great. And so is Vivien Leigh, as his flirtatious, half-mad sister-in-law who teases him toward the brutal rape that destroys her. Tennessee Williams saw them symbolizing the contest between genteel civility and crude lower-class vitality. We are simply harrowed by the drama he unleashed—R.S.

From the TIME Archive:
Though the movie has its flaws, it can claim a merit rare in Hollywood films: it is a grownup, gloves-off drama of real human beings
TIME Magazine, Sep. 17, 1951 >>

Not a subscriber?
Get 6 Issues of TIME for $1.99 >>

Rate This Movie



Next: Sunrise

READER'S TOP FLICKS
1:  Goodfellas
2:  Farewell My Concubine
3:  Taxi Driver
4:  Bande à part
5:  City of God

    See the full list >>






Copyright © 2005 Time Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

Subscribe | Customer Service | Help | Site Map | Search | Contact Us
Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Reprints & Permissions | Press Releases | Media Kit