Her First Film Role Won Her an Oscar

NPR notes that On the Waterfront was Eva Marie Saint's first film job after years of theater and television — and it brought her an Academy Award. She played Edie, a Catholic schoolgirl whose longshoreman brother is murdered. From there she went on to star in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest.

It is a strange pair of credits to have as a calling card: a social drama on the docks and a Hitchcock thriller, the earnest debut and the star turn. Both are the kind of films people rewatch for things other than their plots — casting, texture, the way a director uses a face.