Paul Newman wears a Rolex Datejust

Twenty-five years between The Hustler and The Color of Money, and the watch tells the whole story. In 1961, Paul Newman's Fast Eddie Felson wore a Bulova Sea King, a solid mid-range American watch. By 1986, Martin Scorsese's sequel puts a Rolex Datejust on the same character's wrist. Eddie went from hustling pool in dingy bars to running a legitimate liquor business in Chicago. The Bulova to Rolex upgrade is the arc of the character compressed into a single accessory.

Scorsese understood that pool is a game about hands, and The Color of Money is full of close-ups on wrists and fingers. The Datejust ref. 16200 in stainless steel with a Jubilee bracelet appears throughout. It's the right Rolex for a man who has achieved stability but not extravagance. Eddie isn't wearing a Day-Date. He isn't wearing gold. He's wearing the Datejust that says he made it out of the bars and into the middle class, which is exactly where a retired pool hustler who went straight would end up.

This role won Newman his only competitive Academy Award. His 11-sighting collection includes the Daytona in Winning and a Submariner in WUSA, but the Datejust here may be the most narratively precise Rolex he ever wore on screen, because it exists in direct conversation with the Bulova from a quarter century earlier.