Paul Newman

• Cars (Disney Pixar) | DVD | (27/11/2006) from £8.23  |  Saving you £9.44 (47.20%)  |  RRP £19.99

  Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) is a cocky rookie race car. Speeding on his way to a big race he crashes into Radiator Springs destroying lots of the inhabitants' belongings! In order to make up for what he did the raucous roadster is sentenced to community service. Though he will do anything to get away from the work McQueen must learn to respect and bond with the Radiator Springs inhabitants in order to get out of the town and back on the racetrack... After taking moviegoers magically into the realm of toys bugs monsters fish and superheroes the masterful storytellers and technical wizards at Pixar Animation Studios (The Incredibles Finding Nemo Monsters Inc.) and Academy Award-winning director John Lasseter (Toy Story A Bug's Life) hit the road with a fast-paced comedy adventure set inside the world of cars. Fuelled with plenty of humour action heartfelt drama and amazing new technical feats Cars is a high octane delight for moviegoers of all ages.

• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £3.47  |  Saving you £16.52 (82.60%)  |  RRP £19.99

  Dating from 1969, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid has never lost its popularity or its unusual appeal as a star-driven Western that tinkers with the genre's conventions and comes up with something both terrifically entertaining and--typical of its period--a tad paranoid. Paul Newman plays the legendary outlaw Butch Cassidy as an eternal optimist and self-styled visionary, conjuring dreams of banks just ripe for the picking all over the world. Robert Redford is his more level-headed partner, the sharp-shooting Sundance Kid. The film, written by William Goldman (The Princess Bride) and directed by George Roy Hill (The Sting), basically begins as a freewheeling story about robbing trains but soon becomes a chase as a relentless posse--always seen at a great distance like some remote authority--forces Butch and Sundance into the hills and, finally, Bolivia. Weakened a little by feel-good inclinations (a scene involving bicycle tricks and the song "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" is sort of Hollywood flower power), the film maintains an interesting tautness, and the chemistry between Redford and Newman is rare. (A factoid: Newman first offered the Sundance part to Jack Lemmon.) --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com On the DVD: This anamorphic widescreen print of the 2.35:1 Panavision original looks marvellously crisp, highlighting the sepia tinting and washed-out, over-exposed look of the film nicely and making the best of the deep focus cinematography. The mono soundtrack sounds clean and clear in Dolby 2.0. The commentary track is hosted by documentary-maker Robert Crawford with contributions from George Roy Hill, cinematographer Conrad Hall, and lyricist Hal David (who chips in during the "Raindrops" sequence). The 40-minute documentary dates from 1968 and is narrated by director Hill, who talks in detail about the making-of process, comments on his relationship with the three principals (Katharine Ross was the difficult one apparently), and adds little nuggets such as how they sprayed the bull's testicles to make him charge at the end of the bicycle scene. Also included are a series of absorbing 1994 interviews with all the main players: Newman, Redford, Ross, writer William Goldman, and composer Burt Bacharach. Trailers, Production Notes and an Alternate Credit Roll complete an attractive package. --Mark Walker

• Message In A Bottle | DVD | (18/10/1999) from £2.94  |  Saving you £11.05 (79.00%)  |  RRP £13.99

  If, as they say, you're in a certain mood, Message in a Bottle can be just the ticket. Based on Nicholas Sparks' bestselling novel, this handsome but overly calculated romantic tale stars Robin Wright Penn as Theresa, a Chicago Tribune researcher who finds a note encased in a green bottle that has floated onto a Cape Cod shore. The message within is a heartfelt, yearning declaration of love to a woman named Catherine but the author is unknown until Theresa (rather improbably) tracks him down in North Carolina. He's Garret Blake (Kevin Costner), a taciturn builder of sailboats and a grieving widower whose late wife, poetically speaking, was the intended recipient of the seafaring note Theresa found. Theresa, a divorcée with a son, decides to meet Garret, only to find him as bottled-up as his message. Nevertheless, a romance blooms on the strength of quality time in a sailboat and lots of cuddling, though the script tosses in bits of conflict to keep their relationship spicy. Directed by Luis Mandoki (When a Man Loves a Woman), this love story is entirely by the numbers, with Costner inhabiting (rather than performing) a stock fantasy of a man perfect in every way save his broken heart. Penn brings more vibrancy to her equally predictable part but fortunately for all, Paul Newman, John Savage, Robbie Coltrane and Illeana Douglas are on hand in nicely textured character parts. Sometimes predictability is exactly what one wants when settling in for an evening of home video, and this movie fits the bill nicely. The appealing cinematography is by ace cameraman Caleb Deschanel. --Tom Keogh

