Paul Newman made two of the best sports movies of all time (clips)

September 27, 8:50 AMSports ExaminerPaula Duffy

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Paul Newman, who passed away on Friday at the age of 83, made me understand yearning and the feelings that come from an inexplicable attraction to the opposite gender, even more so than the music idols of my youth and the sports stars who were my heroes.

His intensity and appeal were never more clearly on display than when he appeared in the 1960's classic The Hustler. As "Fast Eddie" Felson, a billiards player who needed to play the best to be the best, he was a cold and brooding character whose self-destructiveness attracted those that wanted to break him as well as save him.

More than a decade and a half later, Newman lit up the screen in one of the funniest and yet most poignant stories about hockey, Slap Shot. It appeared only a year after the landmark movie Network that took absurdity and made it understandable within the context of the public's appetite for violence and dysfunction.

Slapshot's portrayal of individual athletes used as goons who cosmetize lack of talent with the violence that ultimately attracts fans to a spectacle has stood the test of time.

Take a look back at two films that are never far from critics' and fans' lists of the best sports-themed movies of all time.   

BE AWARE: Slap Shot clip contains language not suitable for everyone.