If you love American cinema, there’s a high chance a Robert Redford film is in your all-time faves. The iconic actor, who died in September 2025 at age 89, got his start in guest roles on television series like The Twilight Zone and Broadway productions like Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park. Acclaim for his performance in Simon’s play led Redford to break into film. After a few minor roles, he landed a leading part in 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, launching his career into the stratosphere.
Redford’s performances define ’70s cinema: his Oscar-nominated turn as a grifter in The Sting, his devastating romance with Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were, his portrayal of a compromised politician in The Candidate — a movie that Barack Obama called “the best movie about what politics is actually like, ever” in his remarks at Redford’s Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony in 2016. After producing and starring in All the President’s Men, a revelatory look at the Watergate scandal, the actor tried his hand at directing. His directorial debut, Ordinary People (1980), won four Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture.
He continued to star in and direct memorable stories throughout the ’90s, ’00s, and ’10s, and also founded and established the Sundance Film Festival, which focuses on highlighting indie stories from outside the Hollywood system. “He was playful and curious and kind,” Amy Redford told TODAY about her late father ahead of the 2026 festival. “What he taught us to do is really find the thing that we’re most passionate about and the things we think might be able to change the world.”
In honor of his expansive career, here are three Redford movies to check out on Netflix now.
Two widowed neighbors strike an unusual bargain: They sleep next to each other at night to stave off the loneliness of missing their partner. But the intimacy of platonic pillow talk soon blossoms into a second chance at love. The film Our Souls at Night is adapted from the posthumously published novel of the same name by Kent Haruf and stars Redford and his frequent romantic co-star, Jane Fonda.
Redford stars in this cerebral sci-fi film as a scientist who publishes proof of an afterlife only to cause public delirium and a rash of suicides. When he decides to push ahead with his research regardless of the cost to human life, he deepens the rift between him and his son, who’s experiencing the true highs of love and life for the first time. The Discovery also stars Jason Segel, Rooney Mara, and Jesse Plemons.
Redford earned an Oscar nod for his performance opposite Paul Newman in this caper about two con artists who pair up during the Great Depression to take down a mob boss, played by Robert Shaw (From Russia with Love). Directed by George Roy Hill (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), the film was inspired by real-life events detailed in David W. Maurer’s 1940 book The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man. The Sting won 7 of 10 total Oscar nominations at the 1974 ceremony, including Best Picture.