• The Towering Inferno | DVD | (01/06/2006) from £2.70  |  Saving you £11.29 (80.70%)  |  RRP £13.99

  Disaster movies used to work because there was little certainty as to who would survive. Not so in this film, really an amalgam of two original stories, about a group of well-to-do celebrants at the top floor of a skyscraper. Cheapo electrical wiring and bad construction management cause an enormous blaze at the lower floors, steadily rising to consume the revellers. Newman's an architect, McQueen a firefighter and Fred Astaire a kind old gentleman, for which he was Oscar-nominated. OJ Simpson plays a security guard who rescues a cat. Now that's a disaster. -- Keith Simanton, Amazon.com

• Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid | Blu Ray | (03/06/2013) from £10.84  |  Saving you £5.15 (32.20%)  |  RRP £15.99

  The Sundance Kid is the fastest gun in the West his sidekick Butch is a dreamer always planning that bigger better bank raid. But things are getting tougher and soon the accident-prone anti-heroes decide it's time to head south and disappear into legend. Winner of 4 Oscars including Best Screenplay for William Goldman and Best Song ('Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head') and Best Score for Burt Bacharach.

• Cool Hand Luke | DVD | (15/09/2008) from £3.04  |  Saving you £16.95 (84.80%)  |  RRP £19.99

  His crime: nonconformity. His sentence: the chain gang. Now you can own the Director's Cut of the 1967 classic Cool Hand Luke in which Paul Newman plays one of his best-loved roles as the loner who won't or can't conform to the arbitrary rules of his captivity. A cast of fine character actors including George Kennedy in his Academy Award-winning role of Dragline gives Newman solid support as fellow prisoners. And Strother Martin is the Captain who taunts Luke with the famous line '""What we've got here is...failure to communicate."" No failure here. With rich humour and vibrant storytelling power 'Cool Hand Luke' succeeds resoundingly.

• Road to Perdition | DVD | (17/03/2003) from £1.99  |  Saving you £15.59 (86.70%)  |  RRP £17.99

  A movie with an impeccable pedigree, Road to Perdition is director Sam Mendes' impressive follow-up to American Beauty, and features remarkable contributions from veteran cinematographer Conrad Hall, composer Thomas Newman and a cast of thespian brilliance led by Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Jude Law. Unfortunately, all their fine efforts have been lavished on an essentially predictable story, adapted from the graphic novel, which here unfolds in an overly leisurely fashion. The result is a movie that looks wonderful but feels a little too much like a contrived morality play. Hanks plays Michael Sullivan, a family man but also a hit man in the employ of mob boss John Rooney (Newman). A surrogate father-figure to Sullivan, Rooney also has a wayward real son, Connor (Daniel Craig), whose duplicity leads to a deadly alienation between the Rooney family and Sullivan. Forced to go on the run with his own 12-year-old son, Michael junior (Tyler Hoechlin), Sullivan seeks both revenge and a way to prevent his boy from one day taking the same dark road as himself. Thus the Road to Perdition becomes both a literal and metaphorical journey for the protagonists. It wouldn't matter that there's little tension or doubt about the outcome, except that Hanks' character is all too clearly a decent chap at heart, thus undermining from the outset any sense of a real "journey" towards redemption. It remains a delight to see all the principals acting at their peak and so capably directed, but ultimately Road to Perdition seems like a series of magnificently staged set-pieces that doesn't quite add up to the sum of its parts. On the DVD: Road to Perdition is presented in an anamorphic version of its original theatrical 2.35:1 ratio with accompanying Dolby 5.1 or DTS sound options. Both picture and sound make the most of the impeccable photography and production design. Extras are a feature commentary from Mendes, a series of deleted scenes also with optional commentary, a standard HBO making of featurette, plus photos, text notes and a trailer for the CD soundtrack. --Mark Walker

