The Greatest Paul Newman Films
Like his sometime partner Robert Redford, Paul Newman bridged between the studio system that dominated Hollywood through the 1960s and the New Hollywood approach that rose to prominence in the 1970s. A classically handsome actor who loved to play duplicitous and often complex characters, Newman starred in some of the greatest films of all time, earning multiple Academy Award nominations and one Best Actor win.
Over five decades, Newman saw major changes in how people watched movies. His best films cover nearly every genre, from Westerns to biopics to cartoons. Here are the twenty-five greatest movies featuring Paul Newman, an impressive filmography.
1. Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Paul Newman found the perfect star vehicle in Cool Hand Luke. The story of a petty criminal who refuses to comply with the rules of a Florida prison, Newman makes for the ideal hero of the counterculture movement.
With every killer smile and every winking smirk, Newman wins over criminals and cops. The movie’s religious references might feel a bit heavy-handed, but no one can deny the subversive charm Newman brings to the screen.
2. The Sting (1973)
In his second collaboration with Newman and Robert Redford, director George Roy Hill stripped the duo to their essence, letting them operate on pure charm. Hill drops the duo into a caper by writer David S. Ward, pitting them against a mobster played by Robert Shaw.
Instead of the usual tight tension of a thriller, Hill doubles down on the hangout vibe of Butch and Sundance. The result is the pure pleasure of a movie, an old-school Hollywood star vehicle in a gritty New Hollywood guise.
3. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
By 1969, Newman had already done many revisionist Westerns. But he would bring the genre to its climax with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Co-starring with the equally iconic Robert Redford and under the direction of George Roy Hill, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid finds a balance between the cruel heroes of most revisionist westerns and the smiling cowboys played by Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.
4. The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
Newman made his career by playing good-looking rebels, not those with power. But in the world of the Coen Brothers’ screwball comedy throwback The Hudsucker Proxy, Newman fits right in as scheming businessman Sydney J. Mussburger.
Hoping to tank the stock value of his company Hudsucker Industries, Mussburger hires guileless dupe Norville Barnes as the new president. Newman, quite literally, sinks his teeth into playing the cigar-chomping baddie, clearly enjoying the opportunity to play the heavy for once.
5. The Color of Money (1986)
In The Hustler, Newman proved his worth as an actor by starring alongside the great Jackie Gleeson. In Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money, Newman gets to do the same thing for another future legend, Tom Cruise. Screenwriter Richard Price brings back Newman as Fast Eddie from The Hustler, who has retired from the game but takes an interest in Cruise’s Vincent.
The two form a tense friendship, with Eddie refusing to let go even as he sees Vincent as the obvious next generation. After seven Academy Award nominations, The Color of Money gave Newman his first Best Actor win.
6. Absence of Malice (1981)
In the 1980s, Newman transitioned from part of the new class of movie stars to an elder statesman. Around the same time, studios and blockbusters once again dominated the business. Initially, Newman made a place for himself in thrillers like Absence of Malice, a neo-noir directed by Sydney Pollack.
The film allowed Newman to air his grudge against the New York Post, which led to the newspaper banning the actor. But on the other hand, it also got Newman yet another Oscar nomination for Best Actor.
7. Slap Shot (1977)
Newman had already done a few sports movies by 1977, but Slap Shot is easily his best. Working again with George Roy Hill, Newman gives the genre a new type of scrappy underdog in the form of a minor league hockey team fighting to stay in business.
The movie gets ugly, especially once the punch-drunk Hanson Brothers get involved. But Newman and Hill keep the audience pulling for the heroes as they save their team and blue-collar town.
8. The Verdict (1982)
Newman was hardly down on his luck in 1982, but he had been out of the spotlight enough to play a slimy lawyer in Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict. With a script by playwright David Mamet, The Verdict follows Newman’s character as he develops a conscience during a medical malpractice trial.
In yet another Academy Award-nominated role, Newman returns to the complex characters who made his career while still delivering a crowd-pleasing performance.
9. The Hustler (1961)
Newman’s legend tour continued with The Hustler, the billiards drama that pits him against Jackie Gleeson, who plays the titan of pool Minnesota Fats. As Fast Eddie Felson, Newman seems to draw from his real-world persona to give his upstart real grit and energy.
We may be watching a skilled pool player prove his talent, but we’re really seeing Newman establishing himself among the legends of Hollywood.
10. Nobody’s Fool (1994)
At 69 years old, Newman didn’t have the same good looks he had in the 60s and 70s, but he was still a charmer. So when Robert Brenton needed a likable grump to bring the Richard Russo novel Nobody’s Fool to the big screen, he knew just who to call.
The low-stakes movie moves not on plot but on Newman’s cantankerous presence, getting him one last nomination for the Best Actor Oscar.
11. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)
For his next Western, Newman drew from history to find a character who perfectly embodied the blurred line between lawman and lawbreaker. Directed by the legendary John Huston and written by John Milius, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean retells the tall tale of the titular character, who came into a small town for vengeance and became its marshal.
The ensemble cast gives the movie a glossy Hollywood feel, making good use of Newman’s movie star persona, even while on the frontier.
12. Hud (1963)
Although he certainly played complex characters in the past, Hud gives Newman his first role in what would become the New Hollywood movement. An adaptation of a Larry McMurtry novel, Hud takes a revisionist look at the Western, with Newman playing the arrogant son of a successful rancher.
The twinkle Newman puts in the eye of his duplicitous character whetted the public’s appetite for morally ambiguous characters, stories that made heroes out of crooks and double-crossers.
