Previous poster is in denial and/or confused. I don't know about the rest of you. This is a simple story of love and opportunity, with top notch writing and acting (especially by the lead, Ernest Borgnine). It's clearly written by a cynic (P. Chayefsky, of course), with little sentimentality and little extravagance. As another user here commented, it adds up to more than the sum of its parts. I think this movie is maybe hard for people to understand in the 21st century, as being an simple, moving love story as it might occur to ordinary people. I think people realized its quality more back in the 1950s, because romance in film was obviously unrealistic, and heightened in sentimentality. Since then, films have really blurred the line between these different sorts of love stories, making a film like this seem possibly like its attempting to get laughs, or suffering from naivety or stupidity. This movie doesn't present perfect characters, perfect situations, or manufactured emotions. It's not a perfect film. It's not a fairy tale either - it's a love story. A small-scale, believable, unpretentious love story. One of hope in a world where perfection is a lie.

Marty was a pleasant surprise. It's an incredibly genuine romance that doesn't need melodrama to get its point across. It's simple and sweet. Marty is one of the most likeable characters ever.

This movie is fulla tomatahs!