With this and his Oscar-nominated performance in Last Tango in Paris (1972), Brando reestablished himself in the ranks of top box-office stars. Eventually, Charles Bluhdorn, the president of Paramount parent Gulf+Western, was won over to letting Brando have the role; when he saw the screen test, he asked in amazement, "What are we watching? Stephen Blackehart has been reported to be the son of Brando, [136] [137] but Blackehart disputes this claim. In 1964, he favored a boycott of his films in South Africa to prevent them from being shown to a segregated audience. Quinn allegedly felt himself to be better suited for the role of Zapata which irked Brando and the latter wanted to challenge his rival to a fair game to decide who was a better fit.

It became so frequent, Ladd apparently complained: "Doesn’t he know any place else where he can go at night? Brando is credited with being one of the first actors to bring the Stanislavski system of acting, and method acting, to mainstream audiences. Film critic Roger Ebert lauded the film, stating that Brando and Kazan changed acting in American films forever and added it to his "Great Movies" list. Loosely based on events in the history of Guadeloupe, the film got a hostile reception from critics. Brando scored enthusiastic reviews for his caricature of his Vito Corleone role as Carmine Sabatini in 1990's The Freshman.Brando was unabashedly a bisexual and Quinn confirmed the Brando-Dylan romance rumours by saying that despite never having seen “anything”, the “word going around then was that Dylan was swinging both ways. While he played the heroic Mexican revolutionary of Irish-Mexican descent, Emiliano Zapata in the 1952 film Viva Zapata!

He was quite annoyed with Begley’s hesitation, saying how everything that he suggested to Begley Jr was always denied.New York Drama Critics voted him "Most Promising Young Actor" for his role as an anguished veteran in Truckline Café, although the play was a commercial failure. The film is based on the novel by Irwin Shaw, and Brando's portrayal of the character Christian Diestl was controversial for its time. Brando conceived the novel with director Donald Cammell in 1979, but it was not released until 2005. However, Paramount studio executives were opposed to casting Brando, due to his reputation for difficulty and his long string of box office flops.