Upon the death of Robert Redford, the world has lost one of its most talented artists \u2013 an actor, producer, director and champion of cinema, whose tireless creativity has given us so many monumental works. These aren\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
And for every \u201cButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid\u201d or \u201cAll the President\u2019s Men,\u201d there was a smaller movie that maybe made some money at the box office but didn\u2019t gain the kind of attention or shift the cultural paradigm as some of his other projects. It\u2019s these films that we choose to celebrate in his passing \u2013 the ones that you might not have seen or potentially can\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
More from TheWrap<\/strong><\/p>\n Columbia<\/p>\n A year before the great Arthur Penn made \u201cBonnie and Clyde,\u201d he made \u201cThe Chase.\u201d Produced by the legendary Sam Spiegel (the film was marketed as \u201cSam Spiegel\u2019s The Chase\u201d) 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. \u201cThe Chase\u201d is absolutely stacked with movie stars \u2013 Marlon Brando plays the sheriff, who is trying to find Redford while also attempting to uncover a surrounding mystery, Jane Fonda plays Bubba\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 20th Century<\/p>\n Redford teamed with underrated British journeyman director Peter Yates for \u201cThe Hot Rock,\u201d an adaptation of the Donald E. Westlake novel that introduced the author\u2019s long-running John Dortmunder character. William Goldman, one of Redford\u2019s key collaborators, adapted the screenplay, with Redford as Dortmunder, a thief who, after getting out of prison, is approached about another job \u2013 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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Universal<\/p>\n Redford reunited with George Roy Hill, who had directed him in \u201cThe Sting\u201d and \u201cButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,\u201d along with Goldman, who had written \u201cButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid\u201d and \u201cThe Hot Rock,\u201d for this aerial adventure. Redford plays the title character, a World War I vet who didn\u2019t 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 \u201cMission: Impossible \u2013 The Final Reckoning.\u201d It\u2019s easy to see why.<\/p>\n Universal\/Columbia<\/p>\n Redford re-teamed with Jane Fonda and frequent collaborator Sydney Pollack for \u201cThe Electric Horseman,\u201d 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 \u2013 with the horse. Soon enough, everybody is after him, including Fonda\u2019s posh television reporter. Ostensibly mixing chase movie and romance elements, with some western motifs and an elegiac longing for the way things were, \u201cThe Electric Horseman\u201d 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\u2019t talked about nearly enough, overshadowed by other films in the Redford canon, but no less important.<\/p>\n 20th Century<\/p>\n 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. \u201cBrubaker\u201d is one of those movies. Based on the nonfiction book \u201cAccomplices to the Crime: The Arkansas Prison Scandal\u201d by Tom Murton and Joe Hyams and adapted by W.D. Richter, one of the great screenwriters of the 1970s and \u201880s, \u201cBrubaker\u201d 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\u2019s row of fine supporting actors, both as the prisoners and the administrators who resist Brubaker\u2019s investigation \u2013 among them, Yaphet Kotto, Murray Hamilton, David Keith, \u201cTwin Peaks\u201d favorite Everett McGill and a young Morgan Freeman (who eulogized his friend and colleague on social media). The movie was a hit and Richter\u2019s screenplay was Oscar-nominated, but it has fallen by the wayside in Redford\u2019s vast and impressive filmography. Talk about a crime.<\/p>\n Universal<\/p>\n Throughout much of the 1980s and \u201890s, 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\u2019s \u201cIndecent Proposal,\u201d turning potentially silly material into something more dangerous. But Redford\u2019s very best film of the \u201890s put him squarely back in the mode that made him such a compelling presence in the first place \u2013 a morally shaded character, surrounded by equally complex roles essayed by some of cinema\u2019s finest performers. This is \u201cSneakers.\u201d 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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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 \u201890s. It\u2019s a shame that writer\/director Phil Alden Robinson made so few movies after \u2013 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 \u201cSneakers.\u201d It\u2019s a must-own for any library.<\/p>\n Disney<\/p>\n Okay, so this is cheating a little bit. \u201cUp Close & Personal\u201d is not a particularly great movie, nor is Redford\u2019s performance all that special. But it is a fascinating movie, one that was detailed brilliantly by co-screenwriter John Gregory Dunne in his book \u201cMonster: Living Off the Big Screen.