"For all of the ideology swamping the above, I'd like to give substantial credit to Walter Tevis, the novelist who wrote _The Hustler_ and _The Color of Money_, as well as _The Man who Fell to Earth_."
I also think "The Hustler" is a great movie, but I don't think it breaks out of the capitalist ideological circle. It never rejects the notion of competition: the triumph of the underdog loser (Newman) is won over the dead body of a woman and expressed, to the end, as a pissing contest between men and exclusively defined by men. The notion of competition and the level playing field is never rejected, deeply questioned, or transcended. The character who goes furthest to question the competition ethos and the notion of "winners" and "losers" is the woman (Piper Laurie)-- but she is finally sacrificed to a world that cannot understand anything but competition. If the movie were cast as _her_ tragedy, it would in fact be a critique of Capitalism; but instead, the movie is cast as the triumph of its hero and winds up being more of a "Rocky" type movie, allbeit about a hundred times better than Rocky. In any event, it is a great movie and a must-see. Exquisitely acted, scripted, directed...
Joanna