Pool & Billiards in Cinema

If ever a game was made for the movies, it would have to be billiards and pool. With pool's natural potential for tension and built-in drama, we've seen many a pool and billiards game played out on the silver screen. Its sound effects and chalk and smoke, its array of characters, and the added lore of hustlers and sharks only add to the genre's appeal.

Vigma Professional Billiard Ball Set

There are more movies and TV shows filmed around pool tables than you'd first expect. The gamut runs from seedy dramas to comedies, including 1915's Pool Sharks, a silent farce starring W.C. Fields. Pool and billiards cinema include everything from a TV movie starring Whoopi Goldberg and Dennis Franz, to a famous Twilight Zone episode starring Jack Klugman, Jonathan Winters, and Rod Serling, in which Klugman plays for his life.

The Hustler
But most of the movies and shows featuring billiards and pool are dramas, winding their plots around colorful characters, seedy situations, and the tension of the competition at the table. Most would agree the greatest pool drama is the 1961 classic The Hustler, starring Paul Newman as Fast Eddie and the great Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards.

Most modern pool movies, if not paying outright homage to it, are at least descendents of The Hustler. This includes its sequel, made 25 years later, The Color of Money. In it, Newman is an older, wiser Fast Eddie, taking on a young protege, played by Tom Cruise.