It's not.
On the Waterfront is the one that changed film acting forever and that inspired more people to become actors than any other film performance ever. But this is the one that put Brando on the map and let people know that there was a tidal wave coming.
Dean is closer to Montgomery Clift with their feminine vulnerability. Clift and Dean were like wounded puppies, and their acting was that of an exposed nerve. Brando had more masculine intensity than both of them combined. His acting was that of a roaring lion. In this way, he was closer to James Cagney and Kirk Douglas, two guys who could be quiet and still and communicate a ton with their faces and bodies, but who were always, even in their stillness, fucking live wires of energy.
Dean used Brando as his acting model. He wore the leather jacket in
Rebel Without a Cause because of Brando in
The Wild One. Dean was the little brother, Brando was the big brother.
If Paul Newman isn't the most overrated actor ever then he's second only to Tom Hanks. Newman is mediocre at best, and his only legit great performance is in a movie that nobody even knows exists, a Western remake of Kurosawa's
Rashomon called
The Outrage where he plays a Mexican bandit version of Toshiro Mifune's rapist character. Talent-wise, and looks-wise, and cool-wise, Newman is a poor man's Steve McQueen. Newman's entire career put together can't match the raw emotionality of McQueen in
The Sand Pebbles, which is one of the all-time great film performances, nor does his performance in
The Hustler even come close to McQueen's complicated poker player in
The Cincinnati Kid. Even watching them later in
The Towering Inferno, it's clear which one is trying so hard not to suck and which one is just effortlessly
right in every moment.
In short: Newman stinks, McQueen rules
