Hud (1963)

The ranch-economics western in its rawest form. A Texas Panhandle cattle family learns its herd has foot-and-mouth disease, and the question of whether to sell the sick animals before anyone finds out splits an honest old rancher from his charming, selfish son. Paul Newman makes Hud so magnetic that you catch yourself liking a man the film plainly condemns, which is its point about the new West. Melvyn Douglas and Patricia Neal both won Oscars, and James Wong Howe's black-and-white photography, also an Oscar winner, makes the flat country look as hard as the choices. The scene of the herd being destroyed is one of the bleakest in any western.