Marty

The simple, heartbreaking story of a man (Ernest Borgnine) who's given up on the whole dating scene. His younger siblings are all married, and his mother is bugging him to find a nice Italian girl, but he's had enough rejection. And then, wonder of wonders, one night he meets Clara (Betsy Blair), a plain and plain-spoken chemistry teacher, and they hit it off. But his mother, for all her nagging, is suddenly afraid of being left alone, and tries to persuade Marty that Clara's not the girl for him. Paddy Chayefsky's screenplay and Delbert Mann's subtle direction capture perfectly the yawning loneliness of Marty's bachelor life: hanging out in bars with buddies, the awkward phone calls to girls who'd rather not hear from him, the disappointment of crushed dreams and the daring it takes to develop new hope.