The Hustler

The Hustler (1961) is Robert Rossen's drama, available to watch online on iFILM. A young pool shark known as Fast Eddie roams the country's billiard halls chasing one goal: to beat the reigning king of the game, Minnesota Fats.

Eddie's method is simple. Lose a few racks, lull the mark into confidence, push the stakes high, then strip him to his last dollar. The talent is enormous; the temperament drags him under. In New York he finally sits down across from Fats, and a match that runs through the night becomes a brutal education. After it come the cold-eyed gambler Bert Gordon, a drinking, limping woman named Sarah, and the slow realization that winning at the table and winning at life are not the same thing. Paul Newman plays Eddie, Jackie Gleason his rival, with Piper Laurie and George C. Scott pulling the hero in opposite directions.

Rossen shot the film in stark black and white, the smoke-filled pool rooms a character in their own right. It earned two Academy Awards and, a quarter century later, a sequel in The Color of Money, where Newman returned as an older, wiser Eddie. Stream The Hustler (1961) online on iFILM.