• The Sting | DVD | (28/11/2005) from £5.45  |  Saving you £14.54 (72.70%)  |  RRP £19.99

  All it takes is a little Confidence. After the huge success of Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid George Roy Hill re-teamed with Hollywood stars Robert Redford and Paul Newman for this dazzlingly inventive tale about revenge in 1930s Chicago. The Sting is one of the most popular and critically acclaimed films of all time. Set in the 1930's this intricate comedy caper deals with an ambitious small time crook (Robert Redford) and a veteran con man

• The Color Of Money | DVD | (05/02/2001) from £3.48  |  Saving you £11.50 (76.70%)  |  RRP £14.99

  Martin Scorcese handles directing duties in this 1986 sequel to the classic 1961 film The Hustler, which marks the return of Paul Newman to the role of pool shark Fast Eddie Felson. Anxious to break into the big time again, Eddie finds a talented protégé (Tom Cruise) to groom; but with the addition of the latter's manipulative girlfriend (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) and the wild streak in Cruise's character, the trio make for a fascinating portrait in group psychology. The cast is brilliant, the script by Richard Price (Clockers) is a paragon of tightly controlled character study and drama (at least in the film's first half), and Scorcese and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus make an ornate show of the collision and flight of pool balls through space--something of a metaphor for the dynamics among the three principals. The film is generally regarded as weaker in its second half, and rightly so, as everything that was interesting in the first place disappears. Still, Newman won a deserved Oscar for his performance. --Tom Keogh

• Slap Shot | DVD | (01/10/2012) from £4.19  |  Saving you £5.65 (56.60%)  |  RRP £9.99

  Paul Newman and his Butch Cassidy director, George Roy Hill, made a very original comedy in this 1977 story of an over-the-hill player/coach (Newman) for a lousy hockey team who gets results when he teaches his players to get dirty. One of the most hilariously profane movies ever to come out of Hollywood, this is the kind of film that makes its own rules as it goes along. Newman is very good, and while Hill goes for the gusto in terms of capturing the violence of this world, his instinct for comedy has never been sharper. Great support from Strother Martin, Paul Dooley, and the rest. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Cat On A Hot Tin Roof | DVD | (01/06/2006) from £3.01  |  Saving you £10.98 (78.50%)  |  RRP £13.99

  Cat on a Hot Tin Roof offers a smouldering, angry Elizabeth Taylor as Maggie, the feline in question. Paul Newman is her ex-athlete husband, Brick Pollitt, an alcoholic who frustrates and disappoints his wife and his overbearing father, Burl Ives, the vulgar patriarch of this positively Gothic Southern family whose children return to the nest like vultures when they learn he is dying of cancer. Infidelities, addictions, latent homosexuality, depression, unrequited love and mendacity are woven into this powerful adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Though it was somewhat whitewashed by Hollywood, the sentiment remains powerful due to the provocative performances. The film was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor and Actress for Newman and Taylor. --Rochelle O'Gorman, Amazon.com

• The Towering Inferno | Blu Ray | (16/11/2009) from £5.99  |  Saving you £12.00 (66.70%)  |  RRP £17.99

  A dedication ceremony at the world's tallest skyscraper turns into a high-rise catastrophe when an electrical flare-up causes a raging fire trapping society's most prominent citizens on the top floor! Winner of three Academy Awards this spectacular suspense thriller features dazzling special effects and a star-studded cast including Paul Newman Steve McQueen William Holden and Faye Dunaway.

