Directed by Martin Ritt • 1958 • United States
Starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Orson Welles

Sex, pyromania, and epic family drama heat up this southern-gothic scorcher adapted from three works by William Faulkner. In his first screen pairing opposite his soon-to-be wife Joanne Woodward, Paul Newman stars as Ben Quick, a handsome drifter trailed by accusations of barn burning, whose arrival in a small Mississippi town upsets the balance of the Varner family, a dysfunctional new-money clan. The Varners’ domineering patriarch (a scene-stealing Orson Welles) takes a shine to the ambitious Quick, igniting the jealousy of his own weak-willed son (Anthony Franciosa).