Top 5 Marlon Brando Films Top 5 Film Performances

Mutiny On The Bounty(1962)

Superman(1978)

The Freshman(1990)

Films

1. Apocalypse Now
2. The Godfather
3. On the Waterfront
4. The Men
5. Morituri
6. A Dry White Season
7. A Streetcar Named Desire
8. Last Tango in Paris
9. The Young Lions
10. The Score


Performances

1. The Godfather
2. Last Tango in Paris
3. On the Waterfront
4. Apocalypse Now
5. The Men
6. A Streetcar Named Desire
7. Morituri
8. Julius Caesar
9. The Young Lions
10. Viva Zapata!




Worst Film - The Brave

Films:
1. The Godfather
2. Apocalypse Now
3. On the Waterfront
4. Mutiny on the Bounty
5. The Freshman

Performances:
1. The Godfather
2. Apocalypse Now
3. On the Waterfront
4. A Streetcar named Desire
5. Last tango in Paris

Julius Caesar has been added.

Well it's clear he has a "I don't give a shit and I'm just doing what I want" attitude in his performance (which makes it bad), but by the same token that's what also makes it work for some people.  It's so bizarre that there is a compelling factor to it.          

I didn't think it was clear that he had a "I don't give a shit attitude and am just going to do what I want." I only realized that once I read about Brando in his later career (he stopped giving a shit long before The Island of Dr. Moreau). I just assumed the director wanted him to play the character as an eccentric nutball because it fits with everything else in the movie. Either way I find the movie itself and his performance very strange and creepy. To be fair the movie was a clusterfuck long before he came on set. In fact, I think his crazy ideas for the character partly save the movie from being a complete disaster. 

I read he was just doing what he wanted in Apocalypse Now too and that is one of the greatest supporting performances in movie history, so I don't agree that an actor winging it automatically makes a performance bad.

That is definitely possible but he did come to set 50 lbs overweight and just kind of strolled in whenever the hell he felt like it. 

I actually prefer Brando's Dr. Moreau over Lancaster's sort of bland take on the character. I haven't read the book but to me it seems that someone who would actually start experimenting with human and animal DNA and creating an Island of mutants would have to be a complete nutcase and that is the way I see the character as presented in the 1996 movie. The movie starts to become much less intersting once Brando's character is killed off and the animals start taking over the island with automatic weapons.