The Sting The Sting The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936, involving a complicated plot by two professional grifters (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) to con a mob boss (Robert Shaw). The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who had directed Newman and Redford in the western "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". Created by screenwriter David S. Ward, the story was inspired by real-life cons perpetrated by brothers Fred and Charley Gondorff and documented by David Maurer in his book "The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man". The title phrase refers to the
The Wild Bunch The film received two Academy Award nominations, for Best Original Screenplay (Walon Green, Roy N. Sickner, Sam Peckinpah) and Best Original Music Score (Jerry Fielding). At the 42nd Academy Awards ceremony, both awards went to crew members of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (screenwriter William Goldman and composer Burt Bacharach). Cinematographer Lucien Ballard won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography. Decades later the American Film Institute placed the film in several of its "100 Years" lists: The film is ranked #94 on "Empire" magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Films of All Time. In 1999,