The 20 best Robert Redford performances, ranked

Based on Nicholas Evans' best-seller, "The Horse Whisperer" features Redford as a special kind of horse trainer who has an ability to help horses heal after tragic accidents. While aiding an injured teen (a young Scarlett Johansson) bring her horse back to health, Tom Booker (Redford) endears himself to her family, leading to a love affair between him and her mother, bringing with it a bittersweet conclusion. Despite being past the prime of romantic leads of the time, Redford's easy, natural charm makes the role a solid one.

A largely underrated film, "The Great Waldo Pepper" features Redford as a WWI-era pilot who never got his shot at glory in aerial combat, so he settles for staging dogfights in the air for paying crowds. Redford effectively balances arrogance and charm in this portrait of a man who gets by on wondering what could've been as opposed to what actually was. 

A solid entry in Redford's spy drama oeuvre, "Spy Game" pairs Redford with Brad Pitt, giving audiences a thematic look at two performers who are similar, yet are in different places in their careers. Redford plays aged CIA agent Nathan Muir, tasked, on his last day before retirement, to give his superiors data and reasons to allow captured agent (and Muir's student) Tom Bishop (Pitt) to die in captivity, but instead, he works to rescue him. Redford acquits himself well here, giving echoes to earlier performances in "Sneakers" and "Three Days of the Condor."

Redford serves as the anchor of an ensemble of solid actors in "Sneakers." This time out, Redford portrays Martin Bishop, head of a team of security specialists tapped by NSA officers who know of his past as a hacker with obtaining sensitive material coveted by the Russian government, setting a number of cloak-and-dagger activities into motion. Often played for laughs, while not a send-up of his previous roles in spy thrillers, this lighter touch only makes Redford's performance more endearing.

Redford settles well into his normal role of a dashing, yet complicated hero who captures the heart of a lovelorn woman in "Out of Africa." As Great White Hunter Denys Finch Hatton, Redford also serves as a tragic figure, as his untimely death would serve as an emotional fulcrum for Meryl Streep's character on her personal journey. "Out of Africa" brought in seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for frequent collaborator Sydney Pollack.

Possibly the most endearing of the numerous attempts to bring F. Scott Fitzgerald's titular character to the big screen, the reason Redford's take on Jay Gatsby goes over so well is likely due to Redford himself, meaning that the character of Gatsby would measure himself up to Redford. So in a way, there is a sort of thematic symbiosis where a character would model itself after the actor who portrayed him. In many ways, Jay Gatsby would be Redford in the way that Redford would portray him. Super confusing, to be sure, but then again, isn't "Gatsby"?

An early example of Redford's prowess came in the form of David Chappellet, an Olympic-level skier who was every bit as distant and aloof off the slopes as he was masterful on them. "Downhill Racer" is a semi-documentarial look at the lives and attitudes of athletes who push themselves to the edge while also driving away the people who care for them the most. 

In one of the biggest casting coups for Marvel Studios, Redford brings his talents to a superhero film that is more reminiscent of a '70s spy drama. As such, Redford would be comfortable in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." Portraying Secretary of Defense Alexander Pierce, Redford relishes in his opportunity to play a villain with every bit of the same brand of earnestness that he exhibited in films where he played the hero — something that only adds to the film's compelling nature and how even the black-and-white world of superheroism can also exist in shades of grey.

Based on the Neil Simon play, "Barefoot in the Park" focuses on newlyweds  Corie and Paul Bratter (Redford and Jane Fonda) as they live and love in their tiny Greenwich Village brownstone apartment. Redford establishes his presence as a WASP status seeker who manages to find love, lose love and find love once again with a woman who is undeniably wild at heart, a theme that would carry on to later films such as 1973's "The Way We Were."

Redford and Jane Fonda reteam 12 years after "Barefoot in the Park," though, in a much different type of romance. This is a story of a burned-out rodeo man who sells out to become a walking billboard of sorts until he steals a $12 million thoroughbred. He then goes on a cross-country trip with a TV reporter (Fonda) in tow. They avoid the law on their way to releasing the horse in a canyon where wild horses roam, and they find love along their journey.

