A Streetcar Named Desire

Classic Elia Kazan adaption (1951) of the Tenessee Williams play, with Brando and Leigh giving career defining performances. This is a stunning film, due to the success of the three components of script, acting, and direction.
Firstly, the source material of William's play is obviously transcendentally good. It would be easy for the wordiness to go over the head, but this picture keeps that tendency in check and successfully gives us the powerful, moving piece.
Then we have the acting. Brando is of course magnificent, brooding, sidelined but a constant presence. His graceful touch (smoothing the shirt) combine with an incredible ferocity. But even with this master at work, it is Leigh's film. Expertly cast, her own classic-theatrical style perfectly illustrates Blanche's character. The emotional crescendo's are especially wonderful as we always have the sense of an artifice. Endlessly levelled.
And Kazan's direction is terrific. His backdrop in theatre means he knows how to block, and move from character to character gracefully in confined spaces (influenced by 'Le Regle De Jeu). He gives us identification this way, while also occasionally dropping wider, or using a framing character such as Mitch (or indeed a 'spacier' scene such as the card game one) to give us the necessary critical distance from Blanche. The few times cuts are necessary is when the blocking is not quite as graceful as hoped, but hia techniques the vast majority of the time bare fruit. Such low key camera use is an example that Hollywood must follow.
An incredibly powerful film, with the perfect mixture of undeniable source material, seminal acting, and fine direction.