Paul Newman was an actor and artist who rose to stardom quickly. He protected his voice, not once wanting to bend to the heel of a celebrity in excess because he knew that it would be poison. Much of his artistic life has come to light in the recent HBO documentary from Ethan Hawke, The Last Movie Stars. Newman yearned to play against the sexy charismatic figure from externalized pressure. He came up during the switch in character and naturalistic acting that Marlon Brando ushered in. He found ways to subvert those expectations and play against types. Newman loved to dive into characters that were misfits, comedians, and hard-to-love degenerates who struggled with their ambitions. A noted alcoholic, the actor always found ways to bring it into his work and characters.
Even when Newman struggled to bridge his success in the 1960s to the change in American filmmaking in the 1970s, he rediscovered his art in the 1980s with the help of directors like Martin Scorsese and Sidney Lumet, the two guided his art to a more personal, reflective style. Of course, Newman’s legacy isn’t just his influence as an actor, but his entrepreneurial spirit that will lead to a lifetime of giving. The generosity of his craft gave way to the spirit of his life after acting. All profits from his products from Newman’s Own go to a charity that has helped raise more than $750 Million. Here’s a look at Paul Newman’s best performances in film and TV, ranked.
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10 Empire Falls
HBO Films
The last role Newman would film, and you could see him rip off another dozen characters like it if he were still with us. Playing the withered, dying old father to his son (Ed Harris) in the much-forgotten HBO miniseries Empire Falls, Newman shines even though his demeanor reeks of desperation. Clinging to his son, a bit of the old blue-eyed wisdom stems from the goofy antics and miserable drunken behavior he exhibits. Only a supporting role, Newman stands out as you can tell he still had so much more to offer.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
9 Slap Shot
Universal Pictures
Entering the latter part of his career, Newman played the gray-haired misfit who finds himself in bars rebelling against authority figures, a zone he operated in with comedic glee. In Slap Shot, Newman is unhinged, finding a deft balance of leadership and delirium as he goes full tilt to save his minor league hockey team. Collaborating with George Roy Hill (The Sting, Butch Cassidy), the three films they made together found the ideal modicum for Newman to deliver charm and humor without forcing the jokes out of unnatural situations. Also finding art in his alcoholism. Setting the plight of the minor league hockey team against a dying mill-town, the film finds a timely message about capitalism sucking towns dry and depleting its resources, as athletes become throwaways with no safety net to catch them.
8 Somebody Up There Likes Me
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
West Side Story director Robert Wise has a clear, precise vision when crafting a story, visually, around the rough and tumble neighborhoods of New York City. In beautiful black and white, Wise works with Newman (a role originally intended for James Dean before his death) to tell the story of boxing legend Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me. Newman plays the goofy charm, stubborn boy-like nature of a rebel who is hell-bent on never doing any good with a heart and tenacity that converses with where the rest of his career would go. Nailing the aw-shucks but fuck you attitudes of Italians in New York in the 1940s, Newman embodies the physicality of the boxer, knocking out people left and right, but also the desire to turn his life around before the mafia and corrupt forces attempt to break him.
7 Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid
Paramount Pictures
The slapstick nature of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid doesn’t take away from the elegiac and romantic landscapes painted by cinematographer Conrad L. Hall. However, with William Goldman’s script, the partnership of George Roy Hill and Newman, who took Robert Redford under his wing, the tandem proved fruitful enough to create a legendary character for Newman that delivered an entertaining Western. The film underscores the violence with Newman’s drunken humanity, a persona that fits perfectly in the old west setting. Especially with classic bits like the knife fight.
6 Nobody’s Fool
The small town talk of Robert Benton’s Nobody’s Fool was the perfect environment for the freewheeling, grumpy, and sad-sap posturing of Newman’s performance as Sully Sullivan. Sullivan is an old man on the verge of retirement, whose bad knee adds to his strokes of bad luck as he can never seem to do right. Newman plays the character with a blue-collar resilience, but also snarky and comic stubbornness as he fights back against people that want to help him. Playing scenes with Bruce Willis, as the two are rivals, brings out some of the best of Newman in another late-career gem. A movie about betting on an old dog who might have one more surprise in them as Newman wears the old age like a beautifully aged leather baseball glove. The ware and tare are just signs that he can get the job done.
5 The Sting
A crime film less concerned with violence than squaring its shoulders around the comedy of con men attempting to get off jobs against other criminals and dangerous men, The Sting is a classical exercise in executing the big job. Redford and Newman come together again as a duo trying to escape the law. Newman is great as always, as we find him in a pit of despair, hungover, finding comedic beats in his slapstick misery. Out of that, he finds redemption as Redford brings him back to the surface. Shining again as a character you can’t help but love.
4 The Color of Money
Buena Vista Distribution
The only sequel Martin Scorsese has ever made and his sole collaboration with the screen icon Paul Newman, The Color of Money is a decadent showcase for pool hall wisdom, furthering the legacy of 60s classic The Hustler. Newman does some of his best work as the grizzled, blue-eyed drinker who finds a young mind to mold in Tom Cruise’s Vincent Lauria. Newman is great as a fast-talking pool hustler, whose slick talk from years of experience kicks Vincent’s ass. It’s an ode to his superstar persona and cements another iconic Newman character, winning him his first and only Oscar for Best Actor.
3 Hud
One of Newman’s most frequent collaborators is director Martin Ritt. While Ritt lacks the formal ambition of some of his contemporaries and the school of filmmakers that would precede him, the two would team to create sturdy character studies, creating a space for Newman to explore his artistry. In Hud, Newman plays a character that’s a raging bastard. Hud is menacing and violent to the old ways of living passed on by his father, and he defies all. Interpreting the world to his temperaments, Newman manages to stay watchable even though he’s at his most nihilistic. Newman’s Hud fights against the desolate landscape painted by Ritt in his purview.
2 Cool Hand Luke
Warner Bros.
Newman was constantly looking for characters to shift against the superstar celebrity persona he felt thrust upon him when he rose to fame. With Cool Hand Luke, he found the iconic character to go against type, but that also played to his charm, charisma, and sex appeal. Playing the titular Luke, he becomes a leader in a prison of misfits but also their martyr. Squaring off against the cruel wardens who wish to push the inmates to their breaking point, Luke finds a way to get them to love their labor and join in unison to piss the wardens off as it becomes about the degenerate camaraderie. It’s a role Newman was born to play as his cool sweaty bravado leads men to love his character and grit.
1 The Verdict
20th Century Fox
As noted in Hawke’s documentary The Last Movie Stars, when Newman and Lumet decided to join together to make The Verdict, Lumet challenged Newman to act and to pull from his life like an artist should because, during the audition process, the director felt he was sleepwalking through his lines. What then came in the filming of the movie is a work of deep self-reflection, inhabiting the drunken, whiskey-laced lawyer Frank Galvin. A shell of himself, isolated in his drunken ways, Newman finds redemption in one last shot at a big case. Lumet creates a space for Newman to plunge into his despair, ego, and own selfish intents of destroying himself with alcohol. The blue eyes of Newman’s anger pierce deeply as he delivers a work of resonance as he tries to realize his potential one more time.
