J Paul Johnson
Hud has always been a brilliant, beautiful movie, if one that seemed a part of our collective cinematic past, so firmly ensconced in its original context as a contemporary western from a time when the West had become modern—and, in doing so, became lost. The Criterion Collection’s new 4K UHD edition not only gives the film’s visual presentation an upgrade over extant home media but also offers a stark reminder that Hud still has something to say in an age when young men face an even more daunting future and ever fewer role models to look to.
Directed by Martin Ritt from a screenplay by husband-wife team Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr., adapting Larry McMurtry’s short novel Horseman, Pass By, Hud was an odd, perhaps even ugly, duckling of a project that deeply concerned the studio heads at Paramount, where Ritt was beginning a three-picture distribution deal. It was thought too dark, too plain, too direct, too uncomely to woo theatergoers. Ritt held his ground and, with his team, made an uncompromising film, an adaptation that took liberties with its source to create an entirely new kind of not-Western.
Starring a prime Paul Newman as the titular rancher named Hud, the film upended the perspective of Horseman, Pass By, which was narrated by the character’s younger nephew, Lonnie, played in the film by Brandon de Wilde; while the relationship between the two remained at the core of the narrative, Ritt’s Hud centered Newman’s antihero as its focus and in doing so created one of cinema’s most memorable characters, a loathsome loner of a lothario who can neither follow in his father’s footsteps nor figure out a foreseeable future for himself.
As Hud Bannon, Newman is simultaneously undeniably charismatic and absolutely unprincipled. He’s not only the type to woo (and have sex with) the local ladies but taunt their husbands and flaunt his conquests in the process. His honor-bound father Homer (Melvyn Douglas) owns the ranch Hud stands to inherit, but when a bovine disease threatens their herd, the two men have directly opposed views on how to move forward. Homer’s is bound by a dying tradition of honor, dignity, and integrity; Hud’s, by a venal, callow desire for an easy life. As their conflict grows, so too does young Lonnie’s understanding of the two men, each of them representing a very different version of masculinity, and the forces that drove them apart.
And in an Oscar-winning performance, Patricia Neal, third-billed and earning just $30,000 for 22 minutes of screen time, plays the Bannons’ world-weary housekeeper, always working and always watching. Neal is simultaneously put-upon and sultry, attracted to Newman’s smoldering sexuality but way too smart to yield to his smarm. In the novel, her character was black, but Ritt rightly figured there was no way audiences in 1963 were ready for interracial romance. Here, her presence moves all three Bannon men, if in entirely different ways, and becomes the means by which young Lonnie can finally see his uncle for the man he truly is.
As effortlessly charismatic as Newman’s Hud may be, his is not a heroic cowboy of generations past. He’s unable to do the right thing, always seeking the quickest score, the simplest solution, if in ways that will ultimately cost him everything and everyone he knows. Alongside Neal (Best Actress) and Douglas (Supporting Actor), cinematographer James Wong Howe won the film’s third Academy Award for his simple, often desolate, even stultifying depiction of a modern yet decrepit American West where convertibles and bulldozers share spaces with cattle and horses. The more you look at it, the more Hud‘s austere angles, static perspectives, and intentional framing and blocking create a portrait of a cowboy lost in time.
And, it should be said, a narrative that closely examines a man without principles, who cannot value his land, his country, his own family, his property, or, especially, women—that is a narrative that resonates all too clearly today. The ascension of Trump to the presidency and to the centrality of American life in the 2020s is one Hud somehow presciently foretells. Today, hundreds of thousands of young American men are casting off tradition, value, knowledge, education, science, and empathy for others, seeking only to be self-satisfied. Ritt and Newman warned us over six decades ago that a Hud was no man of the future; today, with the benefit of hindsight, we can only wish we’d listened more closely.
Criterion presents Hud in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 in a new 4K restoration created from the original 35mm camera negative and using a print provided by Paramount Pictures as a source reference. As is their usual practice, Criterion provides both a 4K UHD disc in HDR and a second Blu-ray disc in SDR on which the film’s special features can be found. Picture quality is indeed impressive, without doubt an improvement upon prior Blu-ray releases: Howe’s high-key, high-contrast compositions feature blinding white skies and dramatic shadows, desolate landscapes and layered compositions in a fine, natural-looking texture. There is a slight, if palpable, difference between the picture quality of the two discs: consumers looking to save a few dollars by purchasing the single-disc Blu-ray and not the 4K will certainly not be disappointed by their decision. The audio quality of the uncompressed monaural soundtrack, from the dialogue to Elmer Bernstein’s contemplative acoustic score, is consistently crystalline throughout.
