A Face in the Crowd

A Face in the Crowd

POWER! He loved it! He took it raw in big gulpfuls … he liked the taste, the way it mixed with the bourbon and the sin in his blood!

NR 1957 · 125 min · ★ 7.6 · Drama

The rise of a raucous hayseed named Lonesome Rhodes from itinerant Ozark guitar picker to local media rabble-rouser to TV superstar and political king-maker. Marcia Jeffries is the innocent Sarah Lawrence girl who discovers the great man in a back-country jail and is the first to fall under his spell.

Directed by Elia Kazan · Written by Budd Schulberg

Your Rating

Where to Watch

Streaming

Rent or Buy

Cast

Andy Griffith Larry 'Lonesome' Rhodes
Patricia Neal Marcia Jeffries
Anthony Franciosa Joey DePalma
Walter Matthau Mel Miller
Lee Remick Betty Lou Fleckum
Percy Waram General Haynesworth
Paul McGrath Macey
Rod Brasfield Beanie
Marshall Neilan Senator Worthington Fuller
Alexander Kirkland Jim Collier
Charles Irving Mr. Luffler
Howard Smith J.B. Jeffries

Trailers & Videos

Make it a double feature

3h 53m together

A Face in the Crowd

On the Waterfront

Both from Elia Kazan.

More from Elia KazanSee all →

On the Waterfront

On the Waterfront · 1954

On the Waterfront

MovieCrimeDrama

A prizefighter-turned-longshoreman with a conscience goes up against labor leaders to expose corruption, extortion, and murder among the union ranks.

A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire · 1951

A Streetcar Named Desire

MovieDramaThriller

A disturbed, aging Southern belle moves in with her sister for solace — but being face-to-face with her brutish brother-in-law accelerates her downward spiral.

East of Eden

East of Eden · 1955

In the Salinas Valley in and around World War I, Cal Trask feels he must compete against overwhelming odds with his brother for the love of their father. Cal is frustrated at every turn, from his reaction to the war, how to get ahead in business and in life, and how to relate to his estranged mother.

Splendor in the Grass

Splendor in the Grass · 1961

Splendor in the Grass

MovieDramaRomance

A fragile Kansas girl's unrequited and forbidden love for a handsome young man from the town's most powerful family drives her to heartbreak and madness.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn · 1945

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

In Brooklyn circa 1900, the Nolans manage to enjoy life on pennies despite great poverty and Papa's alcoholism. We come to know these people well through big and little troubles: Aunt Sissy's scandalous succession of "husbands"; the removal of the one tree visible from their tenement; and young Francie's desire to transfer to a better school...if irresponsible Papa can get his act together.

Wild River

Wild River · 1960

MovieDramaRomance

A young bureaucrat for the Tennessee Valley Authority goes to rural Tennessee to oversee the building of a dam. He encounters opposition from the local people, in particular a farmer who objects to his employment (with pay) of local black laborers. Much of the plot revolves around the eviction of a stubborn octogenarian from her home on an island in the river, and the young man's love affair with that woman's widowed granddaughter. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation.

Pinky

Pinky, a light skinned black woman, returns to her grandmother's house in the South after graduating from a Northern nursing school. Pinky tells her grandmother that she has been "passing" for white while at school in the North. In addition, she has fallen in love with a young white doctor, who knows nothing about her black heritage.

America America

America America · 1963

America America

MovieDramaHistory

A young Anatolian Greek, entrusted with his family's fortune, loses it en route to Istanbul and dreams of going to America.

Gentleman's Agreement

Gentleman's Agreement · 1947

Gentleman's Agreement

A magazine writer poses as a Jew to expose anti-Semitism.

Baby Doll

Baby Doll · 1956

Archie Lee Meighan is a failing cotton gin owner who is married to Baby Doll, a 19-year old childlike beauty whose father arranged the marriage for financial reasons. As Archie awaits the arrival of Baby Doll's 20th birthday, the day that they are supposed to consummate their marriage, he faces interference from business rival Silva Vacarro, who plots to seduce Baby Doll away from Meighan.

Boomerang!

Boomerang! · 1947

MovieDramaMystery

When a kindly priest is murdered while waiting at a street corner in a quiet Connecticut town, the citizens are horrified and demand action from the police. All of the witnesses identify John Waldron, a nervous out-of-towner, as the killer. District Attorney Henry Harvey is then put on the case and faces political opposition in his attempt to prove Waldron's innocence.

City for Conquest

City for Conquest · 1940

City for Conquest

MovieRomanceDrama

The heartbreaking but hopeful tale of Danny Kenny and Peggy Nash, two sweethearts who meet and struggle through their impoverished lives in New York City. When Peggy, hoping for something better in life for both of them, breaks off her engagement to Danny, he sets out to be a championship boxer, while she becomes a dancer paired with a sleazy partner. Will tragedy reunite the former lovers?

Panic in the Streets

Panic in the Streets · 1950

Panic in the Streets

MovieThrillerCrime

A medical examiner discovers that an innocent shooting victim in a robbery died of bubonic plague. With only 48 hours to find the killer, who is now a ticking time bomb threatening the entire city, a grisly manhunt through the seamy underworld of the New Orleans Waterfront is underway.

Viva Zapata!

