Cool Hand Luke has one of cinema’s best character introductions and film openings.

| Oct 10, 2024

There’s more than a bit of Christ allegory in the imagery but it’s the character of the scruffy prisoners in the impoverished prison... that gives the film its juice.

| May 6, 2023

In a career filled with iconic anti-heroes -- including what I deem the “4-H Club” from the 1960s (Hud, Harper, Hombre, and The Hustler) -- Lucas Jackson just might be the most popular of all the societal misfits played by Paul Newman.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 8, 2023

Between the thoughtfulness of the narrative and both Newman’s and Kennedy’s performances (for which the latter won an Oscar), one can see why the film is as beloved as it is 56 years later.

| Apr 4, 2023

Cool Hand Luke harkens back to an earlier era in Warner Bros. when they made gangster and chain gang films but this one is elevated by the likes of Paul Newman and George Kennedy.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 4, 2023

In my mind, the most defining role of Paul Newman's long, illustrious career, and one of the great antihero films told with cruel wit - a black comedy if ever there was one.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jan 23, 2021

Well written by Pearce and Pierson and acted by a most talented ensemble of performers, Luke succeeds as both a highly humorous and deeply dramatic study of the immolation of human spirit in captivity and as an allegory.

| Dec 15, 2020

An archetype of '60s counterculture in cinema, particularly with its nuanced messages of discontent, conspicuous humor, and the unforgettable performance by Paul Newman.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Aug 24, 2020

The movie cheats slightly by hinting Newman's death is a triumph - as if all crucifixions were alike. But this is a very small carp at a very fine movie.

| Feb 6, 2020

The whole thing depends on Newman's blue eyes, easy grin, and ability to appear charismatic but never cocky.

| Sep 27, 2018

As this 'Southern' turns up the heat, the sense of sadistic oppression, of being looked down on by 'the man,' swelters and burns. The glowering sun eclipses the convict in its hellfire glow. Newman/Luke's knowing smile, though, burns on.

| Jun 26, 2015

An incredible film...

| Feb 16, 2014

It's easy to forget just how fine Cool Hand Luke is.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 23, 2013

...a gulag melodrama, if such a thing is possible.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jul 8, 2010

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 2, 2009

Stuart Rosenberg's direction is a horror, but the cast teems with so many familiar faces that this 1967 film can't help but entertain.

| Apr 23, 2009

Anchored by Paul Newman's thoroughly magnetic performance...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 16, 2008

Newman remains watchable and glamorous throughout, bloody, muddy or coated in torso-flattering sweat, but the film's efforts to sentimentally "humanize" him by psychological revelation are clumsy.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 9, 2008

The lines and the character have survived the film's oft-forgotten actual message.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 5, 2008

Cool Hand Luke now seems more like a well-made entertainment than any kind of American masterpiece.

| Sep 4, 2008