Hud (1963) ****1/2

"You take the sinners away from the saints, you're lucky to end up with Abraham Lincoln."

"Happens to everybody. Horses, dogs, men. Nobody gets out of life alive."

Martin Ritt's Hud (1963) is a beautiful and sad revisionist western about the struggle between generations and ideologies. It features a wonderful central performance by Paul Newman as the self-centered, cynical titular character, along with strong, award-winning supporting performances by Melvyn Douglas and Patricia Neal, a sparse, elegiac score by the legendary Elmer Bernstein, and gorgeous, stark cinematography by the versatile James Wong Howe. Very much the antithesis of Shane [review]—released a decade prior (and also starring Brandon De Wilde)—this unflinching, prophetic, humanist film remains a powerful portrait of unresolved familial conflict and the looming specter of capitalism and modernity.

"You're just gonna have to make up your own mind one day about what's right and what's wrong."

"It don't take long to kill. Not like it does to grow."

Recommended for fans of Giant (1956) [review], The Misfits (1961), and The Last Picture Show (1971) [review].