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  • Celebrating the Power of Film and the Best of Humanity at Park City’s Last Sundance

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    The Friend’s House Is Here was covertly filmed in the streets of Tehran amidst violent government crackdowns against citizens. Courtesy of Sundance Institute

    There is a scene about halfway through first-time writer-director Stephanie Ahn’s romantic drama Bedford Park—which premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition in last week’s Sundance Film Festival—where the lead characters are stuck in New Jersey traffic, fiddling with the radio. “Keep it here,” says reluctant passenger Eli (South Korean actor Son Suk-ku) when he hears Bill Conti’s Rocky theme Gonna Fly Now. While Eli—whose cauliflower ears speak to his high school wrestling days and whose furtive and combative manner suggests he has never stopped fighting—bobs his head and shakes his fists, Irene (a devastating Moon Choi), an on-leave physical therapist in an emotional free fall, stares ahead, saying nothing, her eyes silently filling with tears.

    Sitting in a Press & Industry screening at the Holiday Village Theaters in Park City, so did mine. Of course, it had much to do with the authenticity and masterfully observational patience of Ahn’s film. But the film served as a powerful metaphor for the festival itself, which was also uniting a bunch of broken people around their shared and largely nostalgic love of movies. A dense cloud of wistfulness threatened to overtake the festival every time audiences watched Robert Redford, its late founder and spiritual guide, reflect on the power of storytelling in gauzy footage projected onscreen.

    While Bedford Park was my favorite film I saw at the festival, it didn’t pick up one of the big awards. (Beth de Araújo’s Channing Tatum–starring drama about an 8-year-old crime witness Josephine swept both the Jury and Audience awards, while Bedford Park received a Special Jury Award for Debut Feature.)

    What Ahn’s film brought home instead was something even more valuable: a distribution deal. Sony Pictures Classics—whose co-presidents and founders Michael Barker and Tom Bernard were battling for good movies and ethical distribution against the indie movie dark lord Harvey Weinstein back in Sundance’s buy-happy ’90s heyday—made the film its second acquisition of the festival behind director Josef Kubota Wladyka’s crowd-pleasing Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! It was an anachronistically bullish stand by the 34-year-old specialty arm in what has been a largely bearish acquisition market.

    The relatively quiet marketplace, Redford’s passing and the immutability of 2026 being the end of the festival’s Utah run (Main Street’s iconic Egyptian Theater being unavailable for festival programming felt like a don’t-let-the-door-hit-you statement from both city and state) combined to give this outing a bit of a Dance of Death feeling. Respite from this sense of gloom came from the most unlikely of places: documentaries on seemingly depressing topics.

    A man with a close-cropped haircut holds two telephone receivers to his ears, smiling slightly while seated on a patterned couch.A man with a close-cropped haircut holds two telephone receivers to his ears, smiling slightly while seated on a patterned couch.
    Joybubbles in his living room. Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

    Joybubbles, the effervescent directorial debut from longtime archival producer Rachael J. Morrison, tells the story of Joe Engrassia, a man who copes with his blindness and the cruelty he experiences as a result of his visual impairment through his relationship with that great relic of the 20th Century: the telephone. As a child, he found comfort in its steady tone when his parents fought; as a young man, he learned to manipulate its system to make calls across the world with his pitch-perfect whistling; as an adult, he entertains strangers through a prerecorded “fun line,” telling jokes and stories from his life. In one scene, Morrison captures a caller recollecting taking Joe—who late in life legally changed his name to Joybubbles to reflect his commitment to living life as a child—to Penny Marshall’s 1988 movie Big, and describing it to him in the back of the theater; the moment moved me as deeply as the Rocky interlude from Bedford Park.

    The setup of Sam Green’s The Oldest Person in the World seems high concept: a globe-spanning chronicle of the various holders of that dubious Guinness World Record title over the course of a decade. But in the hands of Green, a Sundance vet who has premiered a dozen films at the festival dating back to 1997, what would be rote instead blossoms into a consistently surprising, deeply personal and strangely exhilarating exploration of what it means to be alive.

    A glossy, cartoonish glass pitcher with a smiling face sits onstage under bright colored lights, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers at a tech conference.A glossy, cartoonish glass pitcher with a smiling face sits onstage under bright colored lights, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers at a tech conference.
    Ghost in the Machine delivers a thought-provoking takedown of Techno-Fascism. Courtesy of Sundance Institute

    Ghost in the Machine, Valerie Vatach’s exploration of the eugenicist roots and colonial and anti-environmental reality of the A.I. arms race, had the exact opposite effect. It tells the tale of a society that has lost its moral and humanitarian bearing at the behest of techno-oligarchs, amalgamating our own labor to keep us divided. The film’s denouement—showing ways we as a society can still fight back—was the only unconvincing part of Vatach’s film essay.

    Meanwhile, the miles-deep societal pessimism of Ghost in the Machine was being tragically echoed by real events. Indeed, the most shocking and vital clip of the weekend was the footage of the Minneapolis murder of protester and ICU nurse Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents that festivalgoers watched on their phones in stunned silence while waiting in lines. A day earlier, U.S. Congressman Max Frost was physically assaulted at the festival in an attack that was both politically and racially motivated.

    It all made for a tense mood for one of the more anxious events of the festival: that Sunday’s premiere of Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, from Alex Gibney, another longtime Sundance veteran. Culled from footage shot by Rachel Eliza Griffiths (Rushdie’s wife) of the novelist’s recovery from the 2022 attack on his life and adapted from his memoir of that event, the film was most effective when Gibney recounted the since-rescinded 1989 fatwa against Rushdie, an example of, as the author told the theater audience, “how violence unleashed by an irresponsible leader can spread out of control.” (Security measures for the event included a full pat-down, metal detectors, and bomb-sniffing dogs.)

    As trenchant as it felt in that moment, Knife was also an example of a documentary where the subject may have been a bit too in control of the final product; in addition to providing the footage, Griffiths served as executive producer and Gibney was her and Rushdie’s handpicked director.

    American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez, which premiered in the U.S. Documentary Competition and took home the Audience Award, also drifted toward hagiography. But in telling the story of Valdez, the Chicano arts trailblazer who founded El Teatro Campesino to inform and entertain newly unionized farmworkers, the film powerfully demonstrates how politically and socially engaged arts serve both as a morale booster and a clarion call in the fight against oppression.

    Nowhere was this idea better expressed than in my second favorite fiction film in the festival: The Friend’s House Is Here. Directed by the New York–based husband and wife team of Hossein Keshavarz and Maryam Ataei and covertly filmed in the streets of Tehran amidst violent government crackdowns against citizens, House is at its heart a joyful “hangout” movie about two close but very different friends pushing the limits of their creative expression in current-day Iran. The film—whose cast includes Iranian Instagram star Hana Mana, theater actor Mahshad Bahraminejad, and a troupe of actors from a local improvisational theater company—rightfully took home the Special Jury Award for its ensemble cast.

    A young girl and a man recline in sunlit beach chairs beside dry grass and driftwood, both with their eyes closed in quiet rest.A young girl and a man recline in sunlit beach chairs beside dry grass and driftwood, both with their eyes closed in quiet rest.
    Maria Petrova in Myrsini Aristidou’s Hold Onto Me. Courtesy of Sundance Institute

    Aside from The Friend’s House Is Here crew, the best performances in Sundance films were given by children. This includes Maria Petrova as a dour 11-year-old beach rat reconnecting with her estranged conman father in Myrsini Aristidou’s Hold Onto Me, which won the World Cinema-Dramatic Audience Award. Mason Reeves’ complex and nervy turn as an 8-year-old who witnesses a rape in Golden Gate Park during an early morning run with her fitness-obsessed dad (Channing Tatum) is by far the best thing about Josephine, writer-director Beth de Araújo’s multiple award winner; the film’s narrative and emotional force are deeply undercut by the abject cluelessness shown by the child’s parents, played by Channing Tatum and Eternals stunner Gemma Chan.

    Not all of the films at this year’s festival were engaged with our fraught political moment. Longtime Sundance mainstay Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex (the programmers’ fixation on inviting old hands felt like a combination of sentimentality and branding) was born of the kind of sassy, candy-colored provocations the director helped pioneer in the 90s in its telling of Cooper Hoffman’s art intern embarking on a Dom/Sub relationship with his boss, played with preening relish by Olivia Wilde.

    A man on the left and a woman on the right gaze into each other's eyesA man on the left and a woman on the right gaze into each other's eyes
    Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde in Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Lacey Terrell

    Along with her Sex costar Charli XCX, whose premiere of her mockumentary The Moment created the closest thing the 2026 fest had to a media scrum, Wilde became the celebrity face of the festival. The bidding war to acquire The Invite—the middle-age sex comedy she directed and stars in alongside Seth Rogen, Edward Norton and Penélope Cruz—was eventually won by A24 and provided one of the few pieces of red meat that kept the trade reporters engaged.

    Otherwise, the festival overall seemed much more focused on its past than its present or even its future. (That said, Colorado Governor Jared Polis showing up to premieres in his trademark cowboy hat—in anticipation of Sundance’s move next year to Boulder—did feel like the ultimate Rocky Mountain flex.)

    In addition to its reliance on programming new films by filmmakers who had movies in previous festivals, this year’s festival also featured special screenings of films from its illustrious past, among them Barbara Kopple’s American Dream, Lynn Shelton’s Humpday, and James Wan’s Saw. Still, the festival’s most potent dose of uncut nostalgia was Tamra Davis’ The Best Summer. A stitched-together chronicle of a 1994 Australian indie rock festival that featured the Beastie Boys, Bikini Kill, Pavement, Foo Fighters and Sonic Youth, Davis’ film felt like the ultimate in Gen X hipster home movies.

    But did all of this chronic looking backwards sap the festival of its vitality? Maybe a little. But despite the sentimentality that covered Park City more heartily than the snow, films like The Friend’s House Is Here reminded us how remarkable good films can be at discovering and celebrating humanity, even as Ghost in the Machine showed us that the moment to do something about it may have passed.

    More from Sundance

    Celebrating the Power of Film and the Best of Humanity at Park City’s Last Sundance

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  • Robert Redford:

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    “Acting is not easy,” Robert Redford told 60 Minutes in 2001. “You have to adjust to different situations, different environments, different dynamics, and be convincing… You have to keep yourself alive emotionally through take after take after take.” Redford, who died in September, will be honored today at the Sundance Film Festival. He founded the event more than 40 years ago.

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  • How Robert Redford’s conservation efforts helped generations of nature lovers

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    Robert Redford, who died in September, is known for founding the Sundance Film Festival — but “CBS Saturday Morning” learns more about his conservation efforts behind-the-scenes that have helped generations of hikers and nature lovers.

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  • Sally Kirkland, stage and screen star who earned an Oscar nomination in ‘Anna,’ dies at age 84

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Sally Kirkland, a one-time model who became a regular on stage, film and TV, best known for sharing the screen with Paul Newman and Robert Redford in “The Sting” and her Oscar-nominated title role in the 1987 movie “Anna,” has died. She was 84.

    Her representative, Michael Greene, said Kirkland died Tuesday morning at a hospice in Palm Springs, California.

    Friends established a GoFundMe account this fall for her medical care. They said she had fractured four bones in her neck, right wrist and left hip. While recovering, she also developed infections, requiring hospitalization and rehab.

    “She was funny, feisty, vulnerable and self deprecating,” actor Jennifer Tilly, who co-starred with Kirkland in “Sallywood,” wrote on X. “She never wanted anyone to say she was gone. ‘Don’t say Sally died, say Sally passed on into the spirits.’ Safe passage beautiful lady.”

    Kirkland acted in such films as “The Way We Were” with Barbra Streisand, “Revenge” with Kevin Costner, “Cold Feet” with Keith Carradine and Tom Waits, Ron Howard’s “EDtv,” Oliver Stone’s “JFK,” “Heatwave” with Cicely Tyson, “High Stakes” with Kathy Bates, “Bruce Almighty” with Jim Carrey and the 1991 TV movie “The Haunted,” about a family dealing with paranormal activity. She had a cameo in Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles.”