\u201d 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, \u201cBecause You Loved Me,\u201d sung by C\u00e9line 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\u2019s not his best, it\u2019s still very much worth watching, especially if you read the accompanying book about its making.<\/p>\n Universal<\/p>\n A two-hander with Redford and Brad Pitt? That is also a period spy film? Directed by Tony Scott? Yes, \u201cSpy Game\u201d 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\u2019s fun to see him somewhat revisit his \u201cThree Days of the Condor\u201d territory in a new light (Scott would do the same thing with Gene Hackman, updating his \u201cConversation\u201d character to some degree for 1998\u2019s \u201cEnemy of the State\u201d). 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. \u201cSpy Game\u201d was an elaborate, extremely expensive co-production, with entities in the United States, France, Germany and Japan, and the movie\u2019s $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\u2019s evolving stylistic choices from the period, and has been largely ignored in the years since. But \u201cSpy Game\u201d is definitely worth playing, perhaps now more than ever.<\/p>\n Roadside Attractions\/Lionsgate<\/p>\n One of the many injustices of Redford\u2019s career is the fact that he was not nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for \u201cAll Is Lost,\u201d J.C. Chandor\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s one thing for a movie star to lean on all of those things that made them a movie star; it\u2019s another thing entirely for that same star to strip all of that stuff away. That\u2019s what Redford does in this ruthlessly entertaining, 105-minute miracle.<\/p>\n Searchlight<\/p>\n In 2016, Redford co-starred in David Lowery\u2019s wonderful \u201cPete\u2019s Dragon,\u201d a remake of an old Disney movie that Lowery brought considerable depth and texture to. Two years later, \u201cThe Old Man & the Gun\u201d 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\u2019s an exciting homage to the roles that made Redford such a sensation and a reflection on the actor\u2019s 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\u2019s Redford\u2019s history that makes \u201cThe Old Man & the Gun\u201d 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 \u201cAvengers: Endgame,\u201d playing his character from \u201cCaptain America: The Winter Soldier.\u201d But for those who cared so much about the actor, \u201cThe Old Man & the Gun\u201d is a much better, more consequential swan song. Chances are if you watch it now, you\u2019ll be weeping even harder.<\/p>\n The post Robert Redford\u2019s 10 Most Underrated Performances, From \u2018Sneakers\u2019 to \u2018The Great Waldo Pepper\u2019<\/a> appeared first on TheWrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Upon the death of Robert Redford, the world has lost one of its most talented artists \u2013 an actor, producer, director and champion of cinema, whose tireless creativity has given us so many monumental works. These aren\u2019t just the movies he was directly involved in, but also the ones that gained prominence and attention at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2027052,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[373116,364855,333528,373365],"class_list":["post-2027051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-butch-cassidy-and-the-sundance-kid","tag-jane-fonda","tag-robert-redford","tag-sam-spiegel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Robert-Redfords-10-Most-Underrated-Performances-From-\u2018Sneakers-to-\u2018The.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2027051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2027052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2027051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2027051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2027051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cThe Chase\u201d (1966)<\/h2>\n
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\u201cThe Hot Rock\u201d (1972)<\/h2>\n
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\u201cThe Great Waldo Pepper\u201d (1975)<\/h2>\n
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\u201cThe Electric Horseman\u201d (1979)<\/h2>\n
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\u201cBrubaker\u201d (1980)<\/h2>\n
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\u201cSneakers\u201d (1992)<\/h2>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cUp Close & Personal\u201d (1996)<\/h2>\n
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\u201cSpy Game\u201d (2001)<\/h2>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cAll Is Lost\u201d (2013)<\/h2>\n
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\u201cThe Old Man & the Gun\u201d (2018)<\/h2>\n