Principal photography began in Claude, TX, just outside Amarillo, TX, on 21 May 1962, a week after the production arrived there for several days of rehearsal, according to the 8 May 1962 and 14 May 1962 issues of DV, and the 30 May 1962 Var. Adapted from Larry McMurtry’s 1961 novel, Horseman, Pass By, the script began under the name Hud, according to the 23 Mar 1962 LAT, but Paramount Pictures changed the title to Wildest of the Thousand before filming began, then changed it again to Hud Bannon during production. Hud Bannon became the preferred title for nearly two months, until it was changed again to The Winner, the 24 Jul 1962 DV noted. By that time, both producer–director Martin Ritt and actor Paul Newman were protesting against yet another studio-suggested title, Hud Bannon Against the World, the 13 Jul 1962 DV reported.
       The 5 Jun 1962 DV announced that the production had moved to the J. B. Henderson ranch near Goodnight, TX, for a week of filming. The 27 Jun 1962 DV reported that the company had returned to the Paramount Studio lot in Hollywood, CA, to begin four weeks of interior shooting the following day.
       In an on-set interview at Paramount, Martin Ritt told the 5 Aug 1962 NYT that the budget was $2,350,000. He said the film, which at the time was titled The Winner, was a “modern Western” designed to undermine the “hard-fighting, heavy-drinking, loose-living hero” Hollywood had been championing for the previous fifty years. Ritt claimed Paramount executives wanted to change the ending and show Paul Newman’s character “reforming and marrying the nice girl,” until Ritt threatened to take the project to another studio. Husband-and-wife writers Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr., who had found McMurtry’s novel in a Hollywood bookstore and adapted it to the screen, were also co-producers, and therefore present on the set throughout production, ready to make rewrites if necessary.
       The 21 Jun 1962 LAT reported that Hollywood music producer Jimmie Haskell would provide the “pre-scoring” for the film, but Haskell was ultimately not credited.
       During production at Paramount, Geoffrey Shurlock, head of the Production Code Administration, objected to some of the movie’s “rough language,” including the word “bastard,” according to the 13 Jul 1962 DV. However, after the film’s completion, Ritt told the 10 Dec 1962 DV that Shurlock had seen the final print and “approved it with all the lines at first questioned.” Shurlock himself stated in the 22 May 1963 Var that Hud was a “deeply moral” film, and the Catholic Legion of Decency agreed, calling it “morally unobjectionable for adults.”
       Hud opened in Los Angeles on 23 May 1963 and New York City on 28 May 1963, during a long Memorial Day holiday weekend, and received favorable-to-glowing reviews. Paramount announced at a stockholders meeting the previous day that the grosses for Hud were on track to make it the studio’s “biggest boxoffice hit of the year,” according to the 4 Jun 1963 DV.
       The film received four Academy Award nominations: Actor (Paul Newman); Directing (Martin Ritt); Art Direction; and Writing (Screenplay—based on material from another medium) (Ravetch and Frank, Jr.). It won three Academy Awards: Actress (Patricia Neal); Actor in a Supporting Role (Melvyn Douglas); and Cinematography (James Wong Howe).