This might be Newman's best performance

It was certainly Newman's most subdued and controlled performance. He says very little and when he does talk, it is clipped, "seemingly uncaring," and lightly humorous.

This was a great advance in Newman's acting. If you look just a few years before "Hombre," you'll see that the very handsome Newman had a proclivity for mugging and making faces and saying his lines like he was joking around. I'm thinking of "The Prize" and "Harper." He got away with it because he was so handsome and his lines were good but...he was a little "Jon Stewart-ish." And even in more dramatic work like "The Hustler" and "Hud"(written and directed by the same folks as "Hombre"), he tended to over-emote.

He got macho for Hombre. Newman said he based the character on a Native American man he saw standing in one place, the same place, in the same position, about two hours apart(Newman was driving by on location.)

But its all there in the script, too. John Russell is like a walking deflator of other people's worries:

Balsam: If you ask me why I do what I do, its because its a habit.
Newman: I didn't ask.

Silvera the bandit: If you won't give us the money, we shoot the woman.
Newman: Then shoot the woman. It doesn't matter to me.
Silvera: That is what all of you think?
Newman: They think what they think. I think what I think.

(The above lines were paraphrased, not exact.)

Newman almost forcibly prevents himself from using his usual over-emotinging, mugging acting tricks in Hombre. Often his handsome face holds the screen without saying a line, but his blue eyes shift or a light smile forms and we can see "traces" of the Old Paul Newman there.

Irony: paring himself down as he does in "Hombre," Paul Newman actually ends up giving a rather "Steve McQueen" performance.

Given where the character is headed, how he changes and where he ends up, this well could be Newman's best performance. At least his most underrated one. "Back in the day," Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, and Hud were listed as his great performances as a young man; The Verdict and The Color of Money as his best as an older man. In between, there is a great deal of sentiment for his Oscar-nommed turn as "Cool Hand Luke"(in which, really, he was back to mugging though headed for John Russell's end, in a movie I find much more dull than Hombre.) But "Hombre" has its cult fans, and its mega-fans and they've put "Hombre" and John Russell on the list of Paul Newman's greatest work.

Plus "Slapshot" -- where he's back to mugging, but more skillfully.

Totally agree with the OP. Wow! I just saw this for the first time. The Twilight Time blu ray, which is stunning to look at.

I think this movie, 3:10 to Yuma, and Jubal are outstanding examples of the genre, as well as my personal favorites.