    Michael Douglas, left, and Sally Kirkland appear with their awards for best actor for “Wall Street” and best actress for “Anna,” at the 45th Annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Jan. 24, 1988. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

    Her biggest role was in 1987’s “Anna” as a fading Czech movie star remaking her life in the United States and mentoring to a younger actor, Paulina Porizkova. Kirkland won a Golden Globe and earned an Oscar nomination along with Cher in “Moonstruck,” Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction, Holly Hunter in “Broadcast News” and Meryl Streep in “Ironweed.”

    “Kirkland is one of those performers whose talent has been an open secret to her fellow actors but something of a mystery to the general public,” The Los Angeles Times critic wrote in her review. “There should be no confusion about her identity after this blazing comet of a performance.”

    Kirkland’s small-screen acting credits include stints on “Criminal Minds,” “Roseanne,” “Head Case” and she was a series regular on the TV shows “Valley of the Dolls” and “Charlie’s Angels.”

    Born in New York City, Kirkland’s mother was a fashion editor at Vogue and Life magazine who encouraged her daughter to start modeling at age 5. Kirkland graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and studied with Philip Burton, Richard Burton’s mentor, and Lee Strasberg, the master of the Method school of acting. An early breakout was appearing in Andy Warhol’s “13 Most Beautiful Women” in 1964. She appeared naked as a kidnapped rape victim in Terrence McNally’s off-Broadway “Sweet Eros.”

    Sally Kirkland arrives at the Multicultural Motion Picture Association annual Oscar week luncheon in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Feb. 22, 2008. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)

    Sally Kirkland arrives at the Multicultural Motion Picture Association annual Oscar week luncheon in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Feb. 22, 2008. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)

    Some of her early roles were Shakespeare, including the lovesick Helena in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for New York Shakespeare Festival producer Joseph Papp and Miranda in an off-Broadway production of “The Tempest.”

    “I don’t think any actor can really call him or herself an actor unless he or she puts in time with Shakespeare,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 1991. “It shows up, it always shows up in the work, at some point, whether it’s just not being able to have breath control, or not being able to appreciate language as poetry and music, or not having the power that Shakespeare automatically instills you with when you take on one of his characters.”

    Kirkland was a member of several New Age groups, taught Insight Transformational Seminars and was a longtime member of the affiliated Church of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, whose followers believe in soul transcendence.

    She reached a career nadir while riding nude on a pig in the 1969 film “Futz,” which a Guardian reviewer dubbed the worst film he had ever seen. “It was about a man who fell in love with a pig, and even by the dismal standards of the era, it was dismal,” he wrote.

    Kirkland was also known for disrobing for so many other roles and social causes that Time magazine dubbed her “the latter-day Isadora Duncan of nudothespianism.”

    Kirkland volunteered for people with AIDS, cancer and heart disease, fed homeless people via the American Red Cross, participated in telethons for hospices and was an advocate for prisoners, especially young people.

    The actors union SAG-AFTRA called her “a fearless performer whose artistry and advocacy spanned more than six decades,” adding that as “a true mentor and champion for actors, her generosity and spirit will continue to inspire.”

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  • Poker’s NBA-and-Mafia betting scandal echoes movie games, and cheats, from ‘Ocean’s’ to ‘Rounders’

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — The stakes. The famous faces. The posh private rooms. The clever cheating schemes.

    The federal indictment of a big-money poker ring involving NBA figures on Thursday, in which unsuspecting rich players were allegedly enticed to join then cheated of their money, echoed decades of movies and television, and not just because of the alleged Mafia involvement.

    Fictional and actual poker have long been in sort of a pop-cultural feedback loop. When authorities described the supposed circumstances of the games, they might’ve evoked a run of screen moments from recent decades.

    Poker in ‘Ocean’s Eleven,’ ‘Molly’s Game’ and ‘The Sopranos’

    A 2004 episode of “ The Sopranos ” showed a very similar mix of celebrities and mobsters in a New York game whose players included Van Halen singer David Lee Roth and football Hall-of-Famer Lawrence Taylor, both playing themselves.

    In 2001’s “Ocean’s Eleven,” George Clooney finds his old heist buddy Brad Pitt running a poker game for “Teen Beat” cover boys including Topher Grace and Joshua Jackson, also playing themselves. Clooney spontaneously teams with Pitt to con them. And the plot of the 2007 sequel “Ocean’s Thirteen” centers on the high-tech rigging of casino games.

    Asked about the relevance of the films to the NBA scandal, which came soon after a story out of Paris that could’ve come straight out of “Ocean’s Twelve,” Clooney told The Associated Press with a laugh that “we get blamed for everything now.”

    “‘Cause we also got compared to the Louvre heist. Which, I think, you gotta CGI me into that basket coming out of the Louvre,” Clooney said Thursday night at the Los Angeles premiere of his new film, “Jay Kelly.” He was referring to thieves using a basket lift to steal priceless Napoleonic jewels from the museum.

    2017’s “Molly’s Game,” and the real-life memoir from Molly Bloom that it was based on, could almost serve as manuals for how to build a poker game’s allure for desirable “fish” in the same ways and with the same terminology that the organizers indicted Thursday allegedly used.

    The draw of Bloom’s games at hip Los Angeles club The Viper Room were not NBA players, but Hollywood players like Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and “The Hangover” director Todd Phillips. (None of them were accused of any wrongdoing.)

    In the movie written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, Bloom, played by Jessica Chastain, describes the way a famous actor acts as an attractor for other players, the same way officials said Thursday that NBA “face cards” did for the newly indicted organizers.

    The unnamed actor, played by Michael Cera, was at least partly based on the “Spider-Man” star Maguire.

    “People wanted to say they played with him,” Chastain says. “The same way they wanted to say they rode on Air Force One. My job security was gonna depend on bringing him his fish.”

    In her book, Bloom described the allure for the players she drew.

    “The formula of keeping pros out, inviting in celebrities and other interesting and important people, and even the mystique of playing in the private room of the Viper Room added up to one of the most coveted invitations in town,” she writes, later adding that “I just needed to continue feeding it new, rich blood; and to be strategic about how to fill those ten precious seats.”

    Bloom would get caught up in a broad 2013 nationwide crackdown on high-stakes private poker games, probably the highest profile poker bust in years before this week. She got a year’s probation, a $1,000 fine, and community service.

    There were no accusations of rigging at her game, but that didn’t make it legal.

    The legality of private-space poker games has been disputed for decades and widely varies among U.S. states. But in general, they tend to bring attention and prosecution when the host is profiting the way that a casino would.

    A brief history of movies making poker cool

    Poker — and cheating at it — has run through movies, especially Westerns, from their silent beginnings.

    Prominent poker scenes feature in 1944’s “Tall in the Saddle” with John Wayne and 1950’s “The Gunfighter” with Gregory Peck.

    “The Cincinnati Kid” in 1965 was dedicated entirely to poker — with Steve McQueen bringing his unmatched cool to the title character.

    A pair of movies co-starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman really raised the game’s profile, though.

    In the opening scene of 1969’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,’ a hyper-cool Redford is playing poker and refuses to leave until another player takes back a cheating accusation.

    In 1973’s Best Picture Oscar winner “The Sting,” 1930s con-men Newman and Redford seek revenge against a big fish and run a series of increasingly bold gambling scams that could’ve come from Thursday’s indictments. Newman out-cheats the man at poker to set him up for the big con, a phony radio horse race.

    The 1980s saw a dip in screen poker, with the subject largely relegated to the TV “Gambler” movies, starring Kenny Rogers, based on his hit song.

    But the end of the decade brought a poker boomlet from the increased legalization of commercial games.

    Then, at possibly the perfect moment, came “Rounders.” The 1998 Matt Damon film did for Texas Hold ’em what “Sideways” did for pinot noir and “Pitch Perfect” did for a cappella: it took an old and popular phenomenon and made them widespread crazes.

    Soon after came explosive growth in online poker, whose players often sought out big face-to-face games. And the development of cameras that showed players’ cards — very similar to the tech allegedly used to cheat players, according to the new indictments — made poker a TV spectator sport.

    The “Ocean’s” films and the general mystique they brought piled on too.

    Clooney, talking about the broader set of busts Thursday that included alleged gambling on basketball itself, pointed out that his Cincinnati Reds were the beneficiaries of sport’s most infamous gambling scandal, the 1919 “Black Sox” and the fixing of the World Series, “so I have great guilt for that.”

    “But you know there — we’ve never had a moment in our history that we didn’t have some dumb scandal or something crazy,” he said. “I feel very bad for the gambling scandal ’cause this was on the night that, you know, we had some amazing basketball happen.”

    —-

    Associated Press writer Leslie Ambriz contributed to this report.

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  • Sundance Film Festival reveals details about Robert Redford tributes and legacy screenings

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    Robert Redford’s legacy and mission was always going to be a key component of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, which will be the last of its kind in Park City, Utah. But in the wake of his death in Septemberat age 89, those ideas took on a new significance.

    This January, the institute that Redford founded over 40 years ago, plans to honor his career and impact with and a screening of his first truly independent film, the 1969 sports drama “Downhill Racer,” and a series of legacy screenings of restored Sundance gems from “Little Miss Sunshine” to “House Party,” festival organizers said Tuesday.

    “As we were thinking about how best to honor Mr. Redford’s legacy, it’s not only carrying forward this notion of ‘everyone has a story’ but it’s also getting together in a movie theater and watching a film that really embodies that independent spirit,” festival director Eugene Hernandez told The Associated Press. “We’ve had some incredible artists reach out to us, even in the past few weeks since Mr. Redford’s passing, who just want to be part of this year’s festival.”

    Archival screenings will include “Saw,” “Mysterious Skin,” “House Party,” and “Humpday” as well as the 35th anniversary of Barbara Kopple’s documentary “American Dream,” and 20th anniversaries of “Half Nelson” and “Little Miss Sunshine,” with some of the filmmakers expected to attend as well.

    “Over the almost 30 years of Sundance Institute’s collaboration with our partner, the UCLA Film & Television Archive, we’ve not only worked to ensure that the Festival’s legacy endures through film preservation, but we’ve seen that output feed an astonishing resurgence of repertory cinema programming across the country,” said festival programmer John Nein. “The films we’ve preserved and the newly restored films screening at this year’s festival, including some big anniversaries, are an important way to keep the independent stories from years past alive in our culture today.”

    Tickets for the 2026 festival, which runs from Jan. 22 through Feb. 1, go on sale Wednesday at noon Eastern, with online and in person options. Some planning is also already underway for the festival’s new home in Boulder, Colorado, in 2027, but programmers are heads down figuring out the slate of world premieres for January. Those will be revealed in December.

    “There’s a lot more to come and a lot more to announce,” Hernandez said. “This is just laying a foundation.”

    Redford’s death has added a poignancy to everything.

    “Seeing and hearing the remembrances took me back to why I felt compelled to go to the festival in the first place,” Hernandez said. “It’s been very grounding and clarifying and for us as a team it’s been very emotional and moving. But it’s also been an opportunity to remind ourselves what Mr. Redford has given to us, to our lives, to our industry, to Utah.”

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  • Robert Redford the Actor: A Look Back at His Movies

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    From ‘Barefoot in the Park’ to ‘All the President’s Men’, the actor and founder of the Sundance Institute built his legend over decades onscreen and off.

    ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’

    20th Century Fox Film Corp./Courtesy Everett Collection

    Throughout his six decades in entertainment, Robert Redford reached the status of Hollywood legend with films like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men and Out of Africa. He seemingly tackled every genre, from comedy to romance to western to thrillers to, yes, even superhero films.

    Redford died on Tuesday at the age of 89. Below, The Hollywood Reporter has compiled some of his notable onscreen (and behind-the-camera) offerings.

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    Pamela McClintock

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  • The Legendary Bromance of Robert Redford and Paul Newman

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    On Tuesday, September 16, Robert Redford, the legendary actor and Oscar-winning director of Ordinary People, died at the age of 89. Redford made his mark on Hollywood in films like All the President’s Men and by starting the iconic Sundance Film Festival. But Redford only got his big break when the late acting legend Paul Newman handpicked him to be his costar in the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

    Redford starred as Harry Longabaugh, a.k.a. the Sundance Kid, opposite Newman’s outlaw, Butch Cassidy. The film was a critical and commercial hit, winning four Oscars, including best screenplay and best song. The two actors would reunite four years later,  starring opposite each other in The Sting, which won eight Oscars in 1974.

