Robert Redfords legacy in 10 essential films

Robert Redford’s impact on cinema through the Sundance Film Festival was supercharged.His work behind the camera was often extraordinary, winning the Oscar for his directorial feature film debut, “Ordinary People.”But Redford the actor was equally exceptional, a charismatic icon who starred in some of the greatest films in the 1970s and ’80s, movies that remain ingrained in our collective memory.

And time did not diminish him.He arguably gave his greatest performance at the age of 77 in “All Is Lost.”Listing all of Redford’s notable work in front and behind the camera is impossible.

You could spend a year exploring his filmography and still not be finished.Here are 10 of his best.

Watch these and then keep digging for treasure.For many of you, this might be the one movie on this list that you haven’t seen, much less know.

Redford plays a mariner — an ancient one at that, as he was 77 when he made this movie about a man battling the elements and fighting for his life after his well-appointed yacht is hit by a shipping container in the Indian Ocean.As an actor who leaned into his natural reserve, Redford must have loved this role.

His character, identified in the credits only as Our Man, says all of 51 words, which means Redford had to use everything he learned over a half-century to bring us inside the movie’s complicated hero.It’s a one-man show that I can say without hyperbole is the best work he ever did.

It’s a shame it wasn’t more widely seen, though that now opens the door for a belated discovery.— Glenn Whipp Alan J.

Pakula’s Watergate drama is remembered as one of the great political thrillers, but for Redford it was a gamble of conviction and clout.He optioned the Woodward-Bernstein book himself, pushing through doubts that a film built on phone calls, door knocks and note-taking could grip audiences.

As Bob Woodward he strips away glamour, playing a reporter who is awkward, halting and dogged, yet unshakable once the tr...