{"id":819639,"date":"2026-10-31T10:10:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T10:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/819639\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T10:10:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T10:10:13","slug":"the-eccentric-1970-movie-robert-redford-called-the-best-ive-ever-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/819639\/","title":{"rendered":"The “eccentric” 1970 movie Robert Redford called “the best I’ve ever done”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Robert<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Paramount Pictures<\/p>\n

October 30th, 2026 \u00b7 8:45pm GMT <\/p>\n

The greatest movie an actor ever makes, the greatest role they\u2019ve ever played, and the best film they\u2019ve ever been a part of can often be three separate things: just ask Robert Redford<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The late legend cited Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as his favourite role from his career<\/a>, 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\u2019s been running since the 1980s.<\/p>\n

As for the greatest picture he ever appeared in, Redford named The Sting<\/a>, which, again, is fair: re-teaming with Paul Newman and director George Roy Hill, the criminal caper won seven Academy Awards, including \u2018Best Picture\u2019, and it\u2019s neck-and-neck with Butch and Sundance as his most iconic gig.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t often ranked alongside his very, very best.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Little Fauss and Big Halsy, which he only made to avoid being sued.<\/p>\n

Several years previously, the star had dropped out of Blue while he was on a train heading to the set<\/a>, 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\u2019t really make much of a splash.<\/p>\n

Even though he didn\u2019t get along with the director, and he retrospectively loathed the experience<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Further reading: Cutting Room Floor<\/p>\n

Beyond calling his character \u201can outrageous shit\u201d that allowed him to cut loose, Redford also described Little Fauss and Big Halsy, penned by the \u201cgifted and eccentric\u201d Charles Eastman, as \u201cthe best script of any film I\u2019ve ever done, in my opinion,\u201d justifying his claim by saying it was \u201cwithout a doubt the most interesting, the funniest, the saddest, the most real and original.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s career, nobody knew better than Redford.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Paramount Pictures October 30th, 2026 \u00b7 8:45pm GMT The greatest movie an actor ever…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":819640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[186792,42201,228651,218508,96,2839,30411,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-819639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-186792","tag-1970s","tag-crime-movie","tag-drama-movie","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-robert-redford","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}