    Newman reportedly fought for Redford when the studios were dreaming of a more established name. “The studio didn’t want me. I wasn’t as well-known as he was,” Redford said in an interview with ABC News in 2008, shortly after Newman’s death. “But he said, ‘I want to work with an actor,’ and that was very complimentary to me, because that’s, I think, how we both saw our profession—that acting was about craft, and we took it seriously, because we both came from the same background of theater in New York.”

    While Redford and Newman had similar backgrounds, that didn’t mean they were exactly alike.  On the set of The Sting, as producer Michael Phillips told The Hollywood Reporter, Redford was “chronically late.” Eventually, Phillips said, Newman, 11 years older than Redford, took the youngster to task. “One day, Newman tore him apart for it,” Phillips said. “Paul was the bigger star. And he said something like, ‘What are you—a movie star?’ Redford shrunk from it.”

    Robert Redford and Paul Newman in the Western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

    Screen Archives/Getty Images

    Paul Newman et Robert Redford dans L'Arnaque.

    Paul Newman and Robert Redford in The Sting

    Screen Archives/Getty Images

    The dressing-down may have only bonded the two actors further. In January 1975, Redford gave Newman a Porsche as a gift for his 50th birthday—but with a mischievous twist. “I started to get bored, because every time we got together, all he talked about was racing and cars,” Redford said in an interview at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in 2014. “So I decided to play a joke on him. I called a towing service and said, ‘Do you have any crushed automobiles? Do you have a Porsche?’” Redford had the crushed Porsche delivered to Newman’s home in Connecticut, wrapped in a bow.

    Redford didn’t immediately hear back from Newman after giving the gag gift. Weeks later, Redford found a big wooden box in his lobby, containing the remains of the sports car—now crushed into a cube. Redford called a sculptor he knew to transform the metal into a garden ornament and had it placed in Newman’s garden. The two actors reportedly never spoke about the prank.

    Redford and Newman eventually became neighbors in Connecticut, and spent a long time looking for a third film to make together. “It was hard because we didn’t want to duplicate anything,” Redford said. “But we also wanted to try to find a project that would still have the relationship they had in the other two. The first film we did, because I was young, I played a more dour character and Paul was the lively one. And then the next time out, on The Sting, he was the cool guy and I was the lively one. So we were looking for a third piece that would be different in terms of story but would have the same kind of characters.” Redford developed his 2015 film A Walk in the Woods as a project to reunite the two actors, but unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. Newman’s health declined before production could begin, and the role was eventually taken by Nick Nolte.

    Although they never found a third project, the two actors remained close until the end. Shortly before his death from lung cancer,  Newman sent Redford a letter that concluded: “You were the Sundance to my Cassidy—always.” “I’ve lost a true friend,” Redford said after Newman’s death. “My life, and this country, are better because of his presence.”

    This story originally appeared in VF France.

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    Eléa Guilleminault-Bauer

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  • Robert Redford’s real-life love story began in Utah with wife who wasn’t impressed with Hollywood fame

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    Robert Redford was initially attracted to Sibylle Szaggars once he learned she wasn’t familiar with him or his movies.

    The legendary actor was 89 when he died on Sept. 16 at his home in Sundance, Utah, his representative told Fox News Digital. Redford and Szaggars’ love story began decades ago in those very mountains in Utah.

    In 1996, the German-born artist ran into Redford while on a ski trip with friends at his Sundance Mountain Resort, which eventually became the same spot he founded the non-profit Sundance Institute to provide support for independent filmmakers.

    Robert Redford and wife Sibylle Szaggars have a love story that dates back decades. (Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage)

    In 2014, Szaggars shed some light on their first encounter.

    ROBERT REDFORD DEAD AT 89

    “I knew of him,” Szaggars recalled during a discussion for the National YoungArts Foundation. “I had seen ‘Jeremiah Johnson,’ one of my favorite films, and ‘Barefoot in the Park.’ But I have to also say: I’m not a film person, and I hadn’t been a film person. I was more interested in musicals, opera and painting and artists and Salvador Dalí and Picasso.”

    Robert Redford (R) and his wife Sibylle Szaggars

    Robert Redford and his wife Sibylle Szaggars attended the “All Is Lost” premiere during the 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival in 2013. (Dave J Hogan/Getty Images)

    Szaggars said that Redford invited her and her group of friends out to dinner after a day on the slopes. “Oh my God, I don’t know any of his films,” she recalled thinking to herself.

    One of Redford’s friends told her that she could rent some of his movies at the reception. She rented several and watched short bursts of the six or eight movies that she rented in the chance that the star would bring any of them up, but he didn’t.

    “I thought, ‘What if he wants to talk about his movies?’ I have no idea — that would be so embarrassing. I probably would have mixed everything. Of course, he did not talk about it so I was rescued and saved,” she said at the time.

    Redford was also in attendance for the panel and admitted this is one of Szaggars’ qualities that attracted him to her.

    “That’s one of the things that attracted me to her—she didn’t know much about me.”

    — Robert Redford

    “That’s one of the things that attracted me to her—she didn’t know much about me.”

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    “So we started from a more even playing field. I didn’t have to worry about any agenda. I’d been through that before. And so it was a wonderful beginning of a relationship because it began as two human beings meeting each other and finding a connection as two human beings rather than being colored by success or whatever,” Redford said at the time.

    Prior to his romance with Szaggars, who he married in 2009, Redford was married to Lola Van Wagenen. The pair tied the knot in 1958 and later divorced. Redford and Szaggars did not have any of their own children, but she became stepmom to Redford’s children from his marriage to Van Wagenen.

    Robert Redford and girlfriend Sibylle Szaggars

    Robert Redford and Sibylle Szaggars met in the late 1990s. They were photographed here in 2004. (Matthew Peyton/Getty Images)

    Redford and Szaggars kept their relationship private over the past several decades and rarely made any public comments about their romance. Prior to tying the knot in 2009, Redford spoke to the German magazine, Bunte, about their engagement. 

    “We are engaged and very happy with that. She is my fiancée and that says everything, doesn’t it?” he told the magazine in 2008.

    Robert Redford

    Robert Redford won an Oscar for best director of “Ordinary People” in 1981. (AP Photo)

    Sticking to their theme of privacy, Redford and Szaggars kept their wedding very small, only inviting 30 friends and family members. They tied the knot at Louis C. Jacob Hotel in Hamburg, Germany, where Szaggars is from.

    In 2011, Redford spoke to AARP The Magazine about Szaggars. “She’s a very special person. She’s younger than I am, and European, which I like, so that’s a whole new life,” he said at the time.

    Szaggars was 21 years younger than Redford.

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    During his illustrious career that spanned five decades of film, Redford became an Oscar-winning director as well as an activist. Szaggars also had an interest in activism.

    Robert Redford wears black suit and tie with wife Sibylle Szaggar at event in Monaco

    Sibylle Szaggar married husband Robert Redford in 2009 when he was 73 years old.  (Daniele Venturelli)

    In 2015, Redford and his wife founded The Way of the Rain, “which is organized exclusively for charitable, cultural and educational purposes, including the specific purpose of developing, producing and performing educational and artistic performances themed and designed to promote public awareness and support for the protection of our Earth,” according to the non-profit organization’s website.

    Szaggars and Redford were last publicly photographed together at Prince Albert II of Monaco’s 2021 award ceremony, which highlights organizations and individuals dedicated to preserving the planet.

    Robert Redford and Sibylle Szaggars

    Robert Redford and Sibylle Szaggars attended The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation’s 2021 award ceremony in 2021. (Arnold Jerocki/Getty Images)

    Redford and Szaggars were both wearing white at the event and posed for photos.

    Utah Governor Spencer Cox took to Instagram shortly after Redford’s death to shed some light on his life in his state.

    “Decades ago, Robert Redford came to Utah and fell in love with this place. He cherished our landscapes and built a legacy that made Utah a home for storytelling and creativity. Through Sundance and his devotion to conservation, he shared Utah with the world.”

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    “Today we honor his life, his vision, and his lasting contribution to our state,” Cox captioned a photo of Redford on a horse in Utah.

    Redford’s representative shared a statement with Fox News Digital on Sept. 16, confirming his passing. 

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    “Robert Redford passed away on September 16, 2025, at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah – the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved. He will be missed greatly. The family requests privacy,” his representative said.

    The Hollywood icon was best known for classics like “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “The Sting.”

    Robert Redford

    Robert Redford during the filming of “Downhill Racer” in May 1969. (Ernst Haas/Getty Images)

    Before he became the rugged screen icon of the 1970s, Redford grew up in Santa Monica, California. 

    After skyrocketing to fame in the ’60s, Redford dominated the ’70s box office with back-to-back hits like “The Candidate,” “The Way We Were” and “All the President’s Men.” He capped off the decade with an Oscar win for best director in 1980 for “Ordinary People,” which also took home best picture.

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    Fox News Digital’s Stephanie Giang-Paunon contributed to this report.

    Janelle Ash is an entertainment writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to janelle.ash@fox.com. 

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  • Robert Redford’s Biggest Hollywood Innovation Was to Make Helping Others Seem Cool

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    In 2012, Robert Redford was meeting with a reporter about a movie he did with Shia LaBeouf when the question of how to do good in Hollywood came up. The actor-director had two answers. The first, he said, was not to take celebrity too seriously. The second was not to live there.

    “By coming and going, by doing the work and leaving, by dropping bombs in enemy territory and getting out,” he said.

    Such an attitude might seem strange for someone who was the quintessential celebrity, an actor with leading-man good looks who was at times such a box office draw that the only release that could unseat a Redford movie was another Redford movie (e.g., The Sting and The Way We Were, c. 1973)

    But Redford’s power to entertain was lapped by — and more importantly often served as a means to the end of — a larger sense of giving. Many tributes since his death Tuesday have been written about his film legacy, and from Sundance to his dozens of polished hits that legacy is boundless. But his greatest gift may have been his most subtle: he made helping people seem cool.

    By now we’re used to seeing George Clooney stand up for human rights, Angelina Jolie advocate for the Global South and Leonardo DiCaprio agitate for the environment, larger-than-life movie stars putting their celebrity to altruistic end. We seldom stop to think how, long before all of them, Redford was casually embracing causes, leveraging his power to help creatures and ecosystems via the NRDC and the Redford Center; protecting Native American rights; and, with his son James, helping to raise awareness for organ transplants.

    His celebrity wasn’t a distinct enterprise from these causes — his celebrity is what made us want to pursue them. After all, if the Sundance Kid was engaged in such efforts, shouldn’t we want to be too? The artist-as-activist is now so common as to be a type. But it became that way in part because Redford demonstrated the relationship — showed that the two realms could not only be blended but each serve the other.

    Sure, before him you had high-profile moments, of Dalton Trumbo not testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee, or Marlon Brando having Sacheen Littlefeather decline the Oscar. But very few Hollywood creatives before Redford ever made doing good such a part of his brand, made advocacy and acting so entwined we could forget where one ended and the other began. He didn’t performatively support causes. He just performed, and it caused so many to feel supported.

    What’s more, he did so not only on a large media-platform-y scale but in small, one-on-one, unheralded ways, expending his effort for the trampled and unknown to be given their shot. Read the homages to Redford and you’ll see one word appear again and again: mentoring.

    Like when he mentored a young Brad Pitt on A River Runs Through It, or when he did the same for people who worked with him on his charities.

    “He was deeply involved with our campaigns to stop the development of Pebble Mine in Alaska, to save huge parts of the American West from fossil fuel development, to address really pressing water issues,” the NRDC’s Daniel Hinerfeld said in an ABC 7 story about Redford’s role as a trustee of the organization. “He really mentored us as media makers, as filmmakers, and he marshaled resources for us to tell our stories,” added Hinerfeld.

    At a moment in American political culture when selfishness abides — when giving is seen as weakness and costly — Redford’s lesson feels timelier than ever. He evenly showed how helping those in need didn’t mean you lost, who effortlessly negated the idea of life as a zero-sum game. The most glamorous act, Redford conveyed over and over, was the one you did for others.