Special Features
To their credit, Criterion has compiled a delightful set of ancillary features for this new edition of Hud, both collecting some pointed archival content and conducting some excellent new interviews.
Martin Ritt. This 42-minute audio-only interview from a February 1974 Harold Lloyd Masters Seminar at the American Film Institute features the director responding candidly and thoughtfully to a variety of questions from both the audience and from panelists James Powers, Leroy Macdonald, and Ted Lange. The topics are, given the nature of the presentation, in no particular order, but range delightfully from adapting the source novel, finessing the film’s ending, managing studio expectations, and working with cast members Newman and Neal. Accompanied onscreen by a single static close-up image of Ritt on the set of Hud, the archival recording is of passable quality—audible, if not especially clear—that would have benefited immensely from subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing, which are not provided for any of the featurettes but are most necessary here.
Sally Field and Isaac Butler. In this delightful 33-minute interview conducted for the Criterion Collection earlier this year, the Academy Award-winning actress, who worked with Ritt on three films including 1979’s Norma Rae, talks with author and film critic Isaac Butler (The Method, Slate‘s Working podcast) about her experiences working with Ritt and Newman and on the merits of Hud, more generally. At 79, Field is as ebullient, effervescent, and enthusiastic as ever, an insightful admirer of the film’s directness and seriousness. Butler is an adept interviewer, a prominent researcher of the Stanislavsky method. The conversation, interspersed with occasional clips, stills, and publicity shots, takes some surprising turns and makes for a delightful featurette. I wish it went on for hours.
Roger Deakins. In this 20-minute interview also recorded for The Criterion Collection earlier this year, the famed cinematographer expresses his admiration for the simplicity and candor of Hud’s director of photography James Wong Howe. This too is an excellent segment, focusing both on the technical details of selected scenes and on the ways in which the medium has changed over the decades. For all his own accomplishments, Deakins makes for an astute critic and aficionado of Howe’s work on Hud, knowledgeable about both the production and the impact and effects of Howe’s technique.
Inside the Actors Studio: Paul Newman. This 1994 full-length (41-minute) episode of the long-running Bravo series hosted by James Lipton features Newman, then at 68 the current President of the Actors Studio, on a variety of topics. Newman considered himself at first more of an oratorical actor who learned elements of method acting along the course of his early career, keeping, as he says, “his mouth shut and his ears open.” The wide-ranging discussion only infrequently touches on his performance in Hud but is always engaging and informative.
Also included in the regular Criterion Collection double-disc clear jewel-case packaging is a beautifully designed 32-page black-and-white insert booklet featuring a new cover by Eric Skillman; an essay “No Place for Heroes” by author and film scholar Gabriel Miller (The Films of Martin Ritt: Fanfare for the Common Man); a 1963 American Cinematographer interview with Howe; cast, crew, and technical information; and a handsome selection of stills from the film.
What else might have Criterion included? Most prior home-media editions of Hud have had no special features, save for last year’s Imprint Films limited edition release, which commissioned two new and informative ancillaries: an audio commentary by film historians C. Courtney Joyner and Julie Kirgo and a 35-minute interview with actress and filmmaker Ileanna Douglas, granddaughter of Melvyn Douglas. I miss the days when a new Criterion Collection release might include, like with Red River, The Furies, The Man Who Fell to Earth, or Short Cuts, a separate copy of the source material: here, Larry McMurtry’s Horseman, Pass By is a fantastic point of comparison, given the film’s radical reworking of its perspective and elevating Hud to its central (titular) character.
Yet these four featurettes as presented, in addition to the booklet content, make for an excellent packaging of Hud, one that both looks to present the film’s merits in its historical context as a modern (neo-) Western and from a contemporary perspective, especially at a historical moment where honor and dignity are largely lost and masculinity is more in crisis than ever. Watching Hud in 2026 is very nearly a revelatory experience. If you haven’t recently, here is an excellent invitation to do so; if you never have at all, consider these your marching orders:
Go watch Hud.
