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Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →There is no single official ranking of Robert Redford’s best films. This list weighs his screen performances, the films’ craft and influence, the range of genres, and his work as a director. It includes both acting roles and two films he directed, so it is a ranking of Redford’s film legacy—not just his performances.
That distinction matters: critics’ scores, institutional selections, and cultural memory measure different things. Rotten Tomatoes orders films by Tomatometer, BFI calls its choices “essential,” and the Associated Press highlights memorable performances. The order here is an editorial judgment informed by those perspectives, not a ranking issued by any one organization.
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Robert Redford’s 12 best movies, ranked
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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Redford’s pairing with Paul Newman became one of American cinema’s defining screen duos. George Roy Hill’s Western keeps the outlaw story moving with an unusually light buddy-comedy rhythm, giving Redford room to make the Sundance Kid both coolly capable and quietly funny. AFI includes the film among its greatest American films, and BFI points to its distinctive blend of comedy and Western conventions. Redford later recalled to the Associated Press, “I was not a name equal to Paul’s. I was just sort of moving up at that time.”
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The Sting (1973)
Redford and Newman reunited with Hill for a caper built around misdirection, timing, and the pleasure of watching a plan take shape. Redford’s easy confidence makes him an ideal partner for Newman’s more seasoned operator, while the production design helps establish the film’s period world. AFI recognizes the collaboration and design; Rotten Tomatoes’ critics consensus emphasizes the stars’ charm and the twists. Its 93% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes’ page updated September 18, 2025, is a dated snapshot, not a permanent measure of quality.
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All the President’s Men (1976)
As Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, Redford is the steadier half of the investigative team he forms with Carl Bernstein, played by Dustin Hoffman. The film’s tension comes from reporting: phone calls, source protection, verification, and the incremental work of connecting evidence. BFI discusses its craft and relationship to real events, while its dramatization of the Watergate investigation makes journalism itself the central action. Rotten Tomatoes displayed a 95% Tomatometer score on September 18, 2025; that figure is a dated critics’ score snapshot.
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Three Days of the Condor (1975)
In Sydney Pollack’s paranoid political thriller, Redford plays a CIA researcher whose routine office job becomes a fight to understand why his colleagues have been killed—and whether he can trust anyone who offers help. The character is not an all-knowing action hero; his vulnerability and uncertainty make the danger feel immediate. BFI and Rotten Tomatoes both include the film in their Redford selections, and it shows him working in a distinctly post-Watergate register: wary of institutions, information, and easy explanations.
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Ordinary People (1980)
Redford’s first feature as a director turns a family’s grief into a restrained, close study of what its members cannot say to one another. The film’s place here recognizes a major part of his career that performer-only lists leave out. The Associated Press notes that Redford won the Best Director Oscar for the film. His direction makes emotional restraint consequential rather than cold, allowing the family’s fractures to emerge through behavior as much as dialogue.
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The Candidate (1972)
Redford plays Bill McKay, an idealistic political outsider recruited to run for office, in a drama about what happens when a campaign’s message begins to overtake the candidate’s convictions. The Associated Press describes the film as prophetic. Its importance in Redford’s career also lies in its connection to his later interest in bringing the Watergate story to the screen: political ambition and the machinery around it were recurring concerns, not a one-film detour.
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The Natural (1984)
As Roy Hobbs, a gifted ballplayer whose career is interrupted and later revived, Redford anchors a baseball drama that leans into myth as much as sport. AFI describes Hobbs as a fictional ballplayer embodying American heroism. The film’s emotional power comes from the gap between the ordinary human costs of a life and the almost legendary shape the story gives them. AP and Rotten Tomatoes also include it among notable Redford films.
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The Way We Were (1973)
Redford and Barbra Streisand play former college acquaintances whose romance is tested by differences in temperament and politics. Pollack’s film gives their chemistry room to coexist with disagreement rather than making compatibility a simple matter of attraction. AFI recognizes it among cinema’s great love stories, and AP notes its enduring cultural presence. It is an essential counterweight in a list otherwise heavy with thrillers, Westerns, and crime stories.
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All Is Lost (2013)
Redford carries this largely solitary survival drama with almost no conventional dialogue, playing a sailor trying to stay alive after his boat is damaged at sea. The performance depends on physical detail and problem-solving: each attempt to manage the crisis reveals both skill and the limits of control. Rotten Tomatoes placed it first on its Tomatometer ranking updated September 18, 2025, with a displayed score of 95%. That ranking and score reflect the page’s dated critics’ snapshot, rather than a definitive measure of the film’s standing.
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Jeremiah Johnson (1972)
In another Pollack collaboration, Redford plays a former soldier who seeks a solitary life in the mountains. The film’s sense of landscape and hard-earned survival makes its Western world feel remote from the polished settings of many of Redford’s contemporary dramas. AP calls it a classic and notes that it later acquired a meme afterlife—a reminder that a film’s cultural life can keep changing long after its original release.
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The Old Man & the Gun (2018)
Redford plays Forrest Tucker, a real-life bank robber known for his escapes, in a late-career role shaped by charm rather than menace. The film’s gentler pace lets Redford’s screen persona—affable, composed, and difficult to dismiss—become part of the story’s subject. Rotten Tomatoes placed it third in its ranking updated September 18, 2025, and its critics consensus called it a fitting farewell. That description is a critical framing, not a claim that the film was Redford’s final screen appearance.
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Quiz Show (1994)
Redford directed this account of the 1950s television quiz-show scandal, adding a sharp institutional drama to a filmography often associated with his acting. The Associated Press notes that it received another Oscar nomination for Redford’s directing work. Its inclusion completes the picture of a filmmaker who not only starred in major American films but also shaped stories about ambition, public trust, and the institutions that influence what people believe.
How to read this ranking
The order favors a combination of performance, filmmaking, influence, range, and career significance rather than treating a critics’ score as the only measure. Redford’s career includes Western comedy, capers, political thrillers, romance, sports drama, and survival drama, as well as directing. A list focused only on his acting would leave out Ordinary People and Quiz Show; plausible acting-role alternatives include Downhill Racer and Barefoot in the Park.
Different measures can produce a different order. A ranking weighted more heavily toward critics’ scores could move All Is Lost or The Sting higher. BFI’s “essential” selections, AFI’s institutional recognition, and AP’s memorable performances are useful lenses, but none establishes a single definitive top twelve.
Where to watch
Streaming and rental catalogs change by date and territory, so no outlet is listed here as a current option. Check the services available in your country or a local digital rental store before choosing a title.
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