The 10 Robert Redford Movies That DC's James Gunn Wants You To Watch

When Robert Redford passed away on September 16, 2025, at the age of 89, the world lost a legend. Redford wasn't just a prolific actor, but a deep lover of the cinematic form. Redford famously supported up-and-coming voices, having co-founded the Sundance Institute and its Sundance Film Festival, all to highlight new and important independent movies. He was also known for his unending political activism, speaking out in favor of LGBT rights, working to solve environmental problems, and lambasting corrupt politicians. All of this while being one of Hollywood's most dazzling movie stars, and a legit Oscar darling to boot. His 1980 film "Ordinary People" won Best Picture and Best Director, and his 1995 film "Quiz Show" was nominated for Best Picture. His other directorial efforts, "The Milagro Beanfield War" and "A River Runs Through It," also snagged a few nominations.

The loss of Redford has inspired no small number of career retrospectives, wherein eager fans compile their favorite Robert Redford movies. (His 1992 techno-thriller "Sneakers" is rightly being pointed out as one of the best in his filmography, and perhaps one of the most entertaining films of the 1990s.) Director James Gunn, who recently released his blockbuster "Superman," took to Twitter/X recently to eulogize Redford by listing his 10 favorite Redford movies. The ten films he selected are all legit classics, with only a few that may stump some younger readers. Gunn points out that most of his followers are already familiar with the well-known Western "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" as well as the con artist movie "The Sting," so he decided to go with ten others for his suggestions.

Gunn first listed Sydney Pollack's "Three Days of the Condor," a spy thriller from 1975. Redford plays a CIA office worker who never works in the field, and who never fires guns. After returning from a lunch break one morning, he finds that everyone in his office has been killed, and that he might be next. He immediately goes on the lam, trying to investigate what happened and stay as safe as possible from his as-yet-unknown assailants. He falls into the company — and into the bed — of a civilian named Kathy (Faye Dunaway) who will end up helping him. 

Redford and Pollack worked together multiple times, including on another film on Gunn's list, 1972's "Jeremiah Johnson." These days, "Jeremiah Johnson" is best known as a meme of Redford, with a big bushy beard, nodding approving at someone while the camera slowly pushes in. The film is actually about an emotionally wounded war veteran who has elected to live off the grid in the Rocky Mountains as a wilderness survivor. It's based at least partially on the real-life John Jeremiah Johnson.

Gunn was also fond of "Barefoot in the Park," a 1967 romantic comedy based on the play by Neil Simon. It was directed by Gene Saks, and Redford played the laced-up, humorless Paul, a man who has just married the brassy extrovert Corie (Jane Fonda). The humor from the film comes from all the wacky shenanigans the newlyweds have to face from their quirky neighbors, although its drama comes from their legit clash of personalities. Are they a good match after all? 

For sports movie enthusiasts, Gunn recommended "The Natural," Barry Levinson's 1984 film about a baseball champion who forged a personalized baseball bat out of a tree. The tree was struck by lightning when his father died. It's all very mythic.

Redford made multiple, pointed political thrillers in his career, each one with a distinct anti-corruption message. Gunn would like you to watch at least three of them. Michael Richie's 1972 film "The Candidate" follows a left-wing, plain-spoken politician named McKay (Redford) who is selected by some party wonks to run against a popular Republican in an upcoming election. On the road, McKay finds himself having to compromise his principles more and more until he doesn't speak for anything. Of course, Gunn is also fond of Alan J. Pakula's 1974 thriller "All the President's Men," which tracks Bob Woodward (Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman), the reporters who cracked the Watergate scandal. Everyone loves that film. It's fluffier in comparison, but Gunn also likes "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," a superhero flick about the title hero finding that the U.S. government has been secretly infiltrated by a cabal of super-Nazis. 

The most obscure film on Gunn's list is probably the 1980 prison drama "Brubaker," directed by Stuart Rosenberg. Redford plays the title character, Henry Brubaker, a prison warden who goes undercover as a prisoner to investigate the corruption and horrors inside a typical American penal institution. What he finds is shocking. Fighting the corrupt prison system nearly breaks him. 

Several of Redford's films were very bleak, as symbolized by the title of the 2013 J.C. Chandor film "All is Lost." Told nearly completely without dialogue, it tells the story of a nameless sailor (credited only as "Our Man") who runs into a long series of sailing mishaps while out by himself on the sea. 

Also bleak is "Ordinary People," the only one of Redford's directorial efforts that Gunn recommends. Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore play an upper-middle-class suburban couple who are reeling from the recent death of their teenage son. Their other son (Timothy Hutton) also recently tried to take his own life and spent a spell in a mental institution. The pain, Redford notes, is painfully ordinary.