    Even his film work could have this uplifting effect. Doggedly pursuing the truth suddenly became more appealing when Redford’s Bob Woodward was doing it; to watch directorial efforts like Ordinary People, The Milagro Beanfield War and 2011’s slept-on The Conspirator (and even that wobblier 2012 Shia movie The Company You Keep) was to bring on a healthy self-questioning about whether we were listening to our better angels.

    Heck, even when his character was notably indifferent we found ourselves wanting to do more. What was Out of Africa or The Candidate or The Way We Were but a means for Redford to draw us magnetically to the screen so we could realize we could do a lot better than he did (and, often, should be a lot more like the female lead)?

    When actors have been around a long while we can go snowblind to their effects, we can cease to imagine a world that they never entered. But pull Redford out of the last half-century of filmmaking and you have a gaping void of characters and causes that all call on us to do more to help everyone and everything around us. Every actor who wants to use their celebrity to further a charity owes a debt of gratitude to Redford; every activist who ever called a boldfaced name to platform their cause can thank the man who provided the road map.

    Asked how he remembered Redford, Darren Aronofsky — who premiered his debut Pi at Sundance more than a quarter-century ago — emailed this response:

    “I remember so clearly the first time I met him at Sundance ’98, when he spoke to you he completely locked in and focused deep into your soul. He taught me so much in those moments about being present that I still think about often. A few years later he was my advisor at the Institute when I workshopped Requiem for a Dream. I was wondering what his rural, cowboy perspective might be for my inner city drug nightmare. And he surprised me. His main note was to find a way that Harry and Marion could connect in the third act. And it was this inspiration that led to the phone call between the doomed lovers that is one of the most quoted scenes we shot. It would be impossible to quantify the amount of generosity he gave to the filmmaking world.”

    Aronofsky had one last thought. “I’d argue there is no greater mentor in the world of filmmaking.”

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  • Robert Redford’s Real Hollywood Legacy Is in Utah

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    At the Sundance Institute’s filmmakers labs, Roger Ross Williams, the Oscar-winning documentarian, happened to be paired with Sundance Institute founder Robert Redford as a mentor.

    Williams was prepping for his narrative feature debut, Cassandro. He tells The Hollywood Reporter, “I told Bob about my fears. I said, ‘I’m a documentarian, and I’m really nervous about making this transition and working with actors.’ He said, ‘Lean into your documentary experience. You’re way ahead of the game. You actually know how to tap into people and get them to open up.’”

    Williams revealed to Redford that the scene that worried him the most was the film’s sex scene. “We were sitting at the table in the lunch room at the Sundance Resort, and he storyboarded the sex scene for me. He drew out the sex scene for me on the back of script pages,” remembers Williams, who has since had the pages framed and hung in his office. 

    Adds Williams, “When he was at the lab, he wasn’t this big Hollywood superstar. He was someone who really valued giving back to filmmakers like me. The celebrity melted away.”  

    Redford died Tuesday at his Utah home at the age of 89. He is remembered for onscreen roles that spanned drama, comedy, romance, western and action, from Barefoot in the Park and All the President’s Men to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and directing turns like the Oscar-winning Ordinary People. But in the indie filmmaking community, he will likely be best remembered not for his work onscreen but instead at the base of a ski mountain.

    From the filmmakers’ labs to its marquee Sundance Film Festival, the Redford-founded Sundance Institute has helped launch hundreds of careers, including Steven Soderbergh, Ryan Coogler, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Paul Thomas Anderson, Chloé Zhao and Quentin Tarantino.

    Tom Bernard, the co-founder of Sony Pictures Classics, had been attending the Salt Lake-based US Film Festival, then the country’s preeminent indie fest, when he was connected to Redford, who wanted to figure out a way to support independent film in his home state of Utah. 

    Says Bernard, “It was a moment in time where there were a lot of people who wanted to make independent films. They had ideas, they had some financing, but they didn’t have the skills that you would learn in a union to be a cinematographer or a director. Bob wanted to put together a lab for the summer where he would invite all his friends from Hollywood to come with a selection of independent filmmakers.” 

    The Sundance Institute was founded and produced the first filmmaker lab in 1981. Filmmakers like Sydney Pollack, who worked with Redford on Out of Africa and Jeremiah Johnson, and Midnight Cowboy writer Waldo Salt traveled to Redford’s Sundance Mountain Resort to help mentor young filmmakers with independent features they were developing. (The actor purchased the land in 1969, saving it from developers looking to build condominiums in the Provo Canyon.) 

    According to famed critic Roger Ebert, in his report from that first 1981 gathering, the larger entertainment industry was wary of Redford’s ambitions at the time, with the thinking being the Sundance Institute was an attempt, as the critic wrote, to establish “his own mini-studio here on the mountain he is developing.” Redford countered that he did not have plans to produce the films developed at his filmmaker labs, telling Ebert, “They say I’m starting my own studio; I’m challenging the studios. Actually, I have no idea what this will turn out to be.”

    Over the years, the labs expanded to include directing, screenwriting and producing programs, among others, under the guidance of Michelle Satter. But Redford was a constant presence. 

    Says Bernard, “You go out to the lab and he’s playing catch with somebody because he’s practicing for The Natural and then he would go check in with people about their films. It was a part of his life.” 

    And, of course, there is the film festival. 

    The Sundance Institute took over the US Film Festival, which had moved from Salt Lake to Park City, in 1985. (The name wasn’t officially changed to the Sundance Film Festival until 1991.)

    As he told it, Redford, one of Hollywood’s brightest stars and best-known leading men, was imploring people to go into a 300-seat movie theater. “It was like a guy standing outside a speakeasy or something,” Redford said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2009 of handing out tickets in the early 1980s to Sundance Film Festival screenings at Park City’s The Egyptian theater. “People would say, ‘What are you doing here?’ And I’d say, ‘Well, there’s a thing we are doing.’” 

    That “thing” would become the nation’s top independent film festival, running for over four decades.

    “It was about five years before I even knew we would succeed and stay alive,” Redford said in the 2009 interview, adding that a turning point for Sundance in the eyes of Hollywood was when a Columbia executive bought the Dennis Quaid drama The Big Easy out of the 1986 fest. But it was Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies and Videotape that really put the festival on the map as a place for young filmmakers to debut cutting-edge work.

    Wes Anderson screened his short film, Bottle Rocket, in 1993, while in 1998 Darren Aronofsky made his feature debut with Pi and Coogler screened his debut, Fruitvale Station, in 2013.

     “I was there in ’91 with my first film that anyone would care to watch, Slacker,” Richard Linklater tells THR. “Slacker played in the competition, which is remarkable. It was such a weird film. It didn’t win any awards or anything, but it did help the film. It was just a good profile.” The director says that Sundance bridged the gap for filmmakers who weren’t first-timers but studios weren’t yet ready to take a chance on. He says, “I was always happy to show at Sundance. I was not a Sundance one-and-done-er by any means. I was very happy to always go back there.”

    Linklater went back to the festival a couple of years later in 1995 with Before Sunrise. Says Linklater, “I was talking to Ethan Hawke today. We were just sharing Redford stories and saying he was so sweet. He got up and introduced [Before Sunrise], and I got eternal points with my parents and family. When they go to a screening and Robert Redford gets up there and introduces you and sings your praises, I was set for life with the family.”

    For filmmakers, Sundance, whether screening a film in competition or attending the Institute’s labs, has long been a place of happy accidents, chance encounters and big breaks.

    Barry Levinson headed to Utah after his feature film debut. “I had done Diner, which had already played in its national release. I was invited up to Sundance as a young writer-director for that weekend,” he tells THR. “When I had to head to the airport, I ran into Redford. He said hello and I said I was going to the airport. He said, ‘So am I. You need a ride?’ I got into his car, and it was quite the journey, in terms of him as a race car driver.” 

    Levinson continues, “We talked on the plane, and he said, ‘If you ever have an idea, give me a holler, and let’s talk.’” Levinson’s second feature film was The Natural.

    The Sundance Film Festival’s storied run in Park City will come to an end after this year’s festival, the last in Utah before the fest heads to its new home of Boulder, Colorado, in 2027. Of the long-term future of the festival, Redford said in 2009, “My feeling is when the day comes when we’re no longer providing the mission we started with — not creating something for new audiences, creating new opportunities for new artists to have a place to come and develop — then we shouldn’t be here, and we won’t.” 

    As one of those filmmakers boosted by Redford’s Sundance, Linklater assesses, “I just can’t think of another person who had the impact on the filmmaking world — and I’m not hyperbolizing — in the way Redford did.” 

    Julian Sancton and Ryan Gajewski contributed to this report. 

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  • How Robert Redford changed Hollywood

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    Robert Redford filled the screen in films like “All the President’s Men.” He was Hollywood’s quintessential leading man, turned Oscar-winning director and also became the patriarch of independent films. Variety’s chief film critic Peter Debruge joins to discuss.

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  • Robert Redford | 60 Minutes Archive

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    In an excerpt from a 60 Minutes interview in 2001, actor and Sundance founder Robert Redford discussed his career and his love for America. Redford died today at age 89.

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  • Remembering Robert Redford: Pictures show Hollywood legend in iconic films

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    Remembering iconic actor Robert Redford



    Remembering iconic actor Robert Redford

    02:53

    Oscar-winning actor and director Robert Redford, who died Tuesday at the age of 89, launched into Hollywood stardom in the late 1960s before going on to star in dozens of feature films over his career.

    Among his most iconic films were “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “The Way We Were” and “The Sting.” Other classics include “Three Days of the Condor,” “All the President’s Men” and “The Great Waldo Pepper.”

    In 1980, Redford moved on to a job behind the camera — as director of “Ordinary People,” for which he won an Oscar for best director. A year later he founded the Sundance Institute, which fostered the work of independent filmmakers outside of mainstream Hollywood.

    Here is a look at the actor in some of the classic films that defined his career.

    On the set of Three Days of the Condor

    American actor Robert Redford on the set of “Three Days of the Condor” based on the novel by James Grady and directed by Sydney Pollack.

    Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images


    On Location Filming

    Cliff Robertson, Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack sighted on location filming “Three Days of the Condor” on Feb. 21, 1975, at the New York Times Building in New York City.

    Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images


    The Great Gatsby

    The movie “The Great Gatsby,” directed by Jack Clayton, based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Seen here from left, Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan and Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby.

    Photo by CBS via Getty Images


    Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) in a scene from the movie “Butch Casssidy And The Sundance Kid,” which was released on Oct. 24, 1969.

    Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images


    Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

    American actors Robert Redford (right) as The Sundance Kid, and Paul Newman (1925 – 2008) as Butch Cassidy in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” directed by George Roy Hill, 1969.

    Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images


    Robert Redford In Downhill Racer

    American actor Robert Redford as David Chappellet in the film “Downhill Racer,” 1969.

    Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images


    Redford & Streisand In 'The Way We Were'

    American actress and singer Barbra Streisand hugs American actor Robert Redford from behind in this publicity still from the movie “The Way We Were” directed by Sydney Pollack, 1973.

    Columbia Pictures International/Courtesy of Getty Images/Columbia TriStar


    'The Sting' Publicity Still

    Robert Redford wearing a grey tweed blazer over a matching waistcoat and a white shirt, with a diagonally striped tie, with a grey fedora, in a scene from “The Sting,”1973.

    Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images


    The Great Gatsby

    The movie “The Great Gatsby,” directed by Jack Clayton, based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Seen here from left, Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway and Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby. Initial theatrical release March 29, 1974.

    Photo by CBS via Getty Images


    'The Way We Were' Publicity Still

    American singer and actress Barbra Streisand and American actor Robert Redford in a publicity still for “The Way We Were,” 1973. The romantic drama, adapted from Arthur Laurents’ novel and directed by Sydney Pollack, starred Streisand as Katie Morosky, and Redford as Hubbell Gardiner.

    Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images


    Mary Tyler Moore and Robert Redford

    On the set of the 1980 film “Ordinary People.”

    Bettmann/Contributor


    'All the President's Men'

    Robert Redford holding papers while speaking to Dustin Hoffman typing on a typewriter in a scene from the film “All the President’s Men,” 1976.

