As we continue our examination of those 45 films recommended by the Vatican as especially important in the categories of religion, values, and art, we come to On the Waterfront. This glimpse into the mid-20th-century mob-run dock worker union of Hoboken, New Jersey, firmly falls in the “values” bracket, as the entire film revolves around a young man caught between his conscience and the status quo.
A surreal glimpse into the mid 20th century, where the culture looks vastly different from 2025, but the society has remained much the same.
The plot follows Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando), a washed-up boxer who benefits from his brother’s engagement with the mobster union boss Johnny Friendly. While Terry is not terribly deep in the organization, we find him helping lure another young man to the roof of his apartment building late at night when the movie begins. When the man is thrown from the roof, Terry realizes he was used by the mobsters who had only indicated that they wanted to intimidate the young man from talking.
Terry is obviously shaken by the realization that he was complicit in a murder, but he is also challenged by the victim’s sister and film’s love interest, Edie, and the local Catholic priest, Father Barry. The priest is determined to expose the corruption of the labor union mob, and at one point finds a man willing to talk, but that man is the subject of an “accident” and dies on the job. This is when we get the greatest scene in the film, in which Fr. Barry delivers a harsh reprimand to the mob.
While Terry and his crisis of conscience are the center of the film, the movie is also very much about the difference one priest can make in a community. Father Barry is nearly omnipresent in the film, appearing at the site of the movie’s opening murder to administer Last Rites to the man thrown from the roof, and even stopping Terry from going on a quest for revenge when his crooked lawyer brother refuses to lead Terry to the mob’s slaughter and is himself killed for letting Terry go.
Based on a real priest
One of the reasons why Fr. Barry is such an excellent character is because he is based on a real priest. Popcorn with the Pope’s David Paul Baird reveals that much of Fr. Barry’s character came from Fr. John Corridan, a Jesuit who was known locally as “the waterfront priest," for his work with laborers, running a school that taught basic principles of economics, and who decried the corruption of the labor mob. Much of his sermon, seen above, was drawn from Fr. Corridan’s real preaching to his congregation.
Fr. Barry brings a realism to the film that makes everything feel more urgent and more high-stakes than a typical film noir might have. He is a man of high principles who demands better from all those around him, and his value in the community is seen in the deferential way they treat him. While the priest never stops speaking out about the mob, the mob – which constantly considers extreme avenues of keeping its enemies silent – never once even considers knocking off the priest.
Watching On the Waterfront in 2025 is a little bit surreal. It is a peek into an older world, one in which the culture looks vastly different (especially in regards to fashion and general courtesy), but the society remains much the same, with some willing to put others down in order to rise higher themselves. The stranglehold the criminal element has over the people is best illustrated in the scene where Terry calls out his brother for making him throw fights for the mob when he was a boxer.
Still, despite the differences between then and now, On the Waterfront remains a poignant tale that faces viewers with classic dilemmas, pitting the main character against what is expected of him and what is right, between the Christian virtue of Truth and the selfish pursuit of personal gain. In this, it teaches a valuable lesson: that society cannot thrive without the courage of at least one man willing to stand for what is right.
