Paul Newman: 10 essential films

In his posthumously published 2022 memoir, Paul Newman describes his movie stardom almost as something he fell into. Claiming he “never enjoyed acting”, with the appeal of Hollywood partly being the route it offered him out of smalltown Ohio, Newman thought also that success came to him because of his looks rather than talent, stating: “It was my appearance that got me in the door… it was like being a guy with a trust fund who doesn’t have to work.”

Newman, however, studied acting at the Actors Studio and Yale and put in some hard yards in the theatre before he was suddenly, in the mid-1950s, vaulted into lead roles in movies. And if on screen he was often cool, not unlike his box office rival Steve McQueen, Newman was also frequently insecure and unheroic, playing screw-ups, con artists, big drinkers – not necessarily typical movie star roles – with a determination that he kept up all through his career. The looks may have helped him break into movies, but it was Newman’s skill at making root-worthy human beings of antiheroes that brought him acting Oscar nominations (nine, in total) across five different decades. It kept his name at the top of the bill until his very last film….