Hombre (1967)

Hombre is probably both one of the most underrated Westerns of the 1960s and one of the most underrated movies in Paul Newman's filmography. It also reflects its mid-to-late sixties moment quite potently, both in terms of changing racial sensibilities and newfangled definitions of heroism. Martin Ritt's even-handed direction is effective, as is the caliber of Elmore Leonard's writing, but the movie is most notable for Newman's severely callous, alienated, and misanthropic performance—one of the most remarkable of his long career. Bracketed with Lee Marvin's stunning turn in Point Blank from that same year, along with some of Clint Eastwood's and Steve McQueen's menacingly laconic performances from that time period, Newman in Hombre signaled that the times were, indeed, a-changing. Simply put, the old morality and sentimentality were no longer sufficient, even in the Western genre.