Robert Redford’s 10 Most Underrated Performances, From ‘Sneakers’ to ‘The Great Waldo Pepper’

Upon the death of Robert Redford, the world has lost one of its most talented artists – an actor, producer, director and champion of cinema, whose tireless creativity has given us so many monumental works. These aren’t just the movies he was directly involved in, but also the ones that gained prominence and attention at his Sundance Film Festival. His contribution to the artform cannot be properly quantified.

And for every “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” or “All the President’s Men,” there was a smaller movie that maybe made some money at the box office but didn’t gain the kind of attention or shift the cultural paradigm as some of his other projects. It’s these films that we choose to celebrate in his passing – the ones that you might not have seen or potentially can’t remember quite as well. Here are 10 movies very much worth watching and celebrating, for Redford and everything he brought to them. He will be so missed.

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Columbia

“The Chase” (1966)

A year before the great Arthur Penn made “Bonnie and Clyde,” he made “The Chase.” Produced by the legendary Sam Spiegel (the film was marketed as “Sam Spiegel’s The Chase”) and adapted by blacklisted screenwriter Lillian Hellman, based on the play and novel by Horton Foote, Redford plays the crucial role of Bubba Reeves (!), an escaped convict that sends a small southern town into a frenzy. “The Chase” is absolutely stacked with movie stars – Marlon Brando plays the sheriff, who is trying to find Redford while also attempting to uncover a surrounding mystery, Jane Fonda plays Bubba’s wife and E.G. Marshall plays a local bigwig. But Redford, in only his sixth film, is singularly transfixing as the fulcrum that the rest of the movie spins around, his boyish good looks betraying an underlying flintiness of danger and potential combustion. You can rent it for less than $4 on most digital platforms.

20th Century

“The Hot Rock” (1972)

Redford teamed with underrated British journeyman director Peter Yates for “The Hot Rock,” an adaptation of the Donald E. Westlake novel that introduced the author’s long-running John Dortmunder character. William Goldman, one of Redford’s key collaborators, adapted the screenplay, with Redford as Dortmunder, a thief who, after getting out of prison, is approached about another job – stealing a jewel that has particular significance to an African country. Redford is surrounded by some truly outstanding character actors, including George Segal (as Redford’s brother-in-law and partner-in-crime), Ron Leibman as a getaway driver, Moses Gunn as an African doctor and Paul Sand as an explosives expert, but it’s Redford that holds it all together with his effortless charm and hey-stuff-happens attitude. Yates thought the movie was going to be a smash; it was a box office disaster. This is a shame for many reasons, but mostly because Redford never got to play Dortmunder again. What a shame.

Universal

“The Great Waldo Pepper” (1975)

Redford reunited with George Roy Hill, who had directed him in “The Sting” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” along with Goldman, who had written “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “The Hot Rock,” for this aerial adventure. Redford plays the title character, a World War I vet who didn’t get to fly during combat, but gets into barnstorming following the conclusion of the conflict. Of course, he starts a rivalry with another pilot (played by the wonderful Bo Svenson) and has a tempestuous relationship with a young woman (played by Margot Kidder). Eventually, Waldo travels to Hollywood to work in movie stunts, which gives the whole thing another dimension. Redford took what could have been a two-dimensional character and gives him real depth and the movie, with its jaw-dropping set pieces, continues to inspire filmmakers today. While not a huge smash, it cast a long shadow. Director Christopher McQuarrie cited it as a direct influence on the death-defying climax of “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.” It’s easy to see why.

Universal/Columbia

“The Electric Horseman” (1979)

Redford re-teamed with Jane Fonda and frequent collaborator Sydney Pollack for “The Electric Horseman,” an odd combination of flavors and tones that somehow still works. Redford plays a former rodeo champion who is hired by a cereal company for an event in Las Vegas that has him trotting through a casino on a horse (the title comes from the fact that both the cowboy and the horse are lit up with twinkling lights). But Redford discovers that the horse has been abused and decides to leave the gig – with the horse. Soon enough, everybody is after him, including Fonda’s posh television reporter. Ostensibly mixing chase movie and romance elements, with some western motifs and an elegiac longing for the way things were, “The Electric Horseman” is extremely charming, expertly shot by Owen Roizman and anchored by a pair of tremendous performances. It was a pretty big hit when it was first released yet isn’t talked about nearly enough, overshadowed by other films in the Redford canon, but no less important.

20th Century

“Brubaker” (1980)

Nobody could mix social issues with hard-charging entertainment in quite the same way Redford could; he had a knack for choosing material that provoked and thrilled in equal measure. “Brubaker” is one of those movies. Based on the nonfiction book “Accomplices to the Crime: The Arkansas Prison Scandal” by Tom Murton and Joe Hyams and adapted by W.D. Richter, one of the great screenwriters of the 1970s and ‘80s, “Brubaker” has Redford playing the title role, a new warden of a prison who discovers corruption, abuse and murder. Once again, Redford is surrounded by a murderer’s row of fine supporting actors, both as the prisoners and the administrators who resist Brubaker’s investigation – among them, Yaphet Kotto, Murray Hamilton, David Keith, “Twin Peaks” favorite Everett McGill and a young Morgan Freeman (who eulogized his friend and colleague on social media). The movie was a hit and Richter’s screenplay was Oscar-nominated, but it has fallen by the wayside in Redford’s vast and impressive filmography. Talk about a crime.

Universal

“Sneakers” (1992)

Throughout much of the 1980s and ‘90s, Redford found himself in somewhat shallow star vehicles that allowed him to coast on the goodwill that came before and his own natural charms. Sometimes these projects weaponized what made him such an alluring actor in the first place, like Adrian Lyne’s “Indecent Proposal,” turning potentially silly material into something more dangerous. But Redford’s very best film of the ‘90s put him squarely back in the mode that made him such a compelling presence in the first place – a morally shaded character, surrounded by equally complex roles essayed by some of cinema’s finest performers. This is “Sneakers.” Written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson, it follows a bunch of disreputable fringe characters who are hired by institutions to test their own internal security (there’s a great gag at the beginning where a woman at a bank questions their profession, then cuts them a very small check). Smart, sleek and full of razor-sharp performances by everyone from Sidney Poitier to Dan Aykroyd, it’s as entertaining and exciting a movie as any, embroidered by a jazzy score by James Horner (featuring Branford Marsalis). This is what studio movies were in the ‘90s. It’s a shame that writer/director Phil Alden Robinson made so few movies after – and that none of them re-teamed him with his star (there should have been a follow-up, too, since it made over $100 million at the global box office). Kino Lorber recently issued a new 4K disc of “Sneakers.” It’s a must-own for any library.

Disney

“Up Close & Personal” (1996)

Okay, so this is cheating a little bit. “Up Close & Personal” is not a particularly great movie, nor is Redford’s performance all that special. But it is a fascinating movie, one that was detailed brilliantly by co-screenwriter John Gregory Dunne in his book “Monster: Living Off the Big Screen.” Dunne and his wife, Joan Didion, has great difficulty in bringing the story of news anchor Jessica Savitch to the big screen. Original versions of the project were darker and more complicated. But producers and studio Disney wanted something brighter and more uplifting. You can feel the push-and-pull in the resulting movie, which, through all of that, still made more than $100 million worldwide and earned an Oscar nomination for its big song, “Because You Loved Me,” sung by Céline Dion. This is Redford in full-on coasting mode; watch it to see how he can turn even the slightest role into something magnetic. Even if it’s not his best, it’s still very much worth watching, especially if you read the accompanying book about its making.

Universal

“Spy Game” (2001)

A two-hander with Redford and Brad Pitt? That is also a period spy film? Directed by Tony Scott? Yes, “Spy Game” is all of these things. And it is discussed so infrequently. Redford plays an old CIA hand who recruits Pitt and who then, years later, leads a dangerous mission to free him after he has been captured behind enemy lines. Redford is so good as the mentor-turned-savior, and it’s fun to see him somewhat revisit his “Three Days of the Condor” territory in a new light (Scott would do the same thing with Gene Hackman, updating his “Conversation” character to some degree for 1998’s “Enemy of the State”). It also feels like Redford was passing the torch to the next generation of blonde, hangdog movie star by sharing the screen with Pitt, who is also dynamite. “Spy Game” was an elaborate, extremely expensive co-production, with entities in the United States, France, Germany and Japan, and the movie’s $115 million budget almost guaranteed it would be a box office disappointment (it was, even after grossing $143 million). The critical response was also mixed, with many questioning Scott’s evolving stylistic choices from the period, and has been largely ignored in the years since. But “Spy Game” is definitely worth playing, perhaps now more than ever.

Roadside Attractions/Lionsgate

“All Is Lost” (2013)

One of the many injustices of Redford’s career is the fact that he was not nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for “All Is Lost,” J.C. Chandor’s gripping survival thriller. In the movie, Redford plays an unnamed man whose boat collides with a cast-off shipping container and starts to take on water. The rest of the movie is the man trying various things to survive, with characterization developing through the man’s actions, instead of words. The movie is almost completely dialogue-free, except for some narration taken from a letter that he is writing to his loved ones who will eventually discover his body, with one misadventure after another. It says a lot about Redford that he trusted a young director like Chandor, who had only made one previous movie, with a role this vulnerable and out in the open. It’s one thing for a movie star to lean on all of those things that made them a movie star; it’s another thing entirely for that same star to strip all of that stuff away. That’s what Redford does in this ruthlessly entertaining, 105-minute miracle.

Searchlight

“The Old Man & the Gun” (2018)

In 2016, Redford co-starred in David Lowery’s wonderful “Pete’s Dragon,” a remake of an old Disney movie that Lowery brought considerable depth and texture to. Two years later, “The Old Man & the Gun” was released. It was his last true movie star role, and it is a doozy. Based on the nonfiction story of the same name by David Grann, originally published in the New Yorker, Redford stars as Forrest Tucker, a career criminal who is chased by a young detective (Casey Affleck). It’s an exciting homage to the roles that made Redford such a sensation and a reflection on the actor’s entire career. Yes, his performance is incredible (this should have also netted him an Oscar nomination), but part of its inherent power lies in what came before. It’s Redford’s history that makes “The Old Man & the Gun” such a singular, powerful experience. And once again, Redford surrounds himself with a dazzling array of supporting talent, from Donald Glover to Sissy Spacek to Tom Waits and Elisabeth Moss. The fact that Lowery has fashioned it as a jazzy crime story of the period is so much fun, too. Afterwards, Redford proclaimed that he was retired. But, of course, Marvel Studios would pull him out for one last go-around, in the massively successful “Avengers: Endgame,” playing his character from “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” But for those who cared so much about the actor, “The Old Man & the Gun” is a much better, more consequential swan song. Chances are if you watch it now, you’ll be weeping even harder.

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