Culture Recs: Robert Redford's Cinematic Legacy

As an actor, director, and co-founder of the Sundance Film Festival, Redford's contributions go well beyond 'The Sting'

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Hollywood legend Robert Redford died this week at home in Utah. He was somehow 89, though his generous swoosh of rusty blond hair gave him a perpetually boyish look.

In a film career that spanned more than 50 years, he starred in classics including All the President’s Men, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Way We Were, in roles that often traded on his charisma and undeniable good looks. (Here’s where I confess that I was raised by a Redford fan, and was introduced to his work via a VHS rental of the 1986 rom-com Legal Eagles.)

But Redford’s talent was all too easily overlooked because of his golden boy image (legendary critic Pauline Kael, had a bizarre vendetta against Redford, once comparing him to Lassie and describing him as “alarmingly blond.”)

He also bristled at the constraints of the industry, and longed to tell sophisticated, socially relevant stories that didn’t always scream “box office smash.” In 1980, he made his feature directorial debut with Ordinary People, a drama about a family grieving the loss of their son. The film won four Academy Awards, including best director and best picture. (Redford never won an Oscar as an actor, and was only nominated once, for The Sting.) His credits as a director include Quiz Show, A River Runs Through It, and Lions for Lambs.

An avid environmentalist and role model for other celebrity activists, Redford served as a trustee for the Natural Resources Defense Council for decades. He also occasionally got involved in politics, endorsing Barack Obama and Joe Biden in their presidential bids.

But arguably Redford’s greatest, most far-reaching contribution to popular culture is the Sundance Film Festival, which he started in 1979 ( it was then known as the US Film Festival) and is broadly credited with invigorating the American independent film movement.

The festival started as a small gathering for cinema junkies but mushroomed into a massive event attended by throngs of industry executives and big-name stars in puffer jackets. It helped kickstart the careers of some of the most exciting filmmakers of the last half-century (to name a few: Joel & Ethan Coen, Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, Todd Haynes, Ryan Coogler, Chloé Zhao, Ava DuVernay, Richard Linklater, and Rian Johnson).

Redford’s Sundance Institute also supported up-and-coming artists through grants, screenwriting labs, and mentorship programs. Long before the industry was trying to diversify its ranks, the festival presented films by women, people of color, and queer filmmakers.

Sundance also became known as a launch pad for thought-provoking work; often documentaries about the environment, LGBTQ issues, and geopolitics — many of which went on to win Academy Awards.

Diversity “is what independent filmmaking is all about,” Redford said.

Here’s a by-no-means exhaustive look at where you can find some of the films that Redford starred in, directed, and helped bring to a wider audience.

All is Lost (Tubi, Pluto TV)

In this gripping yet nearly dialogue-free late-career gem, Redford plays an unnamed man who is sailing in the Indian Ocean when an errant storage container collides with his boat. He desperately tries to save the vessel — and himself — but let’s just say he has his work cut out for him. As director J.C. Chandor notes in this lovely recollection, the movie is about confronting one’s own mortality.

All the President’s Men (available for digital rental on most major platforms)

Redford plays Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in Alan J. Pakula’s gripping look at Watergate. (Remember when cover-ups were enough to bring down a president? Sigh.)

Barefoot in the Park (Kanopy)

This witty romantic comedy, adapted from the Neil Simon play, follows the ups and downs of a newlywed NYC couple with decidedly different personalities. Jane Fonda plays the free-spirited wife, while Redford plays the buttoned-up hubby.

Our Souls at Night (Netflix)

This 2017 film reunited Redford and Jane Fonda, who previously starred together in Barefoot in the Park, The Chase, and The Electric Horseman. It’s a tender, heartfelt look at a widow and widower who strike up a surprising connection.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (available for digital rental)

The sheer levels of handsomeness on display in this 1969 Western starring Redford and Paul Newman as the legendary outlaws, have never been replicated onscreen. (Facts are facts.) This is the movie that vaulted Redford into the stratosphere and established his onscreen partnership with Newman, which they reprised in The Sting a few years later.

The Way We Were (available for digital rental)

Redford and Barbra Streisand star in this tearjerking tale of a turbulent romance between two opposites. He originally turned down the role of Hubbell Gardiner, a WASPy aspiring writer, because it was underdeveloped. So the part was beefed up to be more than just eye candy.

Every day on the set “was exciting, intense and pure joy,” Streisand recalled this week. “We were such opposites: he was from the world of horses; I was allergic to them! Yet, we kept trying to find out more about each other, just like the characters in the movie.”

Jeremiah Johnson (Tubi)

Redford’s frequent collaborator Sydney Pollack directed this Western in which the actor stars as a legendary war vet turned mountain man. At the actor’s insistence, it was largely filmed on location in Utah, the state he called home for much of his life.

Sneakers (available for digital rental)

This star-studded caper about a group of hackers is both terrifically entertaining and extremely prescient.

DIRECTORIAL WORK

Quiz Show (available for digital rental)

Redford’s retelling of the Twenty-One quiz show scandal of the 1950s was nominated for four Academy Awards.

A River Runs Through It (MGM+)

Set in Montana in the early 1900s, this tearjerker uses fly-fishing as a metaphor for life.

Ordinary People (MGM+, also available for digital rental)

Mary Tyler Moore and Donald Sutherland play grieving parents in Redford’s Oscar-winning directorial debut.

SUNDANCE STANDOUTS

Blood Simple (HBO Max)

The Coen Bros’ neo-noir debut feature won the Grand Jury Prize for Drama at Sundance in 1985, back when it was still known as the U.S. Film Festival. Also in the lineup that year were Stranger Than Paradise, The Brother From Another Planet, and The Times of Harvey Milk. Not too shabby.

Sex, Lies, and Videotape (buy on AppleTV and other platforms)

Steven Soderbergh was an unknown 26-year-old when his provocative drama premiered at Sundance in 1989, firmly establishing the festival as a hotbed for emerging talent and a major indie marketplace.

Reservoir Dogs (Peacock)

Quentin Tarantino made his feature debut at Sundance in 1992 with this stylish crime drama that will forever change the way you hear “Stuck in the Middle With You.”

Slacker (HBO Max)

Richard Linklater tracks the day in the life of Austin, back when it was still weird, following one eccentric character after the next. It premiered at the U.S. Film Festival in 1990.

Paris is Burning (HBO Max)

Jennie Livingston’s groundbreaking documentary takes a fascinating look at New York’s queer ballroom scene in the 1980s. It inspired Madonna’s “Vogue” era and won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1991.

We honor him and his expansive legacy, which will keep giving through his craft and vision.

Meredith Blake is the culture columnist for The Contrarian