    Warner Bros. Inc./Getty Images/Michael Ochs Archives


    'The Hot Rock' Publicity Still

    American actor Robert Redford, wearing a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his arms crossed, with a man with his back to the camera, in the jail scene from “The Hot Rock,” filmed in New York City, 1972. 

    Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images


    Robert Redford And Demi Moore In 'Indecent Proposal'

    Robert Redford and Demi Moore in a scene from the film “Indecent Proposal,” 1993.

    Paramount Pictures/Getty Images


    Richard Farnsworth And Robert Redford In 'The Natural'

    Richard Farnsworth and Robert Redford relaxing in hotel lobby in a scene from the film “The Natural,” 1984.

    TriStar/Getty Images/Archive Photos


    Robert Redford And Meryl Streep In 'Out Of Africa'

    Robert Redford and Meryl Streep during production for the film “Out Of Africa,” 1985.

    Hemdale/Getty Images/Hulton Archive


    Robert Redford And Kristen Scott Thomas Stars In The Horse Whisperer

    1998 Robert Redford and Kristin Scott Thomas in “The Horse Whisperer.” 

    Getty Images


    David Morgan

    contributed to this report.

    Sarah Lynch Baldwin

    Sarah Lynch Baldwin is a deputy managing editor of CBSNews.com. She helps lead national and breaking news coverage and shapes editorial workflows.

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  • Robert Redford Remembered: How Hollywood’s Golden Boy Used His Star Power to Boost Indies and Launch the Sundance Film Festival 

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    Today, the film industry lost not only one of its brightest stars, but also one of its biggest champions: Robert Redford, who was instrumental to two revolutions that transformed Hollywood.

    An iconic face in such films as “All the President’s Men” and “The Natural,” Redford was a key figure of the New Hollywood — the late-’60s creative upheaval that brought fresh life to the film industry, at a time when television was siphoning audiences away and the studios were flailing to identify what the younger generation wanted. The answer: They wanted relevant stories and leading men like Redford, who could take the mantle from earlier matinee idols, and do so with a certain knowing twinkle in his eye that showed he was in on the joke.

    Released in 1969, the free-spirited and forward-thinking Western “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” may have made Redford a star, but the Sundance Film Festival made him a saint, launching a near-total overhaul of the film business around writer-directors. Because success came early to “the kid” — a strawberry blond California-born sun god who battled the stereotype that he was just another pretty face — he took the opportunity to reinvent himself several times over the course of his career.

    Redford was born in Santa Monica, Calif., but resented the urbanization and pollution that transformed his hometown, connecting instead with Utah’s unspoiled forests, building a cabin there as early as 1961. In the years that followed, Redford wore three hats: actor, the man who calls action (i.e. director of films such as “Ordinary People” and “Quiz Show”) and activist. On the latter front, Redford was known for his liberal causes, including his decades-long advocacy for all things environmental, though it’s the creation of the Sundance Film Festival in the mid-’80s — rebranding the Utah-based US Film Festival — that had the greatest impact on what movies are today.

    All my life, critics have praised the golden era of ’70s cinema, of which Redford was a fixture, playing a wide range of iconic roles, from the rugged wilderness man in “Jeremiah Johnson” to the Jazz Age millionaire of “The Great Gatsby.” Two short months after the Watergate break-in, he appeared in 1972’s political satire “The Candidate,” and four years later, he embodied dogged Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in “All the President’s Men,” the definitive account of the moment America lost faith in its leaders.

    Those movies are stone-cold classics, to be sure, and yet I believe the 1990s were every bit as important a decade, as a direct result of the independent film movement Redford was so committed to supporting. At a moment when Hollywood was again struggling, making star-driven tentpoles and sequels for corporations, audiences were craving originality. Sundance provided exactly that, along with a platform for the little guy: unknown filmmakers and actors, telling personal stories on limited budgets.

    Sundance was more than just a festival; it was also an institute, founded in 1981 (20 years after Redford built his first cabin in Utah), committed to developing the next generation of storytellers by partnering them with more established mentors through its various labs. If it weren’t for Sundance — which attracted agents and execs looking for some ski time in its early years, but later became a veritable marketplace for independent movies in search of distribution — would the world have discovered such voices as Steven Soderbergh (“Sex, Lies and Videotape”), Quentin Tarantino (“Reservoir Dogs”), Wes Anderson (“Bottle Rocket”), Ryan Coogler (“Fruitvale Station”) and Rian Johnson (“Brick”)?

    Redford worked tirelessly behind the scenes, but it helped enormously to have a star of his stature to serve as the face of such an event, lending showbiz cred to a festival that filled what started as a niche but became an entire sector of the industry: Sundance served as a place for discovery, focusing on fresh talents of diverse backgrounds. If people whom the studios might never have cast or otherwise entrusted to make a film could somehow do so on their own, Sundance became the ideal place for them to be recognized.

    In recent years, though he had effectively retired from acting, Redford continued to appear in the occasional movie, including those by Sundance veterans such as J.C. Chandor (the one-man-show that is “All Is Lost”) and David Lowery (whose “The Old Man & the Gun” feels like a throwback to early Redford roles).

    Redford’s acting career began a decade before “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” with roles on Broadway. One of his first big films, opposite Jane Fonda in “Barefoot in the Park,” was the direct result of playing the same part on stage, though he never looked back once Hollywood called.

    “Butch Cassidy” opened the same year as Sam Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch” and was its opposite in nearly every way. Both films climax with a violent standoff, though “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” eschews the over-the-top carnage, ending on a freeze frame, rather than a bloodbath. (That also makes it a lighter alternative to “Bonnie and Clyde,” the Warren Beatty movie that kicked off the New Hollywood two years earlier.)

    That playful tone proved an even better fit for “The Sting” (1973), which reunited Redford with director George Roy Hill and co-star Paul Newman. Redford is never more charming than he is in that multi-Oscar winner, though I’d argue that Sydney Pollack understood the actor’s potential better than any other director. The pair made seven movies together.

    In “The Way We Were,” Pollack tapped Redford’s romantic potential (opposite Barbra Steisand), and in “Three Days of the Condor,” he emphasized the actor’s intelligence in the ’70s most entertaining (and sexiest) conspiracy thriller. Their two-decade collaboration built to “Out of Africa,” a sweeping, nearly last-of-its-kind Hollywood love story that robbed “The Color Purple” of Best Picture, but served as a fitting summit to Redford’s acting career, following on the heels of his beloved turn as all-American slugger Roy Hobbs in “The Natural.”

    It was right around that time, in 1985, that he poured himself into Sundance. Today, when practically every city has at least one film festival, it may be hard to imagine how idealistic and risky Sundance was at its inception.

    By this time in his career, Redford had already made the leap from actor to director with “Ordinary People,” a devastating family drama featuring hall-of-fame performances from its cast (Redford did not act in his debut, but won an Oscar for direction). If that project was the culmination of what he’d learned from the great directors he’d worked with, Sundance was an effort to open the field to others, to eliminate the barriers of entry and encourage stories that weren’t being told (as well as environmental-themed movies close to Redford’s heart, such as “An Inconvenient Truth” and “The Cove”).

    Over the years, aspiring filmmakers maxed out their credit cards to make calling-card projects, hoping to win the proverbial lottery: first being selected to play Sundance, and once there, hopefully sparking a bidding war for rights to their movie. More dreams were shattered than were ever made along the way.

    Still, there’s no denying that Sundance served as both incubator and launchpad for some of cinema’s most important artists — many of whom were tapped to make studio tentpoles on the strength of their vision (half the Marvel movies were made by Sundance vets), which just goes to show how influential it was. Over the years, Redford has made a point of appearing on opening day of the festival, but never wanted to be the focus of attention there. Sundance was his way of giving back, of paying it forward — or, to put it in eco-conscious terms — of recycling the good fortune he’d enjoyed into opportunities for others. That, as much as his unforgettable film roles, will be legacy.

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    Peter Debruge

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  • Robert Redford 1936-2025

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    20th Century Fox


    Actor Robert Redford as the Sundance Kid in the 1969 comic-drama, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

    In addition to being an Oscar-winning director and producer, Redford (who died on Sept. 16, 2025 at age 89), was also head of the nonprofit Sundance Institute, whose internationally-recognized festival has helped promote independent filmmaking, while fostering new generations of writers and directors.

    Click through the gallery to see highlights from Redford’s illustrious career.

    TV Fixture

    robert-redford-hitchcock-twilight-zone-the-naked-city.jpg

    CBS News


    Born in Santa Monica, Calif., in 1936, Robert Redford studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.

    He became a familiar presence on TV in the early 60s, appearing on such programs as “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” (left), “The Twilight Zone” (upper right), and “The Naked City” (lower right), as well as “Playhouse 90,” “Perry Mason,” “The Untouchables,” “Route 66,” “Dr Kildare,” “The Virginian,” and a TV production of “The Iceman Cometh.”

    On Broadway

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    Friedman-Abeles/copyright New York Public Library


    Robert Redford made his Broadway debut in 1959 as a replacement in the comedy “Tall Story.” Subsequent appearances included Dore Schary’s “The Highest Tree,” “Little Moon of Alban,” and “Sunday in New York.”

    In 1963 Redford and Elizabeth Ashley starred in the Broadway premiere of Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park” (left), about young newlyweds in a New York City brownstone. Mike Nichols won the Tony Award for Best Director.

    “War Hunt”

    robert-redford-war-hunt.jpg

    United Artists


    Redford’s first feature credit was in the 1962 film, “War Hunt,” about soldiers on the front lines of the Korean War.

    Among the cast was actor Sydney Pollack (who would go on to a prestigious directing career, and who would direct seven films starring Redford), and Tom Skerritt (who would star in the Redford-directed “A River Runs Through It”).

    “Situation Hopeless … But Not Serious”

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    Paramount Pictures


    In the 1965 comedy “Situation Hopeless … But Not Serious,” Mike Connors and Robert Redford are two U.S. airmen who are kept safely hidden in a German’s cellar, not knowing that their protector (played by Alec Guinness) continued to withhold the news that the war had long since ended.

    “The Chase”

    robert-redford-the-chase.jpg

    Columbia Pictures


    In Arthur Penn’s “The Chase” (1966), Robert Redford played a prison escapee being sought by sheriff Marlon Brando. Jane Fonda, Angie Dickinson and E.G. Marshall co-starred.

    “This Property Is Condemned”

    robert-redford-this-property-is-condemned.jpg

    Paramount Pictures


    Robert Redford and Natalie Wood with director Sydney Pollack on the set of “This Property Is Condemned” (1966), based on the play by Tennessee Williams.

    “Barefoot in the Park”

    robert-redford-barefoot-in-the-park-01.jpg

    Paramount Pictures


    Redford recreated his Broadway performance in Gene Saks’ film version of “Barefoot in the Park” (1967), opposite Jane Fonda.

    “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”

    robert-redford-butch-cassidy-02.jpg

    20th Century Fox


    Redford was raised to superstar status when he teamed with Paul Newman in George Roy Hill’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969).

    “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”

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    20th Century Fox


    Newman and Redford’s easy chemistry made the outlaws extremely likable, and laid the blueprint for a later collaboration with director George Roy Hill.

    “Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here”

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    Universal Pictures


    Abraham Polonsky, once blacklisted by Hollywood, returned to direct “Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here” (1969), starring Robert Redford as a lawman hunting a Paiute Indian outlaw (Robert Blake) and his lover (“Butch Cassidy” costar Katharine Ross). With Barry Sullivan and Susan Clark.

    “Downhill Racer”

    robert-redford-downhill-racer-poster.jpg

    Paramount Pictures


    An artful poster for one of the most acclaimed sports movies, Michael Ritchie’s “Downhill Racer” (1969), in which Robert Redford played an Olympic skier whose competitiveness extends beyond the slopes.

    “Little Fauss and Big Halsy”

    robert-redford-little-fauss-and-big-halsy.jpg

    Paramount Pictures


    Robert Redford and Michael J. Pollard played motorcycle racers in “Little Fauss and Big Halsy” (1970).

