Won For: The Color of Money Should Have Won For: The Hustler or Cool Hand Luke Paul Newman is an incredible actor and a Hollywood legend that the Academy failed to reward for far too long. Newman gave terrific performances in films like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Hud, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Sting, before the Academy finally gave him an Oscar for playing Fast Eddie Felson in Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money in 1986. But here's the problem: Newman had already given a fantastic performance as Eddie Felson a film twenty-five years earlier. In Robert Rossen's The Hustler, Newman portrays a young pool-player determined to make beat the best. He also turned in a celebrated performance in Cool Hand Luke in the titular role, which is one of Newman's most lasting roles. In the movie, Newman plays a defiant man who refuses to obey the rules of the prison system and it's a marvel. Both of these iconic roles were far more deserving of an Oscar than for reprising a character in a sequel with Tom Cruise. This is yet another instance of the Academy trying to make up for a long history of snubbing a particular actor, and it makes it even more galling that the award ended up being for a character that he had already played.
