The Wild One
The Wild One is a 1953 film from the USA, directed by László Benedek, running 79 minutes. reelscum files it under juvenile delinquent and biker.
- Year
- 1953 · 1950s films
- Country
- USA
- Runtime
- 79 min
- Director
- László Benedek
- Updated
- 10 Aug 2026
- Obscurity
- canon (13/100)
- Banned in
- UK
Defined in the glossary: Juvenile delinquent, Biker
Refused a BBFC certificate for fear it would incite delinquency, and not released in Britain until 1967.
Brando's motorcycle gang takes over a town. The film that invented teenage cool and terrified parents.
The film that started it all, and the ancestor of both the JD picture and the biker cycle. Marlon Brando's leather-clad gang leader rolls into a small town and the anxiety he provokes, asked what he is rebelling against, he answers what have you got, defined teenage cool for a generation and the moral panic that came with it.
It was banned in Britain for over a decade. Tame by later standards, it is the origin point of an entire strand of exploitation, and Brando's mumbling menace still reads. Everything on the biker shelf descends from this.
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