    “The Hot Rock”

    robert-redford-the-hot-rock.jpg

    20th Century Fox


    Robert Redford and George Segal try to break Paul Sands out of a NYC correctional facility in the delightful comic heist film, “The Hot Rock” (1972). Script by “Butch Cassidy” screenwriter William Goldman, based on Donald E. Westlake’s novel.

    “The Candidate”

    robert-redford-the-candidate.jpg

    Warner Brothers


    Michael Ritchie (“Downhill Racer”) directed the political satire, “The Candidate” (1972), in which Robert Redford played an idealistic lawyer, who – having shunned the political world of his father, a former Senator – is convinced to run a campaign against a supposedly unbeatable incumbent Senator. What at first becomes an excuse to speak unspeakable truths to the masses becomes a test of the young Bill McKay’s ethics once he realizes that clouding his vision may actually improve his chances.

    Screenwriter Jeremy Larner won an Oscar for his original script.

    “Jeremiah Johnson”

    robert-redford-jeremiah-johnson.jpg

    Warner Brothers


    Robert Redford starred in the Sydney Pollack-directed western, “Jeremiah Johnson” (1972), about a former soldier who takes up the hard life of a mountain man in the Rockies. The film, shot in Utah, co-starred Will Geer.

    “The Way We Were”

    robert-redford-the-way-we-were.jpg

    Columbia Pictures


    Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford in “The Way We Were” (1973), a romantic drama in which its two stars – former college classmates – fall in love, marry and have a child, despite their differences in background and political leanings.

    “The Sting”

    robert-redford-the-sting.jpg

    Universal Pictures


    Robert Redford earned his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his performance as Hooker, a small-time con man who teams up with a card sharp (Paul Newman) to play a major con against a notorious crime boss (Robert Shaw) in George Roy Hill’s comic drama, “The Sting” (1973).

    A major box office hit, the film won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and for Marvin Hamlisch’s sprightly adaptation of Scott Joplin’s ragtime music.

    “The Great Gatsby”

    robert-redford-the-great-gatsby-b.jpg

    Paramount Pictures


    Robert Redford played Jay Gatsby, with Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan, in Jack Clayton’s 1974 adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” Screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola.

    “The Great Waldo Pepper”

    robert-redford-the-great-waldo-pepper.jpg

    Universal Pictures


    A poster for “The Great Waldo Pepper” (1975), director George Roy Hill’s tale of the early days of barnstorming pilots.

    “Three Days of the Condor”

    robert-redford-3-days-of-the-condor-02.jpg

    Paramount Pictures


    In the espionage thriller “Three Days of the Condor” (1975), Robert Redford played a CIA analyst who narrowly escapes hit men at his office, and who hides out in the Brooklyn home of a woman he takes prisoner (Faye Dunaway). Based on a novel by James Grady, “Condor” was directed by Sydney Pollack and costarred Cliff Robertson and Max von Sydow.

    “All the President’s Men”

    robert-redford-all-the-presidents-men.jpg

    Warner Brothers


    “Follow the money.”

    Alan J. Pakula’s “All the President’s Men” (1976) recounted the investigation of the Watergate break-in by two intrepid Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman). Despite their antipathy and natural competitiveness towards one another, the two collaborate and dig deep into a political dirty tricks operation, ultimately helping to bring down the presidency of Richard Nixon.

    The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won four, including Best Adapted Screenplay (William Goldman) and Best Supporting Actor (Jason Robards as Post editor Ben Bradlee).

    “A Bridge Too Far”

    robert-redford-a-bridge-too-far.jpg

    United Artists


    Robert Redford was one of a constellation of big-screen stars in Richard Attenborough’s World War II action epic, “A Bridge Too Far” (1977), about the Allies’ attempt to take a succession of German-held bridges during Operation Market Garden.

    “The Electric Horseman”

    robert-redford-the-electric-horseman.jpg

    Columbia Pictures


    Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, who were teamed in “Barefoot in the Park” and “The Chase,” starred in Sydney Pollack’s romantic adventure, “The Electric Horseman” (1979), about an ex-rodeo champion who kidnaps a prized race horse that is being abused. Fonda played a TV reporter who goes after the story, and gets Redford.

    “Brubaker”

    robert-redford-brubaker.jpg

    20th Century Fox


    In “Brubaker” (1980), Robert Redford is a reform-minded warden who is incarcerated at an Arkansas jail in order to uncover rampant corruption and abuse on the part of prison officials. Directed by Stuart Rosenberg (“Cool Hand Luke”).

    “Ordinary People”

    robert-redford-ordinary-people.jpg

    Paramount Pictures


    Robert Redford’s first film as a director, “Ordinary People” (1980), told the story of an upper-middle-class family torn by the death of one son and the attempted suicide of another. Timothy Hutton and Elizabeth McGovern (left, with Redford) starred with Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore and Judd Hirsch.

    The film won four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Redford.

    Sundance Institute

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    Evan Agostini/Getty Images


    Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, the Sundance Institute, based in Utah, fosters independence and new voices in American film. Emerging filmmakers work with top directors, writers and actors to develop independent projects, and each year the Sundance Film Festival exposes audiences to vital new filmmaking talent from around the world, in both fiction and documentaries.

    “The Natural”

    robert-redford-the-natural-01.jpg

    TriStar Pictures


    Bernard Malamud’s baseball novel was the inspiration for Barry Levinson’s “The Natural” (1984), starring Robert Redford as a middle-aged rookie who brings an almost fantastic ability as a hitter to a struggling team.

    “Out of Africa”

    robert-redford-out-of-africa.jpg

    Universal Pictures


    Robert Redford played big game hunter Denys Finch Hatton, whose affair with Danish baroness and plantation owner Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep) inspired her 1937 memoir, “Out of Africa.”

    The film won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Picture (Sydney Pollack).

    “Legal Eagles”

    robert-redford-legal-eagles.jpg

    Universal Pictures


    Debra Winger played the attorney of a woman accused of art theft, who enlists the aid of an Assistant D.A. (Robert Redford) to help clear her client, in the romantic comedy/thriller “Legal Eagles” (1986).

    Oh, and does it turn out that Daryl Hannah is guilty or innocent? Depends on which version of the film pops up on TV.

    “The Milagro Beanfield War”

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    Universal Pictures


    Robert Redford directed “The Milagro Beanfield War” (1988), based on John Nichols’ novel, about a poor New Mexican farmer seeking to defend his illegally-irrigated plot against powerful political and business interests.

    “Havana”

    robert-redford-on-set-havana.jpg

    Universal Pictures


    Robert Redford and Lena Olin on the set of “Havana” (1990), about a professional gambler in Cuba on the eve of the revolution.

    It was Redford’s seventh collaboration with director Sydney Pollack.

    “Quiz Show”

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    Hollywood Pictures


    Robert Redford directed the 1994 drama, “Quiz Show,” which recounted the TV game show scandals of the 1950s, as well as the role of contestant Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes) in a rigged game. The film was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor (Paul Scofield).

    “A River Runs Through It”

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    Columbia Pictures


    “Long ago, when I was a young man, my father said to me, ‘Norman, you like to write stories.’ And I said, ‘Yes, I do.’ Then he said, ‘Someday, when you’re ready, you might tell our family story. Only then will you understand what happened and why.’”

    Redford directed “A River Runs Through It,” based on Norman Maclean’s semi-autobiographical collection of stories about his family in early 20th century Montana where, he writes, “there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.”

    The film starred Brad Pitt, Tom Skerrit, Craig Sheffer, Brenda Blethyn and Emily Lloyd, and was narrated by Redford. It was nominated for three Oscars, and won one, for Best Cinematography.

    “Sneakers”

    robert-redford-sneakers.jpg

    Universal Pictures


    River Phoenix, Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd and Sidney Poitier were among the cast of “Sneakers” (1992), about computer hackers, rogue agents, and an encryption device that could (in the wrong hands) bring down the world’s economy.

    “Indecent Proposal”

    robert-redford-indecent-proposal.jpg

    Paramount Pictures


    In director Adrian Lyne’s “Indecent Proposal” (1993), Demi Moore is offered one million dollars by a billionaire (Robert Redford) to spend one night with her. Trouble is, she’s married to Woody Harrelson. Will she accept the offer? Well, it IS Robert Redford …

    “Up Close and Personal”

    robert-redford-up-close-and-personal.jpg

    Touchstone Pictures


    Michelle Pfeiffer plays a young broadcast reporter taken under the wing of a TV news director (Robert Redford) in the romantic drama, “Up Close and Personal” (1996).

    “The Horse Whisperer”

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    Touchstone Pictures


    Robert Redford directed himself for the first time in the film version of Nicholas Evans’ bestselling novel, “The Horse Whisperer” (1998), about a horse trainer with a unique gift. The film costarred a young Scarlett Johansson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Sam Neill, Dianne Wiest and Chris Cooper.

    “The Legend of Bagger Vance”

    robert-redford-the-legend-of-bagger-vance.jpg

    20th Century Fox


    In the Redford-directed “The Legend of Bagger Vance” (2000), a mysterious young man (Will Smith) appears to serve as the caddie of a struggling pro golfer (Matt Damon). His positive influence guides the tormented war veteran in an almost mystical way.

    “The Last Castle”

    robert-redford-the-last-castle.jpg

    Dreamworks


    In “The Last Castle” (2001), James Gandolfini played the commandant of a military prison engaged in a battle of wills with an incarcerated Lt. General (Robert Redford), who effectively leads his fellow inmates in revolt.

    “Spy Game”

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    Universal Pictures


    Robert Redford was back in the espionage game, co-starring with Brad Pitt in the 2001 thriller “Spy Game,” about CIA agents in China.

    Honorary Oscar

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    AMPAS


    At the 74th Academy Awards Robert Redford was named recipient of an Honorary Oscar for his roles as an actor, director, producer, the creator of the Sundance Institute, “and an inspiration to independent and innovative filmmakers everywhere.”

    He posed with presenter Barbra Streisand on March 24, 2002.

    “The Clearing”

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    Fox Searchlight


    Robert Redford became the target of a kidnapping plot in “The Clearing” (2004), costarring Willem Dafoe and Helen Mirren.

    “An Unfinished Life”

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    Miramax


    Swedish director Lasse Hallström’s “An Unfinished Life” (2005) starred Robert Redford as a rancher trying to restore his relationship with his daughter-in-law (played by Jennifer Lopez). The film costarred Morgan Freeman and Damian Lewis.

    “Lions for Lambs”

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    MGM


    Director-star Robert Redford is pictured with Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise on the set of “Lions for Lambs” (2007), a film with multiple political and military storylines connected to the war in Afghanistan.

    “The Conspirator”

    robert-redford-the-conspirators.jpg

    Lionsgate


    Robin Wright starred as Mary Surratt, one of a group accused in the plot to murder President Lincoln, in the historical drama, “The Conspirator” (2010), directed by Robert Redford.

    “The Company You Keep”

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    Sony Pictures Classics


    In “The Company You Keep” (2012), director Robert Redford played a former member of the Weather Underground whose identity is discovered by a young reporter. Costarring Richard Jenkins, Shia LaBeouf, Julie Christie, Susan Sarandon, Nick Nolte and Brit Marling.

    “All Is Lost”

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    Lionsgate


    In J. C. Chandor’s “All Is Lost” (2013), Robert Redford gave a bravura performance as a solo sailor whose yacht is crippled on the high seas, and who struggles to remain afloat after a series of increasingly devastating events.

    “All Is Lost”

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    Lionsgate


    Redford (who had never sailed before) performed most all of his own stunts, and suffered partial hearing loss in one ear during the shoot.

    “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”

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    Marvel Studios


    Robert Redford joined the Marvel Universe in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (2014), playing Alexander Pierce, a senior leader of S.H.I.E.L.D who might be harboring some spoiler-ish secrets.

    “A Walk In the Woods”

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    Broad Green Pictures


    Robert Redford and Nick Nolte starred in the 2015 comedy “A Walk in the Woods,” based on Bill Bryson’s memoir.

    “Truth”

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    Sony Pictures Classics


    Robert Redford as CBS newsman Dan Rather and Cate Blanchett as news producer Mary Mapes, in the docudrama, “Truth” (2015), about the controversy surrounding documents, central to a 2004 “60 Minutes” story, that questioned President George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard – documents that were later found not to have been independently verified. The film is based on a memoir by Mapes, one of several people booted by the network following the broadcast.