• Exodus | DVD | (02/02/2004) from £4.65  |  Saving you £11.34 (70.90%)  |  RRP £15.99

  Otto Preminger's 1960 adaptation of Leon Uris's novel Exodus is a sprawling tale of the founding of modern Israel, starring Paul Newman as a resistance leader. The film works best as an example of Preminger's estimable skill with all levels of drama and action, but as a reflection upon history it is compromised by stereotypes, unpersuasive relationships and a certain moral ambivalence about issues related to the subject. There are good and exciting sequences, however, particularly one involving an effort to break through a British blockade and get to the homeland. --Tom Keogh

• The Meerkats | DVD | (02/11/2009) from £4.43  |  Saving you £5.56 (55.70%)  |  RRP £9.99

  An inspiring lookat how one family's connection to each other and their surroundings is a model of resilience and fortitude for us all. The story features the coming of age of a young meerkat pup Kolo growing up in the Kalahari desert. Shot using ground-breaking techniques this dramatised documentary is a one-of-a-kind presentation from The Weinstein Company and the BBC the world's pre-eminent nature filmmakers.

• The Sting | DVD | (23/07/2007) from £5.61  |  Saving you £4.38 (43.80%)  |  RRP £9.99

  Winner of seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, this critical and box-office hit from 1973 provided a perfect reunion for director George Roy Hill and stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford, who had previously delighted audiences with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969. Set in 1936, The Sting features a pair of Chicago con artists (Newman and Redford) who find themselves in a high-stakes game against the master of all cheating mobsters (Robert Shaw) when they set out to avenge the murder of a mutual friend and partner. Using a bogus bookie joint as a front for their con of all cons, the two feel the heat from the Chicago Mob on one side and encroaching police on the other. But in a plot that contains more twists than a treacherous mountain road, the ultimate scam is pulled off with consummate style and panache. It's an added bonus that Newman and Redford were box-office kings at the top of their game, and while Shaw broods intensely as the Runyon-esque villain, The Sting is further blessed by a host of great supporting players including Dana Elcar, Eileen Brennan, Ray Walston, Charles Durning, and Harold Gould. Thanks to the flavourful music score by Marvin Hamlisch, this was also the movie that sparked a nationwide revival of Scott Joplin's ragtime jazz, which is featured prominently on the soundtrack. One of the most entertaining movies of the early 1970s, The Sting is a welcome throwback to Hollywood's golden age of the 30s that hasn't lost any of its popular charm. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Road To Perdition | Blu Ray | (24/05/2010) from £6.95  |  Saving you £13.04 (65.20%)  |  RRP £19.99

  A movie with an impeccable pedigree, Road to Perdition is director Sam Mendes' impressive follow-up to American Beauty, and features remarkable contributions from veteran cinematographer Conrad Hall, composer Thomas Newman and a cast of thespian brilliance led by Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Jude Law. Unfortunately, all their fine efforts have been lavished on an essentially predictable story, adapted from the graphic novel, which here unfolds in an overly leisurely fashion. The result is a movie that looks wonderful but feels a little too much like a contrived morality play. Hanks plays Michael Sullivan, a family man but also a hit man in the employ of mob boss John Rooney (Newman). A surrogate father-figure to Sullivan, Rooney also has a wayward real son, Connor (Daniel Craig), whose duplicity leads to a deadly alienation between the Rooney family and Sullivan. Forced to go on the run with his own 12-year-old son, Michael junior (Tyler Hoechlin), Sullivan seeks both revenge and a way to prevent his boy from one day taking the same dark road as himself. Thus the Road to Perdition becomes both a literal and metaphorical journey for the protagonists. It wouldn't matter that there's little tension or doubt about the outcome, except that Hanks' character is all too clearly a decent chap at heart, thus undermining from the outset any sense of a real "journey" towards redemption. It remains a delight to see all the principals acting at their peak and so capably directed, but ultimately Road to Perdition seems like a series of magnificently staged set-pieces that doesn't quite add up to the sum of its parts. On the DVD: Road to Perdition is presented in an anamorphic version of its original theatrical 2.35:1 ratio with accompanying Dolby 5.1 or DTS sound options. Both picture and sound make the most of the impeccable photography and production design. Extras are a feature commentary from Mendes, a series of deleted scenes also with optional commentary, a standard HBO making of featurette, plus photos, text notes and a trailer for the CD soundtrack. --Mark Walker

