Unbelievable Ranking Reveals Robert Redford’s 10 Most Powerful Films – From ‘The Sting’ to ‘The Way We Were,’ But the #1 Pick Will Leave You Completely Stunned!

Ed Potton looks back on the many roles played by the Hollywood actor, and star of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, who has died at the age of 89

Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford in All The President’s Men, 1976
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Robert Redford was the face of Hollywood in the Seventies: beautiful but conflicted, paranoid beneath the perfect hair. He could do lovers and swindlers, heroes and stooges — and even a bona fide baddie, the double-crossing Alexander Pierce in the Marvel movies. Most of all he will be remembered for his early rogues opposite Paul Newman, his murky Seventies thrillers and his turbulent on-screen romances with Barbra Streisand and Jane Fonda.

Below, in chronological order, are my ten favourite Redford performances but plenty of others just missed the cut. Which would you include? Let us know in the comments below.

1. Barefoot in the Park (1967)

Redford with Jane Fonda in Barefoot in the Park
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Redford reprised the role he had played on Broadway in 1963: Paul Bratter, a starchy lawyer in a combustible marriage to the free-spirited Corie, here played by Jane Fonda. The newlyweds’ leaky apartment in Greenwich Village becomes a battleground, with Redford plausibly strait-laced in a comedy that lightly addresses the schisms of the Sixties social revolution.

2. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Funny to think of Redford as the junior partner, but his Kid was the hot-headed young foil to Paul Newman’s more seasoned Cassidy in George Roy Hill’s tale of real-life outlaws in the Old West. Not everyone liked the lurches between buddy-movie comedy and tough-guy nihilism but Redford never looked ruffled.

3. The Candidate (1972)

As Bill McKay in The Candidate
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Redford was impeccably cast in the political satire as Bill McKay, the idealistic, handsome son of a former governor who is persuaded to run as the Democrat for a supposedly unwinnable Senate seat in California. Spoiler alert — McKay wins, and the last scene has a touch of Donald Trump in 2016 as he asks his right-hand man: “What do we do now?”

• Read more film reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews

4. The Sting (1973)

With Paul Newman in The Sting
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A reunion with Newman and Hill in a stylish caper about trilby-wearing grifters conning a mob boss (Robert Shaw) in Thirties Chicago. Redford and Newman were each paid $500,000, then an industry-leading salary. The film won seven Oscars and Redford’s peppy portrayal of Johnny Hooker earned him his only nomination for best actor.

5. The Way We Were (1973)

Redford with Barbra Streisand
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The ultimate Seventies weepie. As so often in Redford’s career, his clean-cut looks and polished demeanour provided the ideal counterpoint to a more tempestuous co-star, in this case Barbra Streisand. He’s a blithe Wasp, she’s a Jewish Marxist and it shouldn’t work but it does, at least for a while. Their final meeting, on a street corner in Manhattan, gets you every time.

• Robert Redford, award-winning actor and director, dies aged 89

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6. Three Days of the Condor (1975)

With Faye Dunaway in Three Days of the Condor
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Redford plays Joe Turner (codename: Condor), a faintly nerdish CIA analyst who comes back from lunch to find his colleagues murdered. Going on the run, he crosses paths with Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway), who becomes his hostage and then, naturally, his lover. More schlocky than All the President’s Men (see below), Sydney Pollack’s conspiracy thriller still successfully tapped into post-Watergate paranoia.

7. All the President’s Men (1976)

The cast of All the President’s Men
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In 1974 Redford had the foresight to buy the rights to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s account of the Watergate affair for $450,000; two years later he produced the film and played Woodward opposite Dustin Hoffman’s Bernstein. You wouldn’t put him in Hoffman’s bracket as an actor but his Woodward had an Ivy League poise that contrasted satisfyingly with his co-star’s scrappy nous.

8. The Natural (1984)

Redford as Roy Hobbs
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By no means Redford’s best film but he radiates all-American glamour as the fictional baseball star Roy Hobbs. Baseball is a sport that’s more vulnerable than most to big-screen sentimentality (see Field of Dreams) and in Redford it found a willing poster boy.

9. Indecent Proposal (1993)

In Indecent Proposal
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Another casting coup — Redford had the looks, suaveness and gall to convince as a high roller who offers cash-strapped David (Woody Harrelson) $1 million to sleep with his wife, Diana (Demi Moore). The film will never be seen as a feminist milestone but Redford, astonishingly, finds sympathy in a character who should be utterly repellent.

10. All Is Lost (2013)

As a sailor in All is Lost
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Redford barely has a line in this survival tale about a solo sailor whose boat starts sinking after hitting a shipping container. Yet he is on the screen throughout, braving treacherous currents, busy shipping lanes and on-board fire. At 77 Redford did all the stunts himself and held the attention grittily with no other co-star than the Indian Ocean.