    Film Society of Lincoln Center

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    Grant Lamos IV/Getty Images


    Honoree Robert Redford attends the 42nd Chaplin Award Gala at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center on April 27, 2015 in New York City.

    Redford told the audience that returning to New York City for the honor held a special meaning for him: “I think it has a lot to do with the fact that this is where my career started, in New York City, in the theater, and because that’s the root of my beginnings.”

    Chaplin Award

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    Michael Loccisano/Getty Images


    From left: Jane Fonda, honoree Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, Elisabeth Moss, John Turturro and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras speak onstage at the 42nd Chaplin Award Gala at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center on April 27, 2015 in New York City.

    In accepting the lifetime achievement award. Redford said, “To me, not taking a risk is taking a risk. For me, [winning is] really the climb up the mountain, not so much standing at the top. Because at that point, there’s nowhere to go.”

    “Our Souls at Night”

    robert-redford-our-souls-at-night-netflix.jpg

    Netflix


    Robert Redford and Jane Fonda in “Our Souls at Night.” In their fourth pairings on screen, they played neighbors who combat loneliness by spending evenings together, which only gets the gossip mills churning.

    “The Old Man & the Gun”

    robert-redford-the-old-man-and-the-gun-a-promo.jpg

    Eric Zachanowich/20th Century Fox


    In “The Old Man & the Gun” (2018), Robert Redford starred in the true story of Forrest Tucker, a lifelong outlaw who escaped from nearly every prison he was confined to, continuing to rob banks well into his late 70s.

    He told CBS News’ Lee Cowan that his performance in the film marked his retirement from acting, but not from work; he would still produce, and champion the cause of independent films at his Sundance Institute.

    “I really don’t think of retirement, because to me retirement means stopping something or quitting something. Why would I quit? There’s this life to lead. Why not live it as much as you can as long as you can?”

    Golden Boy

    robert-redford-barefoot-protrait-promo.jpg

    Paramount Pictures


    For more info:

    Sundance Institute

    42nd Chaplin Award Gala honoring Robert Redford, at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, New York

    By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan

    David Morgan

    David Morgan is senior producer for CBSNews.com and the Emmy Award-winning “CBS News Sunday Morning.” He writes about film, music and the arts. He is author of the books “Monty Python Speaks” and “Knowing the Score,” and editor of “Sundancing,” about the Sundance Film Festival.

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  • Remembering Robert Redford’s Final, Underrated Role as a Dallas-Fort Worth Bandit

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    Film icon Robert Redford died on Sept. 16 at the age of 89, according to a statement from his publicist. Redford was not only one of the most beloved movie stars of all time, but one of the few titans of Hollywood who used his fame and accolades for the force of good…

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    Liam Gaughan

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  • The 15 Best Robert Redford Movies to Revisit

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    Whether he was acting or directing, he could deliver empathy, grit, and boundless charm.
    Photo: Daniel Daza/Lionsgate/Courtesy Everett Collection/Warner Bros.

    The world grieved the passing of a titan of cinema, Robert Redford, on Tuesday morning. He became a Broadway star by the early ’60s and conquered Hollywood with starring roles in movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, and All the President’s Men. And then he really shifted the landscape with his work as a director and as co-founder of the Sundance Film Festival. As his collaborators and fans mourn his loss, our minds went to the best way to pay tribute to his legacy: Watch one of his movies. This shortlist is divided into three sections, an alphabetical run-through of ten of his best acting efforts (both the classics and the ones that deserve more attention) and five of his turns behind the camera.

    Note: If there’s a streaming service listed, it’s always available on VOD, too. If a movie is labeled as only “available on VOD” below, it usually costs about $4 to rent and is not currently available on streaming services.

    A movie about the importance of speaking truth to power feels more essential in 2025 than it has in a long time, doesn’t it? Redford stars alongside Dustin Hoffman in this Alan J. Pakula journalism thriller about the work of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward to expose Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal. A huge hit when it was released shortly after the president stepped down, it was nominated for eight Oscars, winning four. It’s as timely as ever. Streaming on The Criterion Channel.

    One of Redford’s earliest huge roles, this is also arguably the best film to introduce a young person to his talent and legacy (and the western genre, really). Of course, Redford plays the impossibly charming Sundance Kid, opposite the equally impossibly charming Butch Cassidy, played by Paul Newman. A playful entry in a genre marked by self-seriousness, it stands up today and not just because it helped inspire a little Utah film festival that would change independent moviemaking forever. Available on VOD.

    A very young Roger Ebert called this film “the best movie ever made about sports — without really being about sports at all.” Michael Ritchie’s directorial debut is about the life of David Chappellet, a U.S. Ski Team star competing in Europe. Redford disappears into this part, playing a man who can think about little more but being on the slopes. Available on VOD.

    This is for all you Gen-Xers out there, the people who grew up in the ’80s and likely discovered Redford through this ridiculously stacked thriller from 1992. It may have seemed like a lark at the time, but this movie about security specialists and surveillance kind of feels prescient in an era when so much privacy has been eliminated. It’s a great example of how Redford could be giving as a performer, never stealing focus from his incredible co-stars. (The stacked ensemble includes Ben Kingsley, David Strathairn, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, and Mary McDonnell.) Available on VOD.

    Redford reunited with his Cassidy co-star and director for a movie that was arguably the biggest hit of his career, the only time he would be nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor, and a movie that won Best Picture. Widely regarded as having one of the best screenplays ever written, this flick recalls a time when a movie could be a massive critical and commercial darling at the same time and a case study in its star’s bottomless well of charisma. Available on VOD.

    Few movie stars understood silence as well as Robert Redford, who has a total of 51 spoken words in this survival thriller. He plays an unnamed man who is stranded on the Indian Ocean, and the movie star disappears into this challenging role in a manner that won him Best Actor from the New York Film Critics Circle. (His snub by the Oscars for a nomination remains one of the Academy’s greatest sins.) Streaming on Prime Video.

    Redford gave his final great performance in this drama from David Lowery about the life of Forrest Tucker, a career criminal. He announced his retirement after this delicate character study, making it his last official film role. It’s a beauty, a film that also plays like an ode to its star’s boundless charm. Available on VOD.

    While the live-action adaptation subgenre of Disney animated films is correctly savaged almost every time, this is the exception. Easily the best of such films, it carves its own story out of the 1977 animated film. Redford plays a perfect part for him: a storyteller, the father to Bryce Dallas Howard’s character, and the man who told her about the legendary dragon. Connecting an artist and environmental crusader to a history of imagination and Mother Nature is a brilliant bit of meta casting in this truly lovely flick. Streaming on Disney+.

    Few actors understood the assignment every single time like Robert Redford, who would carefully calibrate his charisma depending on the part. Take this Tony Scott flick in which he teams up with someone to whom he was often compared, Brad Pitt. This is really a cross-generation action flick with legends from each generation working together for pure entertainment. Available on VOD.

    The 16th episode of the third season of Rod Serling’s masterful sci-fi anthology series cast a 20-something Redford as Death himself. “Nothing in the Dark” stars Gladys Cooper as a woman who knows she has reached her end point if she opens the door to Redford’s Harold, a man who claims to be a building contractor but is actually the Grim Reaper. Redford uses his already remarkable charm to play the end of life as a passage instead of a crisis. Streaming on Paramount+ and Prime Video.

    It’s certainly not Redford’s best directorial work, but this one remains a curiosity for the sheer acting power in front of the camera, including Redford himself, Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise, and a young Andrew Garfield. Redford allows his politics to take center stage in a film that’s really about how governments use the bodies of young people in war for political capital. Streaming on Fubo and Paramount+.

    It took Redford eight years to follow up his Best Picture–winning directorial debut, and the result was a comparatively minor yet tender drama based on a novel by John Nichols. A film that feels important to Redford’s Californian roots and his willingness to fight for the little man, this one stars Rubén Blades as a man who battles the man to save his bean field. Available on VOD.

    Any list of the most notable directorial debuts of all time that doesn’t include Ordinary People is simply incomplete. Adapting the novel of the same name by Judith Guest, Redford used his deep empathy to tell the story of a family torn apart by the death of a son and brother. It won Redford an Oscar for Best Director and took home trophies for Best Supporting Actor and Best Picture too. History once diminished this movie because it “stole” Oscars from Raging Bull, but it’s an essential piece of ’80s filmmaking in its own right and key to understanding its director’s legacy. Streaming on Fubo, Philo, and MGM+.

    A solid case can be made that this is Redford’s best directorial effort, a true story that transcends its subject matter to become a character study about pride. Ralph Fiennes plays Charles Van Doren, who was a part of a scandal in which ’50s game-show contestants were given the answers to up the entertainment value. In an era in which it feels like less and less of what we see on TV can be believed, this one is overdue for a reappraisal. Available on VOD.

    This one feels like the purest expression of Redford’s heart on film. He adapts the novella of the same name about a Montana family, and he does so with deep empathy and love for the natural world. Redford was underrated in his ability to avoid melodrama, always seeking truth in his characters instead of just manipulating the sympathies of his audience. Streaming on Fubo, Philo, and MGM+.

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  • Robert Redford remembered as Meryl Streep, Ron Howard and Ethan Hawke pay tribute

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    Legendary actor, director and icon of American cinema Robert Redford died Tuesday at age 89.

    His death prompted an outpouring of tributes from Hollywood stars including Meryl Streep, Jane Fonda, Marlee Matlin, Ron Howard and others. 

    Redford’s rep confirmed the beloved actor’s death to Fox News Digital.

    ROBERT REDFORD DEAD AT 89

    Robert Redford passed away on Sept. 16. (AP Photo)

    “Robert Redford passed away on September 16, 2025, at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah – the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved,” a representative shared in a statement. “He will be missed greatly. The family requests privacy.”

    Streep, his co-star in “Out of Africa” and “Lions for Lambs,” honored the Hollywood legend.

    Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Austrian actor klaus-Maria Brandauer on the set of out of africa

    Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Klaus Maria Brandauer on the set of “Out of Africa.” (Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)

    “One of the lions has passed. Rest in peace, my lovely friend,” she said, according to Deadline.

    STARS WE LOST IN 2025

    Jane Fonda mourned the loss of her longtime friend. The two shared more than five decades of friendship — Redford landed a breakout role in Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park,” first on the Broadway stage and then on screen alongside Fonda in 1967.

    Robert Redford and Jane Fonda

    Jane Fonda mourned the loss of her longtime friend in a statement shared Tuesday. (AP Photo)

    “It hit me hard this morning when I read that Bob was gone. I can’t stop crying. He meant a lot to me and was a beautiful person in every way. He stood for an America we have to keep fighting for,” she shared in a statement, according to People.

    Oscar winner Marlee Matlin took to social media to share a heartfelt tribute. 

    “Our film, ‘CODA,’ came to the attention of everyone because of Sundance. And Sundance happened because of Robert Redford. A genius has passed. RIP Robert,” Matlin wrote on X.

    Redford starred in popular films including “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” a box-office smash from which his Sundance Film Institute and festival got their names. He played opposite Paul Newman in the 1969 film. 

    He founded the Sundance Film Institute in 1981.

    “Robert’s legacy remains ingrained in our culture, transformed by his artistry, activism and the founding of Sundance Institute and Film Festival,” Ethan Hawke said on Instagram, adding that Redford was a “relentless advocate for authentic storytelling and a fiercely passionate environmentalist.”

    Some of Hawke’s own films, including “Before Sunrise” and “Boyhood,” have previously premiered at Sundance.

    Ethan Hawke

    Ethan Hawke said Redford was a “relentless advocate for authentic storytelling and a fiercely passionate environmentalist.” (Getty Images)

    Elizabeth McGovern, who worked with Redford on “Ordinary People,” remembered more than just his films.

    “Robert Redford gave me my first job in ‘Ordinary People,’ setting a high bar in terms of a subsequent career,” she shared in a statement to People. 

    “His intelligence, empathy and understanding, not only as a filmmaker, but also as a person have been difficult to match. When we shot ‘Ordinary People,’ he did my scenes on the weekend so that I could attend The Juilliard School during the week. This was the kind of caring person he was. I revered him then; I revere him now.”