• Road To Perdition/ Miller's Crossing/ Capone | DVD | (27/04/2009) from £5.90  |  Saving you £3.68 (36.80%)  |  RRP £9.99

  Miller's Crossing: The year is 1929. The place is a gangster-ridden American city run by Leo (Albert Finney). But the real power lies with Tom (Gabriel Byrne) the power behind the man. Their friendship is severed when they both fall in love with the same woman (Marcia Gay Harden) and a bloody gang war erupts... Road To Perdition: Two-time Academy Award-winner Tom Hanks stars as Michael Sullivan a father fighting to keep his only son from traveling the Road To Perdition. Directed by Oscar-winner Sam Mendes this towering motion picture achievement has been acclaimed by audiences and critics alike as one of the year's most extraordinary films. Capone: The man who made the Twenties roar! The story of the rise and fall of the infamous Chicago gangster Al Capone (Ben Gazzara) and the control he exhibited over the city during the prohibition years as well as with his subsequent fall...

• Cars Combi Pack (Blu-ray + DVD) | Blu Ray | (02/11/2009) from £9.07  |  Saving you £14.92 (62.20%)  |  RRP £23.99

  Few would put up too much of a convincing argument that Cars is Pixar?s best film. But when merchandising is brought into the equation, it?s easily its most lucrative, and it certainly has a legion of fans. With good reason too. If you can forgive the very flabby second act, the story of Lightning McQueen as he attempts to race his way to glory is really good fun, complete with some very clever characterisations of the cars themselves. It?s also a stunning looking film, and that?s where the Blu-ray disc comes in. For even if you?re one of those who believes that Cars is the weakest Pixar movie, there?s little doubting just how wonderful it looks in high definition. Take the race sequence at the start. It?s a scene that could sell a thousand 1080p television sets on the spot, so amazing does it look. It?s matched by a cinema-standard surround sound mix that rewards every penny invested in home cinema hardware. And, to be fair, the film itself is still pretty good. Cars is too long, certainly, and it?s lacking some of the charms of Pixar?s other movies. But it?s rollicking good fun, and perhaps has been harshly treated by some reviewers simply by comparison to other Pixar features. For compared with much of what everyone else is putting out, Cars is both superior family entertainment, and one of the best looking Blu-ray discs on the market. It?s hard to grumble too much about that. --Jon Foster

• The Hustler | DVD | (19/08/2002) from £1.89  |  Saving you £18.10 (90.50%)  |  RRP £19.99

  ""Newman is outstanding."" -Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide Paul Newman is electrifying as Fast Eddie Felson an arrogant amoral hustler who haunts backstreet pool rooms fleecing anyone who'll pick up a cue. Determined to be acclaimed as the best Eddie seeks out the legendary Minnesota Fats who's backed by Bert Gordon a predatory gambler. Eddie can beat the champ but virtually defeats himself with his low self-image. The love of a lonely woman could turn Eddie's life around

• The Stepford Wives | DVD | (09/08/2004) from £14.99  |  Saving you £-2.00 (-15.40%)  |  RRP £12.99

  Ira Levin's scary novel about forced conformity in a small Connecticut town made the Stepford Wives a compelling 1975 thriller. Katharine Ross stars as a city woman who moves with her husband to Stepford and is startled by how perpetually happy many of the local women seem to be. Her search for an answer reveals a plot to replace troublesome real wives with more accommodating fake ones (not unlike the alien takeover in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers). The closer she gets to the truth, the more danger she faces--not to mention the likelihood that the men in town intend to replace her as well. Screenwriter William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and director Bryan Forbes (King Rat) made this a taut, tense semi-classic with a healthy dose of satiric wit. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com