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Written by August 21, 2024

Robert Redford’s 10 Most Iconic Roles That Made Him a Bonafide Movie Star

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Robert Redford has had an illustrious film career.

After getting his start on Broadway in the late 1950s, the actor made his screen debut with a small role in 1960’s Tall Story starring Jane Fonda, with whom he would go on to form a lasting bond on and off screen.

In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, he gained success as a leading man with roles in Barefoot in the Park (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Jeremiah Johnson (1972) and Candidate (1972).

Redford’s career has spanned over six decades, and while his charismatic good looks cemented his place as a bonafide movie star, his understated, natural acting talent earned him numerous awards and nominations, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1994, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1995 and an honorary Oscar in 2002. He also received an Oscar for Best Director for helming 1980’s Ordinary People.

In recent years, he held roles in a number of other notable films, including Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pete’s Dragon and The Old Man & the Gun, the latter of which marked one of his final roles before retiring from acting in 2018

“I can’t last forever,” he told Variety at the time. “The truth is that I really do feel that it’s time for me to move into retirement. I’ve been doing this since I was 21. I’ve put my soul and heart into it over the years. I thought, ‘That’s enough. Why don’t you quit while you’re a little bit ahead? Don’t wait for the bell to toll. Just get out.’ So I felt my time had come and I couldn’t think of a better project to go out on than this film.”

Barefoot in the Park, starring Redford and Jane Fonda as a young newlywed couple, marked one of the actor’s first leading roles. He originated the role in the 1963 play of the same name, by Neil Simon, and the film was well-received, earning a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for best adapted screenplay.

Not only did the film help Redford’s career take off, but it was also the start of his longtime friendship with Fonda. “It’s easy,” Redford previously told Today about working with Fonda. “We’ve done many films over the years so it just worked out that way, that there was not a lot of discussion, we didn’t have to talk about a lot. Things just kind of fell into place between us, and there wasn’t much more to think about.”

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

The Western buddy film starred Paul Newman as Wild West outlaw Robert LeRoy Parker, known as Butch Cassidy, and Redford as his partner Harry Longabaugh, aka the “Sundance Kid.” The movie, one of the top-grossing films of 1969, went on to receive numerous accolades, including four Oscar wins and a nomination for Best Picture.

In a previous interview with Collider, Redford revealed that he and Newman were actually up for each other’s parts initially, but director George Roy Hill switched the roles at his request.

“I was being put up for Butch Cassidy because I’d done the comedy. But that part didn’t interest me,” Redford told the publication. “What interested me was The Sundance Kid because I could relate to that based on my own experience and particularly my own childhood and feeling like an outlaw most of my life. So I told George and he knew Paul really well and knew he was much more like Butch Cassidy, so George turned it all around. He went to Paul and they argued a bit until Paul finally realized that George was right. He was well known and I wasn’t, which is why they switched the title too.”

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The Candidate (1972)

The Candidate, Robert Redford
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The political comedy-drama stars Redford as a left-leaning lawyer who winds up running for the senate seat in California. The film received an Oscar win for Best Original Screenplay for Jeremy Larner, who was a speechwriter for Senator Eugene J. McCarthy during McCarthy’s campaign for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination.

Speaking with The Hollywood Repor, Larner revealed that it was Redford who reached out to him about writing the script. “Redford said, ‘We want to do a movie about a liberal politician who sells out,’” Larner recalled, “and I said, ‘Well, I don’t think people sell out as much as they get carried away.’ A campaign is so such bigger than the candidate. You don’t have time to think of what you’re saying. It’s like floating down a river and you hear the sound of the falls ahead; it occurs to you you’re going to go over the falls, but it’s all you can do to keep steering the boat.”

“I told Redford, ‘It’s kind of like being a movie star. The role is bigger than the person playing it,’” Larner added.

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The Sting (1973)

Robert Redford The Sting - 1973
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The film reunited Newman and Redford as two professional grifters trying to con a mob boss (Robert Shaw). The film also reunited Newman and Redford with George Roy Hill, who directed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Not only was the film a commercial success, but it received critical acclaim during award season, including 10 Oscar nominations and seven wins, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Original Screenplay. Additionally, Redford was nominated for Best Actor for his role.

“We had a lot of fun together,” Redford told the Salt Lake Tribune of his longtime friendship with Newman, who died in 2008. “We played a lot of jokes on each other, and just had such a good time.”

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The Way We Were (1973)

Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand The Way We Were - 1973
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The romantic drama, based on Arthur Laurents’ 1972 novel of the same name, starred Redford and Barbra Streisand as two lovers with very different backgrounds who attempt to make their relationship work amid political turmoil.

The film was a box-office success and received various awards, including the Oscar for Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Original Song for the theme song “The Way We Were,” sung by Streisand.

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The Great Gatsby (1974)

Robert Redford The Great Gatsby - 1974
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Long before Leonardo DiCaprio took on the role of Jay Gatsby in the 2013 film, Redford played the role in Jack Clayton’s 1974 flick along with Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan (who posed as the character in the first-ever issue of PEOPLE in 1974).

Redford recalled to Collider that doing the film was a “pleasure” as he was always “very fond of the [book’s author] F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

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All The President’s Men (1976)

Robert Redford All The President's Men - 1976
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The biographical political film about the Watergate scandal — based on the 1974 non-fiction book of the same name by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein — starred Redford and Dustin Hoffman as the two journalists who investigated the scandal for The Washington Post.

Redford, who also served as a co-producer for the film, was largely responsible for it getting made as he approached Bernstein and Woodward when they were still writing the book. It was also his idea to tell the story through their respective.

“Nixon had already resigned and the held opinion [in Hollywood] was ‘No one cares. No one wants to hear about this,”’ Redford told Today. “And I said, ‘No, it’s not about Nixon. It’s about something else. It’s about investigative journalism and hard work.”’

“Accuracy was the big, big objective in making the film,” Redford added. “We had to be accurate, otherwise we would fall under that perception that Hollywood was messing around with a very vital event.”

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The Natural (1984)

Robert Redford The Natural - 1984
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The sports film based on Bernard Malamud’s 1952 novel of the same name followed Redford as a baseball player named Hobbs over decades of ups and downs in his career. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress for Glenn Close.

“I loved Malamud’s book, I tried to get it made for 10 years,” Redford previously told Yahoo Entertainment about the film. “I was told that, from a studio point of view that baseball doesn’t fly commercially.”

He also explained that when he finally got the go-ahead for the film, he knew he would likely have to change the book’s ending. “I thought, ‘…even though you’re probably going to disappoint a lot of Malamud fans because you can’t have the guy strike out at the end, you’ve got to go the other way completely.’ But I thought it would be a better film, it wouldn’t be a downer.”

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Out of Africa (1985)

Robert Redford Out Of Africa - 1985
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The romantic drama, loosely based on the 1937 autobiographical book Out of Africa written by Isak Dinesen, starred Redford and Meryl Streep as a hunter and aristocrat who eventually develop feelings for each other despite their different backgrounds.

The film received massive critical acclaim and earned seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director for Sydney Pollack.

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All Is Lost (2013)

Robert Redford All Is Lost - 2013
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The action drama film stars Redford alone, as a man lost at sea. The movie received positive reviews from critics and remains Redford’s top-ranked movie on Rotten Tomatoes with a 94% rating.

“It’s a pure cinematic experience,” Redford told The Hollywood Reporter of the film. “That was very appealing to me at this point in my life — to be able to go back to my roots as an actor, to be interesting enough to have the audience ride along with you and almost be a part of what you are feeling and thinking.”

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