Credit: Far Out / Paramount Pictures
October 30th, 2026 · 8:45pm GMT
The greatest movie an actor ever makes, the greatest role they’ve ever played, and the best film they’ve ever been a part of can often be three separate things: just ask Robert Redford.
The late legend cited Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as his favourite role from his career, and with good reason: it turned him into a Hollywood superstar, became his biggest hit by far, and inspired his secondary hustle as the founder of the titular film festival that’s been running since the 1980s.
As for the greatest picture he ever appeared in, Redford named The Sting, which, again, is fair: re-teaming with Paul Newman and director George Roy Hill, the criminal caper won seven Academy Awards, including ‘Best Picture’, and it’s neck-and-neck with Butch and Sundance as his most iconic gig.
Those are the two obvious choices, since his double-act with Newman is one of the most famed in cinema history, even if they only appeared side-by-side onscreen twice. He had other high points, though, and one he held closer than most is a movie that isn’t often ranked alongside his very, very best.
After starring in three 1969 releases and appearing in another three in 1972, Redford scaled back his workload after the classic buddy western strapped a rocket to his back, with his only acting outing in the interim being Sidney J Furie’s Little Fauss and Big Halsy, which he only made to avoid being sued.
Several years previously, the star had dropped out of Blue while he was on a train heading to the set, and to avoid legal action from Paramount, he agreed to act in another production for the studio, which saw him cast as the latter half of the title duo in the drama, which didn’t really make much of a splash.
Even though he didn’t get along with the director, and he retrospectively loathed the experience of making it, which had plenty to do with commuting back and forth between the set of Downhill Racer, which he was shooting concurrently, it wormed its way into his heart eventually.
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
Beyond calling his character “an outrageous shit” that allowed him to cut loose, Redford also described Little Fauss and Big Halsy, penned by the “gifted and eccentric” Charles Eastman, as “the best script of any film I’ve ever done, in my opinion,” justifying his claim by saying it was “without a doubt the most interesting, the funniest, the saddest, the most real and original.”
Those are some hefty superlatives, and most folks would agree that he made at least a handful of better movies with better scripts, but when it comes to Redford’s career, nobody knew better than Redford.
