Film

Hud

Name: Hud
Genre: Drama, Western
Released: 1963
Cast: Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas, Patricia Neal, Brandon De Wilde, Whit Bissell

Hud is Paul Newman at his most seductive and most repellent: a black-and-white Texas drama about a rancher's son who charms and ruins everything he touches. It's slow, sun-bleached, and morally unsentimental — no swelling score tells you what to feel. For anyone who likes antiheroes cold, fathers stubborn, and endings unresolved rather than redemptive.

TMDb rating

7.2

If you liked this

Cool Hand Luke1967

Newman's other great performance of charm-as-weapon, another man who refuses to bend to authority of any kind, but funnier and more overtly heroic than Hud ever lets himself be.

But More crowd-pleasing and quotable, so it lacks the queasy moral chill Hud never lets you off.

The Last Picture Show1971

Same author, Larry McMurtry, the same dusty dying Texas town, and the same ache about a vanishing way of life, shot in gorgeous mournful black and white.

But Even bleaker and slower, with less charisma to hang onto — melancholy rather than magnetic.

Giant1956

A sprawling Texas ranch epic across decades, the same clash between old cattle values and new money, with a young Dennis Hopper doing his own quiet rebellion.

But Three hours long and far more soap-operatic; the moral lines are drawn thicker and more sentimentally.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Ace in the Hole1951

Same clinical portrait of a charismatic man exploiting everyone around him for personal gain, in the same stark black-and-white register — just told a decade earlier, in a newsroom instead of on a ranch.

Billy Wilder's ferocious black-and-white drama about a reporter who lets a man die slowly to stretch out his own story — made a decade before Hud and just as unsparing about American self-interest.

But Even colder than Hud, with no ranch, no romance, and barely a flicker of the charm that makes Hud watchable.

Written on the Wind1956

Douglas Sirk's lurid melodrama about a wealthy oil family rotting from entitlement, drenched in colour where Hud is stark and dry.

But Much campier and more theatrical — if you loved Hud's restraint, this will feel like its funhouse opposite.

Hell or High Water2016

A modern West Texas story about men undone by land, debt, and pride, filmed with the same flat, unromantic landscapes and quiet dread.

But It's a heist thriller underneath, with more forward momentum and less of Hud's interior stillness.

There Will Be Blood2007

Another portrait of American ambition curdling into cruelty, with a magnetic monster at its centre and a father-son wound running through everything.

But Far more operatic and stylised; Hud's damage is quieter and scaled to a human size.

No Country for Old Men2007

Same dry Texas plains and the same sense of an older moral order being pushed aside by something colder and more self-interested.

But It's a thriller with a killer stalking the frame — a different genre engine entirely.

East of Eden1955

A father torn between one good son and one wayward one, filmed with the same wide-open sense of a family quietly failing itself.

But More melodramatic and Freudian, with James Dean's anguish louder than anything Newman ever raises his voice to.

Junior Bonner1972no page yet

Steve McQueen as a rodeo cowboy returning to a family ranch and a father he can't quite reconcile with — a gentler cousin to Hud's story.

But Warmer and more nostalgic; it forgives its characters in ways Hud pointedly refuses to.

Dallas1978

Takes Hud's exact engine — a Texas ranching dynasty rotting from greed and pride — and stretches it across years of television, trading the film's austerity for pure melodrama.

Everything Hud only hints at — land, oil, family betrayal, a son who cares more about winning than being good — turned into decade-spanning primetime soap, gloriously unashamed of its own excess.

But Pure pulp with none of Hud's restraint or artistry; hours of cliffhangers and shoulder pads where the film gave you one tight two hours.

Nobody's Fool1994no page yet

Same actor, opposite trajectory — Newman spends Hud refusing responsibility and spends Nobody's Fool, decades later, slowly earning it. Watching both is watching one man argue with his younger self.

Paul Newman, thirty years older, playing a small-town screwup finally circling toward decency — the tender flip side of everything Hud refused to become.

But Warm, funny, and forgiving in ways Hud never allows itself to be; if you want Hud's chill, this will feel like a different man entirely.