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The Hustler

"Fast Eddie" Felson is accompanied by his partner, Charlie, at a pool room in a small town. Pretending to be salesmen on their way to a convention, Eddie and Charlie convince onlookers that Eddie is a drunk blowhard, and induce them to bet on Eddie to lose a trick shot. He wins and takes their money.

Eddie and Charlie arrive in New York City, where Eddie challenges the legendary player Minnesota Fats to play straight pool for $200 a game at Ames Billiards in Manhattan. After initially falling behind, Eddie surges back to being $1,000 ahead and suggests raising the bet to $1,000 a game. Eddie gets ahead $11,000 and Charlie tries to convince him to quit, but Eddie insists the game will end only when Fats says it is over. Fats agrees to continue after a spectator, the professional gambler Bert Gordon, labels Eddie a "loser". After 25 hours and an entire bottle of bourbon, Eddie is ahead over $18,000, but loses it all along with all but $200 of his original stake. Fats declares the game over. At their hotel later, Eddie leaves a sleeping Charlie without saying goodbye.

Eddie stashes his belongings in a locker at a bus terminal, where he meets Sarah Packard, an alcoholic. They begin a relationship and he moves in with her. Charlie finds Eddie at Sarah's apartment and tries to persuade him to go back out on the road. Eddie refuses and Charlie realizes he plans to challenge Fats again. Eddie learns that Charlie had money he could have used to rebound and beat Fats. Eddie dismisses Charlie as a scared old man and tells him to "lay down and die by yourself".

Eddie joins a poker game where Bert is playing. Afterward, Bert tells Eddie that he has talent as a pool player but no character. He figures that Eddie will need at least $3,000 to challenge Fats again. Bert calls him a "born loser" but nevertheless offers to stake him in return for 75% of his winnings; Eddie refuses.

Eddie goes back to hustling to get the money he needs to play Fats. After hustling a local player at a pool room near the waterfront, Eddie is attacked after winning and his thumbs are broken. After Sarah helps Eddie convalesce, and when he's ready to play, he agrees to Bert's terms, deciding that a "25% slice of something big is better than a 100% slice of nothing".

Bert, Eddie and Sarah travel to the Kentucky Derby, where Bert arranges a match for Eddie against a wealthy local socialite named Findley. The game turns out to be three-cushion billiards, not pool. When Eddie loses badly, Bert refuses to keep staking him. Sarah pleads with Eddie to leave with her, saying that the world he is living in and its inhabitants are "perverted, twisted, and crippled"; he refuses. Seeing Eddie's anger, Bert agrees to let the match continue at $1,000 a game. Eddie comes back to win $12,000. He collects his $3,000 share and decides to walk back to the hotel where he discovers that Sarah has committed suicide, because of Bert's sadism.

Eddie returns to challenge Fats again, putting up his entire $3,000 stake on a single game. He wins game after game, beating Fats so badly that Fats is forced to quit. Bert demands half of Eddie's winnings and threatens to have him beaten unless he pays. Eddie says he will come back to kill Bert if he survives, shaming Bert into giving up his claim by invoking Sarah's memory. Instead, Bert orders Eddie never to walk into a big-time pool hall again. Eddie and Fats compliment each other as players, and Eddie walks out.