A showcase for Redford at his most idealistic, "Brubaker" is a fictionalized examination of real-life warden Thomas Murton's attempts to clean up a wildly corrupt Arkansas prison, a job he did far too well, as he was fired in his first year. Redford uses his fictional role to deliver powerful speeches about the state of prisons in America that some found to be recitations of something you'd find in an op-ed column. Though, he did so with a level of conviction that gives the right amount of heart within a seemingly hopeless state of affairs.

Starring alongside Barbara Streisand in this tale of accidental lovers who find themselves drifting apart, "The Way We Were" is a solid example of Redford's ability to take a standard WASP role and inject it with his standard charm and a level of aloofness that succeeds in forcing the viewer to sympathize with a mostly unsympathetic character. While his character is mostly there for Streisand to fall in love with and then later leave, Redford takes the thankless role and makes it memorable.

Redford stars as a bookish CIA desk jockey who returns from lunch one day to find his entire office of fellow analysts murdered. The events spiral for Condor as he has no idea who to trust as he races to get to the truth. The first and best of Redford's hard-boiled spy films, "Three Days of the Condor" is a solid thriller anchored by Redford's steady and unassuming performance.

In "The Candidate," Redford takes his trademark charm out onto the campaign trail in the role of Bill McKay, an idealistic young politician and son of a former governor who is recruited to run an impossible race. He knows he can't win, which frees him to shoot from the hip and share his true and actual values with the voters. Dripping with satire, "The Candidate" feels like a textbook look into how even the most idealistic candidates can be tainted by the chance of success.

Redford sheds his "pretty boy" persona to take on the life of mountain man Jeremiah Johnson, a Mexican War vet who chose to live off the land, leading him on a number of adventures that would bring him equal levels of joy and pain. Redford plays the role with a light stoicism that's never too harsh nor too kind, exhibiting a pathos that enraptures the viewer as Johnson's journey winds through love and loss and an admiration for the land that few men ever had.

A wildly successful film for Redford, who pairs for the second time in his career with Paul Newman, "The Sting" took home a number of Oscars in 1973, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. As Johnny "Kelly" Hooker, Redford teams with Henry Gondorff (Newman) to pull off "the big con" on a dangerous mob boss. The result is a film packed with charm, floated by a pair of performances from Newman and Redford that are still considered iconic today.

In "The Natural," Redford stars as a seemingly over-the-hill ballplayer who lifts the fortunes of a downtrodden team. Along the way, he showcases the talent wasted as a young man when he was the victim of an assassination attempt. If you love baseball, chances are this is one of your favorite films. And the ending? If you can keep your eyes dry for even a moment, you're better than we are. 

Teamed with Dustin Hoffman as Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, "All the President's Men" is a time capsule into a time when journalism received far more respect, and when it was enough to force a defying president to ultimately resign. Redford was a driving force both on screen as well as behind the scenes as producer. The end result is a film that feels more like a cautionary tale in 2018.

Benefiting from both an Oscar-winning screenplay and a natural chemistry with co-star Paul Newman, Redford turns in a career-defining performance as the Sundance Kid. The story follows the duo down to South America as they search for greener pastures as well as an escape from a posse charged with bringing them back to face the hangman's noose, or their own, whichever is more convenient. The film is a hallmark of Redford's career, one that would only show more promise as time goes on.

Our pick for Redford's best performance also happens to be one of his most recent. In director J.C. Chandor's "All Is Lost," Redford is given the full stage as a man who suffers a series of setbacks while sailing alone. As the nameless character suffers through his experience, Redford turns in the acting performance of his career, one egregiously overlooked during awards season as he found himself snubbed by the Academy for his work. Regardless, we see this as a last hurrah for an actor who earned his legacy long ago, yet remains vital to this day.