Elia Kazan

Known for: On the Waterfront (1954), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Elia Kazan directed A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), On the Waterfront (1954), and East of Eden (1955) while simultaneously maintaining a career as a stage director who helped establish Method acting in America through the Actors Studio. On the Waterfront won him the Academy Award for Best Director and remains contested for its perceived endorsement of his 1952 HUAC testimony, in which he named former colleagues as Communist Party members. He received an honorary Academy Award in 1999 to a divided audience.