13. Road to Perdition (2002)
Throughout his five-decade career, Newman had been part of the studio system, the New Hollywood movement, and the rise of the blockbuster. In one of his last outings, he participated in the next big thing in movies: comic book adaptations. Directed by Sam Mendes and written by David Self, Road to Perdition dramatizes the comic by Max Allan Collins and artist Richard Piers Rayner.
The moody film stars Tom Hanks as a mob hit man who takes his son (future Superman actor Tyler Hoechlin) on the run from his adopted father, the cruel gangster John Rooney, played by Newman.
14. Hombre (1967)
For his fourth and final collaboration with Martin Ritt, Newman puts in one of his most striking performances in Hombre. In a nearly wordless role, Newman plays John Russell, a white man raised by Apache.
Russell is pulled between two worlds, especially when other colonists grow more aggressive with the Apache, forcing him to become an unlikely and deeply conflicted hero.
15. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
If The Long, Hot Summer made Newman a sultry leading man, then Cat on a Hot Tin Roof made him one of the most attractive men in Hollywood. As Brik Pollit, Newman starred alongside an equally steamy Elizabeth Taylor, bringing as much heat to the screen as possible without angering censors.
Although Tennessee Williams disliked what director Richard Brooks and co-writer James Poe did to his source material, the film became a hit with audiences and critics, earning six Academy Award nominations, including Best Actor for Newman.
16. Rachel, Rachel (1969)
Not content to be a star, Newman stepped behind the camera several times as a producer and director. He made his directorial debut with Rachel, Rachel, an adaptation of the novel A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence.
Newman chose not to star in the movie, giving up the spotlight to Joanne Woodward and James Olsen. The gambit worked, as Rachel, Rachel earned four Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture.
17. Cars (2006)
Some may see Cars as an ignoble end to Newman’s fantastic filmography. After all, it’s just a voice role in a film best remembered for the toys it sold to kids, and it co-stars hacky comedian Larry the Cable Guy. But Newman brings a weathered dignity to retired race Doc Hudson that deserves attention.
And while it’s hard to justify how Disney uses Newman voice-alikes for Doc to reappear elsewhere, it may be just enough exposure to get the next generation to watch some of the other films on this list.
18. Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (1976)
Few directors embodied the rebellious spirit of the New Hollywood era like Robert Altman, whose chaotic approach created ramshackle flicks that offended the establishment, flicks like M.A.S.H. and The Long Goodbye.
Newman made for the perfect star for Altman’s look at old west hero Buffalo Bill, a natural showman with a trickster’s smirk. The ambling, overstuffed movie may not be to everyone’s tastes, but there’s no denying the fun of watching Newman at the center of this traveling sideshow of a film.
19. What a Way to Go! (1964)
For all of his steely good looks, Newman worked best not as a traditional romantic lead but as a guy with a devilish twinkle in his eye. That quality made him perfect for the black comedy What a Way to Go!, in which he plays the young artist love of idealistic Louisa May Foster (Shirley MacLaine).
Newman’s winking take on a bohemian lover is perfect for the irreverent nature of What a Way to Go!
20. Somebody Up There Must Like Me (1956)
Despite the shortcomings in The Silver Chalice, audiences responded to the pairing of Newman and Italian actress Pier Angeli. So when Newman got his first leading role in 1956’s Somebody Up There Must Like Me, producers wisely teamed him with Angeli once again.
The chemistry between the two helped overcome the fact that Newman looked nothing like his subject, boxer Rocky Graziano. Furthermore, his charm added brightness to a sometimes dark true story and established Newman as a proper Hollywood leading man.
21. Torn Curtain (1966)
Few observers would rank Torn Curtain among the best of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies, but nobody would deny the pure star power of Newman and co-star Julie Andrews. Hitchcock takes full advantage of Newman’s duplicitous screen presence, casting him as an American scientist who seems to defect to East Germany.
But on-set tensions between Newman and Hitchcock seeped into the film, making for an uneven, if still fascinating, movie.
22. Harper (1966)
William Goldman stands as one of the greatest writers in cinema history, the man behind classics such as The Stepford Wives, Marathon Man, and The Princess Bride. But he got his start with the Paul Newman movie Harper. An adaptation of the thriller The Moving Target by Ross Macdonald, Harper lets Newman riff on film noir heroes of old.
Newman never quite pulls off Humphrey Bogart’s rumpled charisma, but his piercing blue eyes make for a compelling screen presence.
23. The Long, Hot Summer (1958)
Unsurprisingly, Newman’s first viewers took notice of his handsome good looks and piercing blue eyes. But it wasn’t until 1958’s The Long Hot Summer that filmmakers put them front and center.
The film’s first critics took exception to the more spicy content in The Long, Hot Summer, claiming that director Martin Ritt and screenwriters Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. borrowed only the sauciest elements from the William Faulkner stories they adapted. Still, time has only been kind to the movie.
24. Exodus (1960)
While it may not have stood the test of time, Exodus proved that Newman could do more than gritty dramas and focused biopics. Directed by Otto Preminger and written by Dalton Trumbo, Exodus features a star-studded ensemble cast, putting Newman beside luminaries such as Eva Marie Saint, Sal Mineo, and Lee J. Cobb.
Having already shared the screen with Orson Welles and Burl Ives, Newman knew how to hold his own alongside big personalities, but Exodus allowed him to do it on a whole new level.
25. The Silver Chalice (1954)
It’s hard to find anyone who likes The Silver Chalice, a movie that even Newman called the worst film of its decade. Stodgy and self-important, The Silver Chalice indulges all of the excesses of the historical epic genre.
And yet, the movie still brought Newman from the stage to the silver screen for the first time, netting him a Golden Globe nomination in the process.
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