8 Performances Better Than What The Actor Won An Oscar For

5. Paul Newman

Won For: The Color Of Money, Best Actor in a Leading Role. Better In: The Verdict. Another one which was more of a lifetime achievement award, Paul Newman was basically being rewarded for his work in The Hustler when he won in 1986 for The Color Of Money, Martin Scorsese's sequel to the film which originally gave us the actor as Fast Eddie Felson. Newman reprises one of his most famous roles well - imbuing the character with a new sense of world-weariness to counterbalance the original Fast Eddie's braggadocio - but it doesn't really come close to matching the original, not least because co-star Tom Cruise was on his best 80s scene-stealing form. A much better way to honour the iconic Newman would've been to give him an Oscar for his sublime work in Sidney Lumet's The Verdict, which he was Best-Actor-nominated for, ultimately losing out to Ben Kingsley's performance as Ghandi in the mawkish film of the same name.