    Actor and filmmaker Ron Howard paid tribute to Redford’s influence in the industry.

    “RIP & thank you Robert Redford, a tremendously influential cultural figure for the creative choices made as an actor/producer/director & for launching the Sundance Film Festival which supercharged America’s Independent Film movement. Artistic Gamechanger,” he wrote on X. 

    In a statement to Fox News Digital, actor Ralph Fiennes said, “I’m incredibly sad to learn of Robert Redford’s death.”

    “The Schindler’s List” star recalled working closely with Redford on the 1994 drama “Quiz Show,” a pivotal moment in his early Hollywood career.

    Robert Redford

    Legendary actor and director Robert Redford died at the age of 89, with celebrities honoring his impact on cinema and the Sundance Film Festival he founded. (Herbert Dorfman/Corbis via Getty Images)

    “Thirty two years ago he cast me in ‘Quiz Show’ alongside John Turturro and Rob Morrow,” Fiennes said. “I remember his patience and kindness as I became acquainted with all things ’50s America — and American culture generally. It was challenging and intense and fun.”

    Fiennes praised Redford’s mentorship and said, “I loved his droll sense of humour as he guided me through screen acting skills and process.”

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    “His maverick spirit was readily apparent, and he made clear his wariness regarding Hollywood clichés and practice,” Fiennes added. “I treasure my experience of working with him, which was also an introduction to a great filmmaker with a true artistic vision of an American cinema that could be intelligent, original and politically provocative.”

    Ralph Fiennes

    Ralph Fiennes paid tribute to Robert Redford in a statement to Fox News Digital. “I loved his droll sense of humour as he guided me through screen acting skills and process,” he said in part. (ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)

    Fiennes also reflected on a personal moment with Redford that left a lasting impression.

    “He took me riding near his home in New Mexico. I’m no horseman, but he made me feel I could be.”

    He concluded, “The filmmaking world is smaller without him.”

    Author Stephen King reflected on the era Redford helped define.

    “Robert Redford has passed away. He was part of a new and exciting Hollywood in the 70s and 80s. Hard to believe he was 89,” King wrote on X.

    Actress Rita Wilson shared a heartfelt statement on Instagram alongside a photo of Redford.

    “Robert Redford. Your art stands the test of time. Your love of young filmmakers and artists gave us Sundance Film Festival,” Wilson wrote. “You showed us the importance of nature. As a director, we were able to see your art from behind the camera. You will be remembered always. And you will be missed. May your memory be eternal.”

    Jamie Lee Curtis also honored Redford with a black-and-white photo of the Hollywood actor.

    “A life! Family, art, transformation, advocacy, creation, legacy … Thank you Robert Redford,” she posted on social media.

    Robert Redford

    Robert Redford during the filming of “Downhill Racer,” May 1969. (Ernst Haas/Getty Images)

    Rosie O’Donnell honored Redford with a photo of him as Hubbell Gardiner in “The Way We Were.”

    “Oh Hubbell — we will never be the same. Goodnight Bob — what a legacy,” she posted on Instagram.

    Actor Colman Domingo also weighed in with a nod to Redford’s lasting influence.

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    Robert Redford

    Robert Redford attends the premiere of “The Old Man and the Gun” at the Paris Theater on Sept. 20, 2018, in New York. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Images)

    “With love and admiration. Thank you, Mr. Redford, for your everlasting impact. Will be felt for generations. R.I.P,” he shared on X.

    “Superman” director James Gunn honored Redford for his legendary work in several popular Hollywood films. 

    “THE movie star,” Gunn declared on social media. “I grew up with his movies: his quiet, unforced performances and ever-present grace… He […] will be greatly missed.”

    William Shatner added on X, “Condolences to the family of Robert Redford.”

    While actor Ben Stiller shared on social media, “No actor more iconic,” with a photo of Redford.

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    Stephanie Giang-Paunon is an Entertainment Writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to stephanie.giang@fox.com and on Twitter: @SGiangPaunon.

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  • Robert Redford, Hollywood icon and Sundance founder, dead at 89 – National | Globalnews.ca

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    Robert Redford, actor and Oscar-winning director, died early Tuesday morning in his home in Utah. He was 89.

    His death was announced in a statement by Cindi Berger, the chief executive of the publicity firm Rogers & Cowan PMK.

    Berger said Redford died at his home “in the mountains of Utah — the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved. He will be missed greatly. The family requests privacy.”

    His cause of death was not revealed.

    After rising to stardom in the 1960s, Redford was one of the biggest stars of the ’70s with such films as The Candidate, All the President’s Men and The Way We Were, capping that decade with the best director Oscar for 1980’s Ordinary People, which also won best picture in 1980. His wavy blond hair and boyish grin made him the most desired of leading men, but he worked hard to transcend his looks — whether through his political advocacy, his willingness to take on unglamourous roles or his dedication to providing a platform for low-budget movies.

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    Robert Redford receives Presidential Medal of Freedom


    His roles ranged from Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward to a mountain man in Jeremiah Johnson to a double agent in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and his co-stars included Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise.

    But his most famous screen partner was his old friend and fellow activist and practical joker Paul Newman, their films a variation of their warm, teasing relationship off screen. Redford played the wily outlaw opposite Newman in 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a box-office smash from which Redford’s Sundance Institute and festival got its name. He also teamed with Newman on 1973’s best picture Oscar winner, The Sting, which earned Redford a best-actor nomination as a young con artist in 1930s Chicago.


    Robert Redford (left) as Sundance Kid and Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy in the 1969 western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

    John Springer Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images

    Film roles after the ’70s became more sporadic as Redford concentrated on directing and producing, and his new role as patriarch of the independent-film movement in the 1980s and ’90s through his Sundance Institute. But he starred in 1985’s best picture champion Out of Africa and in 2013 received some of the best reviews of his career as a shipwrecked sailor in All is Lost, in which he was the film’s only performer. In 2018, he was praised again in what he called his farewell movie, The Old Man and the Gun.

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    “I just figure that I’ve had a long career that I’m very pleased with. It’s been so long, ever since I was 21,” he told The Associated Press shortly before the film came out. “I figure now as I’m getting into my 80s, it’s maybe time to move toward retirement and spend more time with my wife and family.”

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    Sundance is born


    Redford had watched Hollywood grow more cautious and controlling during the 1970s and wanted to recapture the creative spirit of the early part of the decade. Sundance was created to nurture new talent away from the pressures of Hollywood, the institute providing a training ground and the festival, based in Park City, Utah, where Redford had purchased land with the initial hope of opening a ski resort. Instead, Park City became a place of discovery for such previously unknown filmmakers as Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, Paul Thomas Anderson and Darren Aronofsky.

    “For me, the word to be underscored is ‘independence,’” Redford told the AP in 2018. “I’ve always believed in that word. That’s what led to me eventually wanting to create a category that supported independent artists who weren’t given a chance to be heard.

    “The industry was pretty well controlled by the mainstream, which I was a part of. But I saw other stories out there that weren’t having a chance to be told and I thought, ‘Well, maybe I can commit my energies to giving those people a chance.’ As I look back on it, I feel very good about that.”

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    Sundance was even criticized as buyers swarmed in looking for potential hits and celebrities overran the town each winter.

    “We have never, ever changed our policies for how we program our festival. It’s always been built on diversity,” Redford told the AP in 2004. “The fact is that the diversity has become commercial. Because independent films have achieved their own success, Hollywood, being just a business, is going to grab them. So when Hollywood grabs your films, they go, ‘Oh, it’s gone Hollywood.’”

    By 2025, the festival had become so prominent that organizers decided they had outgrown Park City and approved relocating to Boulder, Colorado, starting in 2027. Redford, who had attended the University of Colorado in Boulder, issued a statement saying that “change is inevitable, we must always evolve and grow, which has been at the core of our survival.”

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    Redford was married twice, most recently to Sibylle Szaggars. He had four children, two of whom have died — Scott Anthony, who died in infancy, in 1959; and James Redford, an activist and filmmaker who died in 2020.

    Redford’s early life

    Robert Redford was born Charles Robert Redford Jr. on Aug. 18, 1937, in Santa Monica, a California boy whose blond good looks eased his way over an apprenticeship in television and live theatre that eventually led to the big screen.

    Redford attended college on a baseball scholarship and would later star as a middle-aged slugger in 1984’s The Natural, the adaptation of Bernard Malamud’s baseball novel. He had an early interest in drawing and painting, then went on to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, debuting on Broadway in the late 1950s and moving into television on such shows as The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Untouchables.

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    American actor Robert Redford wearing a grey tweed blazer over a matching waistcoat and a white shirt, with a diagonally striped tie, with a grey fedora, in a scene from ‘The Sting’, filmed in the United States, 1973. The crime caper directed by George Roy Hill, starred Redford as Johnny Hooker.

    Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

    After scoring a Broadway lead in Sunday in New York, Redford was cast by director Mike Nichols in a production of Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park, later starring with Fonda in the film version. Redford did miss out on one of Nichols’ greatest successes, The Graduate, released in 1967. Nichols had considered casting Redford in the part eventually played by Dustin Hoffman, but Redford seemed unable to relate to the socially awkward young man who ends up having an affair with one of his parents’ friends.

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    “I said, ‘You can’t play it. You can never play a loser,’” Nichols said during a 2003 screening of the film in New York. “And Redford said, ‘What do you mean? Of course I can play a loser.’ And I said, ‘OK, have you ever struck out with a girl?’ and he said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he wasn’t joking.”

    Indie champion, mainstream star

    Even as Redford championed low-budget independent filmmaking, he continued to star in mainstream Hollywood productions himself, scoring the occasional hit such as 2001’s Spy Game, which co-starred Brad Pitt, an heir apparent to Redford’s handsome legacy whom he had directed in A River Runs Through It.

    Ironically, The Blair Witch Project, Garden State, Napoleon Dynamite and other scrappy films that came out of Sundance sometimes made bigger waves — and more money — than some Redford-starring box-office duds like Havana, The Last Castle and An Unfinished Life.

    Redford also appeared in several political narratives. He satirized campaigning as an idealist running for U.S. senator in 1972’s The Candidate and uttered one of the more memorable closing lines, “What do we do now?” after his character manages to win. He starred as Woodward to Hoffman’s Carl Bernstein in 1976’s All the President’s Men, the story of the Washington Post reporters whose Watergate investigation helped bring down President Richard Nixon.

    With 2007’s Lions for Lambs, Redford returned to directing in a saga of a congressman (Tom Cruise), a journalist (Meryl Streep) and an academic (Redford) whose lives intersect over the war on terrorism in Afghanistan.

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    Michael Pena, Andrew Garfield, Tom Cruise and Robert Redford attend a photocall for ‘Lions For Lambs’ during day 6 of the 2nd Rome Film Festival on October 23, 2007 in Rome, Italy.

    Daniele Venturelli/WireImage

    His biggest filmmaking triumph came with his directing debut on Ordinary People, which beat Martin Scorsese’s classic Raging Bull at the Oscars. The film starred Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore as the repressed parents of a troubled young man, played by Timothy Hutton, in his big screen debut. Redford was praised for casting Moore in an unexpectedly serious role and for his even-handed treatment of the characters, a quality that Roger Ebert believed set “the film apart from the sophisticated suburban soap opera it could easily have become.”

    Redford’s other directing efforts included The Horse Whisperer, The Milagro Beanfield War and 1994’s Quiz Show, the last of which also earned best picture and director Oscar nominations. In 2002, Redford received an honorary Oscar, with academy organizers citing him as “actor, director, producer, creator of Sundance, inspiration to independent and innovative filmmakers everywhere.”

    “The idea of the outlaw has always been very appealing to me. If you look at some of the films, it’s usually having to do with the outlaw sensibility, which I think has probably been my sensibility. I think I was just born with it,” Redford said in 2018. “From the time I was just a kid, I was always trying to break free of the bounds that I was stuck with, and always wanted to go outside.”

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    ___

    Associated Press journalists Hillel Italie, Jake Coyle and Mallika Sen contributed to this report. Bob Thomas, a longtime Associated Press journalist who died in 2014, was the principal writer of this obituary.

    —

    — With files from Global News’ Katie Scott

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