As the actor and Oscar-winning director announces his retirement plans, we rank his ten best performances on screen.
Released the same year as his directorial debut Ordinary People, Brubaker showcased a tougher side to Redford. Playing a prison warden who goes undercover as an inmate, he raised his game among hardened character actors. “The movies I liked making dealt with an America that was a little different from the America that was propagandised,” he said.
Redford’s early TV appearance as death in The Twilight Zone remains haunting. “No shock. No engulfment. No tearing asunder,” he says, leading a spirit into the afterlife. His performance in The Great Gatsby captured Jay Gatsby’s isolated air perfectly, while Sneakers saw him enjoy a light comedy role as a bumbling former radical.
His best collaboration with Sydney Pollack was Three Days of the Condor, a jittery conspiracy thriller. In All Is Lost, Redford, then 76, delivered a near-silent, vulnerable performance as a man stranded at sea. Director JC Chandor noted: “Everything is heightened with him being older. He’s like a bird with a broken wing.”
Redford insisted on starring in All the President’s Men to secure studio backing, playing Bob Woodward opposite Dustin Hoffman’s Carl Bernstein. The Candidate saw him chafe against his pretty-boy persona in a satire about political cosmetics. Downhill Racer began his one-for-me, one-for-them strategy, portraying an emotionally arctic skier.
His sole Oscar nomination for acting came for The Sting, but his first pairing with Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid distils his essence. Despite the film’s inability to acknowledge its bromantic longings, Redford’s sunny charm shines through, even as it seemed to trouble him faintly.
