Paul Newman is arguably one of the best actors to ever have graced the silver screen, amongst the likes of Marlon Brando and Jimmy Stewart. Newman received countless accolades throughout his 59-year career including nine Academy Award nominations for Best Actor/Supporting Actor and one for Best Picture. From Hud to Road to Perdition, his long-standing career in the industry was lauded with critical and commercial praise.

Newman passed away in 2008, but his body of work still stands to this day. The actor had the innate ability to personify a role entirely. In fact, selecting a defining piece of work for the accomplished actor would prove too great a challenge. Nevertheless, here is a look at a handful of his movies without which we simply could not live.

Updated, September 2022: To keep the article fresh and relevant by adding more information and entries, this article has been updated by Rafa Boladeras.

Harper

Harper - Paul Newman
Warner Bros.

Newman was all charisma, a trait that served him very well over the years and made him a movie star. Harper is one of the films where this quality is shown best (and that’s saying a lot). Newman plays Lew Harper as a smooth, self-aware private detective with a great sense of humor about himself and his situation. This character in a noir movie was kind of a revelation, as Newman’s Harper was in the joke about how strange a private detective life can be. He was less a tough guy and had a more wry smile as he got what he wanted. The movie was adapted from a book by Ross Macdonald and written by the legendary screenwriter William Goldman, who gave the movie a different rhythm and the character's sense of humor. Harper is a Neo-noir movie that loves the genre's old films. A fact showed everywhere: especially in the casting of Lauren Bacall (THE femme fatale of noir films) as the wealthy woman who appears in his office to assign him the case of finding his rich husband. Newman loved playing Harper so much that, years later, he reprised the role in The Drowning Pool.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Newman played the lead character Brick, in the film adaptation of Tennessee Williams Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, in the role that got him his first Academy Award nomination. His character is a sad alcoholic, who refuses the advances of his beautiful wife (Elizabeth Taylor, also nominated for an Academy Award for the role). Once they go to visit his cancer-stricken father, Big Daddy, all of Brick’s feelings and traumas come to the front. Although they had to change a big part of the ending to appease the Hollywood censors of the time, Newman and Taylor’s performances are incredible, magnetic, and raw; as they both elevate each other's acting abilities, making a meal of each of their scenes together.

The Verdict

Paul Newman in The Verdict
20th Century Fox

Newman challenged himself with an unlikable role: Frank Galvin in The Verdict. Galvin is an alcoholic, almost out of his profession lawyer, who finds one last chance to redeem himself when he accepts litigating a medical malpractice case and not settling. Galvin knows this might be it for him and takes a side, his ego and future for something bigger than him: justice. This movie had a dream team at the top of their game: Sydney Lumet directing, David Mamet penning the script, and Newman, Charlotte Rampling, and Jack Warden acting the hell out of it. Lumet wanted to extract a new and different kind of acting from Newman, and the actor didn’t disappoint in a tour-the-force performance. About the movie, director Sidney Lumet said in his book Making Movies: “When I received yet another script of The Verdict, I reread Mamet’s version, which he’d given me months earlier. I said I would do it if we went back to that script. We did. Paul Newman read it, and we were off and running.”

Cool Hand Luke

Cool Hand Luke
Warner Bros.-Seven Arts

If one were to assign a ‘schtick’ to the iconic actor, it would be “all-American anti-hero” based on his characters in Hud, Hombre, and The Hustler, to name a few. In Cool Hand Luke, we are introduced to Lucas “Luke” Jackson, the ultimate anti-hero. Jackson is a non-conformist, anti-establishment, petty criminal (busted for vandalizing parking meters), who ends up in a Florida prison chain gang. The film follows him through numerous escape attempts and the consequences that inevitably follow. With every escape attempt he earns the respect of his fellow inmates, who vicariously thrive on his anti-authoritarianism. While Luke becomes a beacon of hope for the inmates, he simultaneously creates a target on his back with the captain (Strother Martin), who is determined to make an example of Luke. As the film progresses, tensions mount, and the audience is eventually confronted with the tragic fact that Luke’s inability to capitulate to authority will ultimately become his undoing.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
20th Century Studios

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is loosely based on the exploits of real-life outlaws Robert Leroy Parker and Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, played by Paul Newman and Robert Redford, respectively, in one of the best biopics ever made. Newman and Redford are perfectly paired as the bank and train robbing duo. Their chemistry in the film is brilliant, and their witty repartee crafts many of the film’s quippy one-liners and its status as a “buddy film”. Throughout the film, the audience follows the pair's misadventures until they cross the wrong man, EH Harriman of the Union Pacific Railroad, who has his eye on revenge. Harriman hires a posse after the legendary outlaws, which forces them on the run to South America, where they ultimately end up in a stand-off with the Bolivian Army. Newman's Cassidy is not your typical outlaw, which is evident in his distaste for violence, his penchant for bike riding, and his willingness to go on the lam.

The Sting

The-Sting-1

Universal Pictures

Newman and Redford rekindled their Butch & Sundance bromance for The Sting. Written by David S. Ward, The Sting is inspired by real-life grifters Fred and Charley Gondorff as written in David Maurer’s book The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man. The Sting, at its core, is a revenge movie, but also one of the best gambling movies ever. It follows the story of Johnny Hooker (Redford), an aspiring con-man, and Henry Gondorff (Newman) a professional con-man in hiding from the FBI. Following the murder of mutual friend Luther Coleman (Robert Earl Jones), Johnny Hooker seeks revenge on Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) the notorious mob boss responsible. He tries to enlist the help of Gondorff, who is initially reluctant to take part in the scheme but eventually comes around. Despite a complicated plot, the movie is well-paced and brilliantly directed, and is regarded as one of the best screenplays ever written.

Related: Robert Redford's Ten Best Movie Roles Ranked

The Hustler

The Hustler
20th Century Fox

Paul Newman stars as “fast” Eddie Felson in his breakthrough role in The Hustler. The movie follows Newman’s Felson as a trifling pool hustler who is very talented but has self-destructive tendencies. His ego forces him to challenge the best pool hustler “Minnesota Fats” (Jackie Gleason) to a high-stakes match. Felson loses not only the match but also his confidence. The movie then follows him on the road to redemption. Conflict ensues when his relationship with his manipulative “manager” Bert Gordon (George C. Scott) starts to interfere with his relationship with his girlfriend Sarah Packard (Piper Laurie). Soon Eddie must decide what the cost of winning is worth.

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The Color of Money

Tom-Cruise-and-Paul-Newman-in-the-pool-house-in-The-Color-of-Money-1
Touchstone Pictures

In the quasi-sequel The Color of Money, directed by Martin Scorsese, Paul Newman reprises his role as "fast" Eddie Felson. Twenty-five years have passed, and Eddie is now a successful liquor salesman. One night he sees a kid named Vincent Lauria (Tom Cruise) playing pool, and the kid is so good it gives Eddie a taste of the old days. The kid is not concerned with money or the con, but Felson senses an opportunity and begins to manipulate Vincent in the name of making a buck. The storyline comes full circle back to the original when ultimately Eddie winds up becoming the thing he hates the most… Bert Gordon. Eventually Eddie and Vincent have a falling out and go their separate ways, only to reunite later on in the film as opponents.