Viva Zapata! · 1952

MovieHistoryDrama

The story of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who led a rebellion against the corrupt, oppressive dictatorship of president Porfirio Díaz in the early 20th century.

Strangers All

Strangers All · 1935

Domestic drama about an elderly woman and her four squabbling adult children.

Man on a Tightrope

Man on a Tightrope · 1953

Man on a Tightrope

MovieDramaThriller

The owner of an impoverished circus in Communist-ruled Czechoslovokia plots to flee across the border to freedom, taking his entire troupe of performers and wild animals with him.

More Like This

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind · 2004

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

MovieScience FictionDrama

Joel Barish, heartbroken that his girlfriend underwent a procedure to erase him from her memory, decides to do the same. However, as he watches his memories of her fade away, he realises that he still loves her, and may be too late to correct his mistake.

Amores Perros

Amores Perros · 2000

MovieDramaThriller

A fatalistic car crash in Mexico city sets off a chain of events in the lives of three people: a supermodel, a young man wanting to run off with his sister-in-law, and a homeless man.

Three Colors: Blue

Three Colors: Blue · 1993

Three Colors: Blue

The wife of a famous composer survives a car accident that kills her husband and daughter. Now alone, she shakes off her old identity and explores her newfound freedom but finds that she is unbreakably bound to other humans, including her husband’s mistress, whose existence she never suspected.

All About My Mother

All About My Mother · 1999

All About My Mother

MovieComedyDrama

Following the tragic death of her teenage son, Manuela travels from Madrid to Barcelona in an attempt to contact the long-estranged father the boy never knew. She reunites with an old friend, an outspoken transgender sex worker, and befriends a troubled actress and a pregnant, HIV-positive nun.

Scarface

Scarface · 1983

MovieActionCrime

After getting a green card in exchange for assassinating a Cuban government official, Tony Montana stakes a claim on the drug trade in Miami. Viciously murdering anyone who stands in his way, Tony eventually becomes the biggest drug lord in the state, controlling nearly all the cocaine that comes through Miami. But increased pressure from the police, wars with Colombian drug cartels and his own drug-fueled paranoia serve to fuel the flames of his eventual downfall.

Rio Bravo

Rio Bravo · 1959

MovieWesternDrama

A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a disabled man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy.

Notorious

Notorious · 1946

MovieDramaRomance

In order to help bring Nazis to justice, U.S. government agent T.R. Devlin recruits Alicia Huberman, the American daughter of a convicted German war criminal, as a spy. As they begin to fall for one another, Alicia is instructed to win the affections of Alexander Sebastian, a Nazi hiding out in Brazil. When Sebastian becomes serious about his relationship with Alicia, the stakes get higher, and Devlin must watch her slip further undercover.

Rome, Open City

Rome, Open City · 1945

Rome, Open City

During the Nazi occupation of 1944 Rome, Resistance leader Giorgio Manfredi is pursued by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a means of escape.

The Celebration

The Celebration · 1998

The Celebration

The family of a wealthy businessman gather to celebrate his 60th birthday. During the course of the party, his eldest son presents a speech that reveals a devastating secret that turns the night into a battle of truth and denial.

Once Upon a Time in America

Once Upon a Time in America · 1984

Once Upon a Time in America

MovieDramaCrime

A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof · 1958

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy who died after an ambiguous accident. His wife is crucified by her desperation to make him desire her: but he resists the affections of his wife. His reunion with his father—who is dying of cancer—jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.

The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada · 2006

The Devil Wears Prada

MovieDramaComedy

A young woman from the Midwest gets more than she bargained for when she moves to New York to become a writer and ends up as the assistant to the tyrannical, larger-than-life editor-in-chief of a major fashion magazine.

The Silence of the Lambs

The Silence of the Lambs · 1991

The Silence of the Lambs

MovieCrimeThriller

Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him out.

The Edukators

The Edukators · 2004

MovieDramaComedy

Three activists cobble together a kidnapping plot after they encounter a businessman in his home.

12 Angry Men

12 Angry Men · 1957

The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? · 1966

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

A history professor and his wife entertain a young couple who are new to the university's faculty. As the drinks flow, secrets come to light, and the middle-aged couple unload onto their guests the full force of the bitterness, dysfunction, and animosity that defines their marriage.

Casablanca

Casablanca · 1943

MovieDramaRomance

In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.

Before Sunrise

Before Sunrise · 1995

MovieDramaRomance

An unexpected meeting on a train leads two travelers to spend an evening wandering through Vienna. As the night unfolds, they share stories and conversations about life and love, exploring new ideas while a quiet intimacy grows between them, knowing it may be their only night together.

Before Sunset

Before Sunset · 2004

MovieDramaRomance

Nine years later, Jesse travels across Europe giving readings from a book he wrote about the night he spent in Vienna with Celine. After his reading in Paris, Celine finds him, and they spend part of the day together before Jesse has to again leave for a flight. They are both in relationships now, and Jesse has a son, but as their strong feelings for each other start to return, both confess a longing for more.

Absolute Power

Absolute Power · 1997

MovieCrimeDrama

A master thief coincidentally is robbing a house where a murder—in which the President of the United States is involved—occurs in front of his eyes. He is forced to run, while holding evidence that could convict the President.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter