When you\u2019re a larger-than-life, generation-spanning star like Robert Redford<\/a>, the hard truth is that every movie is notable in some way. He was iconic in his own time, whether in front of the camera, or behind it. And in his lifetime, so many of his films transcended their original reviews to find passionate fanbases: Just ask older millennials about the 1992 hacker movie Sneakers or the Sex and the City generation about The Way We Were.<\/p>\n Redford died Tuesday at 89, leaving behind an arsenal of great roles that he owned, whether he was playing a quiet CIA agent, a con man, a baseball player, a grizzled mariner, an ambitious journalist, or a charming WASP in love. His very last role came this year, a cameo in Dark Winds, the AMC show about Navajo police officers he produced.<\/p>\n This is a list of some of Redford’s most memorable performances, but don\u2019t forget about the films he directed, too: among them are the all-timers Ordinary People ( streaming on MGM+ ), which won him the best director Oscar<\/a>, and Quiz Show (rent on AppleTV+ ), which got him another nod.<\/p>\n Redford and Jane Fonda<\/a> play a passionate but mismatched newlywed couple whose relationship is tested by their walk-up New York<\/a> apartment in this Neil Simon<\/a> comedy. Reprising the role he’d played on Broadway<\/a>, Redford is the uptight, conservative foil to her more free-spirited character and they\u2019re both stunningly beautiful and fun to watch. Fonda told The Guardian in 2015 that she was \u201calways in love with Robert Redford.\u201d He later responded that he wasn\u2019t aware. The two also appeared together in The Chase (1966), The Electric Horseman (1979) and Our Souls at Night (2017).<\/p>\n WHERE TO WATCH<\/strong>: Rent on several services, including Prime Video<\/p>\n Redford met Paul Newman<\/a> on \u201cButch Cassidy,\u201d George Roy Hill and William Goldman\u2019s Western buddy film about outlaws on the run. It was the start of a lifelong friendship, but it almost didn\u2019t happen, since the studio wanted a star like Steve McQueen or Marlon Brando instead of Redford.<\/p>\n \u201cI was not a name equal to Paul\u2019s. I was just sort of moving up at that time,\u201d he told the AP in 2015. \u201cThere was a big argument that went on for months and months. They said it had to be a star. (Newman) said, \u2018Well, I want to work with an actor,\u2019 because Paul respected acting. Had it not been for Paul, I would not have gotten that break.\u201d<\/p>\n WHERE TO WATCH<\/strong>: Rent on several services, including Prime Video<\/p>\n Robert Redford during the Sundance Film Festival in Utah in 2010 (Carlo Allegri\/AP)<\/p>\n A film that\u2019s as stylish as it is compelling, Redford plays an ambitious and smug downhill skier out for Olympic gold in this Michael Ritchie film. Roger Ebert, in his review, wrote that it is \u201ca portrait of a man that is so complete, and so tragic, that Downhill Racer becomes the best movie ever made about sports \u2014 without really being about sports at all.\u201d<\/p>\n This was one of Redford\u2019s passion projects, his first independent feature that taught him some hard lessons about Hollywood<\/a>. \u201cThat was when I learned about how the film industry really works,\u201d Redford told the Harvard Business Review in 2002. \u201cThe studio simply tossed Downhill Racer away without a second thought. I broke my heart trying to get that film promoted and distributed.\u201d<\/p>\n WHERE TO WATCH:<\/strong> Stream on FuboTV, rent on Prime Video<\/p>\n After the success of Butch Cassidy, The Sting, another Hill film, fell into place more easily. Redford and Newman play grifters in 1936 Chicago who fleece Robert Shaw\u2019s rich mobster in this memorable caper that went on to win best picture.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat was interesting was the switcheroo,\u201d Redford told the AP. \u201cPaul had played these iconic, quiet, still characters in the past, and that\u2019s not what Paul is. He was a chatty, nervous guy who was always biting his fingernails. \u2026 He loved to have fun and play games.\u201d<\/p>\n WHERE TO WATCH:<\/strong> Stream on Spectrum, Rent on several services, including AppleTV+<\/p>\n Ah Hubbell, that beautiful, carefree WASP who falls in love with Barbra Streisand<\/a>\u2019s fiercely opinionated Katie. The making of the Sydney Pollack film, from a script standpoint, was fraught and the original writer Arthur Laurents was never quite happy with how it turned out. But this romantic drama with that memorable song has endured over the generations (it was even a reference in a pivotal Sex and the City episode).<\/p>\n WHERE TO WATCH: <\/strong>Rent on various services including Fandango<\/p>\n Redford teamed with Pollack again for this paranoid thriller about a quiet CIA codebreaker who returns from lunch only to discover his co-workers have all been murdered. The film sends him on the run from the bosses involved in this vast conspiracy, and a hit man played by Max von Sydow.<\/p>\n WHERE TO WATCH:<\/strong> Stream on MGM+<\/p>\n To Redford, the history of this film was more interesting than the project itself. He started obsessing over the Watergate saga during a whistle-stop tour for The Candidate, also a great and prophetic Redford film, when he overheard some journalists gossiping about the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and became fascinated by the journalists covering the story, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to know who these guys were, who created all this disturbance,\u201d Redford told the AP. \u201cI thought, \u2018Wow, one guy was a Jew, one guy was a WASP. One guy was a Republican, the other guy was a liberal. One guy was a good writer, the other wasn\u2019t very good. They didn\u2019t like each other, but they had to work together. Now that\u2019s an interesting dynamic I\u2019d love to know about.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n WHERE TO WATCH:<\/strong> Rent on several services, including Prime Video<\/p>\n Redford holding the Oscar he won for best director for Ordinary People at the Academy Awards in 1981 (AP)<\/p>\n This is one of those films that might not be many critics’ favorite, but its cultural impact almost negates that. Redford played baseball player Roy Hobbs in Barry Levinson\u2019s adaptation of Bernard Malamud\u2019s novel about an up-and-coming talent whose career is derailed after getting shot, but who gets another chance at greatness 16 years later.<\/p>\n WHERE TO WATCH:<\/strong> Rent on several services, including Prime Video<\/p>\nBarefoot in the Park (1967)<\/h2>\n
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)<\/h2>\n
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Downhill Racer (1969)<\/h2>\n
The Sting (1973)<\/h2>\n
The Way We Were (1973)<\/h2>\n
Three Days of the Condor (1975)<\/h2>\n
All the President\u2019s Men (1976)<\/h2>\n
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The Natural (1984)<\/h2>\n
Out of Africa (1985)<\/h2>\n