Trama

Mob-connected union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) gloats about his iron fist control of the waterfront. The police and the Waterfront Crime Commission know that Friendly is behind a number of murders, but witnesses play "D and D" ("deaf and dumb"), accepting their subservient position rather than risking the danger and shame of informing.

Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) is a dockworker whose brother Charley "the Gent" (Rod Steiger) is Friendly's right-hand man. Some years earlier, Terry had been a promising boxer, until Friendly had Charley instruct him to deliberately lose a fight that he could have won, so that Friendly could win money betting against him.

Terry is coerced into luring fellow worker Joey Doyle (Ben Wagner) onto a rooftop, where he believes Friendly's henchmen want to talk Joey out of testifying to the Waterfront Crime Commission. Terry assumed that Friendly's enforcers were only going to "lean" on Joey to pressure him into silence. When they instead murder Joey by throwing him off the roof, Terry confronts Friendly but is threatened and bribed into acquiescence.

Friendly says that his mother raised 10 kids on their father's meager pension, and he had to beg for work at the docks when he was 16. Friendly says that today the docks have 2000 workers, and they pay $72,000 in protection money to him, which pays everyone's salaries. Friendly takes his cut on everything that moves in and out of the docks. Friendly argues that the whole operation would be shut down due to one person squealing to the cops. Friendly controls the docks and he decides who works at the docks or not.

Lead Investigator for Crime Commission (Leif Erickson) reaches out to Terry at the docks and wants him to testify, which Terry flatly refuses.

Joey's sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint), angry about her brother's death, shames "waterfront priest" Father Barry (Karl Malden) into fomenting action against the mob-controlled union. Father Barry asks Edie to have patience as everybody in the neighborhood knows the forces behind Joey's death, but nobody is willing to testify. Barry invites the dock workers to the church for a meeting to encourage them to stand up for their rights.

Friendly sends Terry to attend and inform on a dockworkers' meeting Father Barry holds in the church. Very few workers show up and nobody is willing to talk about who killed Joey. The meeting is broken up by Friendly's men. Terry helps Edie escape the violence and is smitten with her. Edie lives with Pop Doyle (John F. Hamilton), who warns Edie that Terry is the brother of Charley, who is Friendly's right hand man and a brutal operator. Edie is charmed by Terry's soft manners and his sensitive side. Terry tells Edie that at the docks it is every man for himself and just surviving is a challenge.

Another dockworker, Timothy J. "Kayo" Dugan (Pat Henning), who agrees to testify after Father Barry promises unwavering support, ends up dead after Friendly arranges for him to be crushed by a load of whiskey in a staged accident.

Although Terry resents being used as a tool in Joey's death, and despite Father Barry's impassioned "sermon on the docks" reminding the longshoremen that Christ walks among them and that every murder is a Calvary, Terry is at first willing to remain "D and D", even when subpoenaed to testify. However, when Edie, unaware of Terry's role in her brother's death, begins to return Terry's feelings, Terry is tormented by his awakening conscience and confesses the circumstances of Joey's death to Father Barry and Edie. Horrified, Edie breaks up with him.

As Terry increasingly leans toward testifying, Friendly decides that Terry must be killed unless Charley can coerce him into keeping quiet. Charley tries bribing Terry with a good job and finally threatens Terry by holding a gun against him, but recognizes that he has failed to sway Terry, who blames his own downward spiral on his well-off brother.

Terry reminds Charley that had it not been for the fixed fight, Terry's prizefighting career would have bloomed. "I could have been a contender," laments Terry to his brother, "Instead of a bum, which is what I am - let's face it."

Charley gives Terry the gun and advises him to run. Terry flees to Edie's apartment, where she first refuses to let him in but finally admits her love for him. Friendly, having had Charley watched, has Charley murdered and his body hung in an alley as bait to lure Terry out to his death, but Terry and Edie both escape the attempt on Terry's life.

After finding Charley's body, Terry sets out to shoot Friendly, but Father Barry prevents it by blocking Terry's line of fire and convincing Terry to fight Friendly by testifying instead. Terry proceeds to give damaging testimony implicating Friendly in Joey's murder and other illegal activities, causing Friendly's mob boss to cut him off and Friendly to face indictment.

After the testimony, Friendly announces that Terry will not find employment anywhere on the waterfront. Terry is shunned by his former friends and by a neighborhood boy who had previously looked up to him. Refusing Edie's suggestion that they move away from the waterfront together, Terry shows up during recruitment at the docks. When he is the only man not hired, Terry openly confronts Friendly, calling him out and proclaiming that he is proud of what he did.

The confrontation develops into a vicious brawl, with Terry getting the upper hand until Friendly's thugs' gang up on Terry and nearly beat him to death. The dockworkers, who witness the confrontation, show their support for Terry by refusing to work unless Terry is working too and pushing Friendly into the river. Encouraged by Father Barry and Edie, the badly injured Terry forces himself to his feet and enters the dock, followed by the other workers.

A soaking wet and face-scarred Friendly, now left with nothing, swears revenge on them all, but his threats fall on deaf ears as they enter the garage, and the door closes behind them.