Marlon Brando successful film, he won his second Academy Award for playing Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather", a role critics consider among his greatest. "The Godfather" was then one of the most commercially successful films of all time. With that and his Oscar-nominated performance in "Last Tango in Paris", Brando re-established himself in the ranks of top box-office stars, placing sixth and tenth in the Money Making Stars poll in 1972 and 1973, respectively. Brando took a four-year hiatus before appearing in "The Missouri Breaks" (1976). After this, he was content with being a highly paid character actor in
Joshua Logan his own "Picnic" (1955), which was popular and earned Logan an Oscar nomination. His next movie, "Bus Stop" (1956) with Marilyn Monroe, was another hit. Logan returned to Broadway, directing "Middle of the Night" by Paddy Chayefsky which ran 477 performances. He went to Japan to direct Marlon Brando in "Sayonara" (1957), which earned him a second Oscar nomination for Best Director. Then he did the big screen version of "South Pacific" (1958). Logan went back to Broadway and directed "Blue Denim" (1958, 166 performances) and the hugely popular "The World of Suzie Wong" (1958–60) (508 performances). He produced "Epitaph