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\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\nFrom cops and cowboys to cool-headed consiglieres, the actor turned in game-changing performances over his remarkable 60-plus-year screen career<\/p>\n
\n\tRobert Duvall may have been the epitome of gravitas onscreen. Whether he was playing a stern patriarch, a ruthless corporate boss, a morally bankrupt military officer, or a grizzled ex-con, he captured the quiet essence of the man, conveying a character\u2019s entire life force through one look. Duvall grounded roles that could be over-the-top in the wrong hands, and was content to play second fiddle if his talents served the story\u2026 though never without stealing scenes. His screen career spanned from 1960 to 2022, nearly all of those decades filled with exceptional work. Here are our 15 favorite roles from an incredible filmography.<\/p>\n
\t\u2018To Kill a Mockingbird\u2019 (1962)<\/p>\n
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\n\tThe story goes that the legendary playwright Horton Foote saw Robert Duvall in a 1957 production of his work The Midnight Caller, and that inspired him to recommend the young actor for Duvall\u2019s film debut in director Robert Mulligan\u2019s adaptation of Harper Lee\u2019s beloved To Kill a Mockingbird. Radley is a complex role, a character who is an outsider to the entire community and ends up being a savior to the Finch children. Duvall imbues him with such graceful interiority, playing him as three-dimensional instead of just a convenient plot device. Radley saves Jem and Scout, which makes him a hero, but he\u2019s still the outsider in fictional Maycomb, Alabama, the one who the local kids (and some adults) found terrifying. After he saves her near the end of the film, Boo gives a look to Jem that conveys a well of affection and pride without a single line of dialogue. Duvall would carve out a career of characters who contained that silent strength, and it started here. \u2014Brian Tallerico<\/p>\n
\t\u2018The Rain People\u2019 (1969)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Everett Collection\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tRip Torn was originally cast in this early Francis Ford Coppola drama about a woman on a road trip who\u2019s attempting to outrun her unsatisfying life; he was supposed to play a highway patrolman who gives her a speeding ticket and ends up her taking her home, but he had to drop out for scheduling reasons before he\u2019d shot a single scene. James Caan, who was starring alongside Shirley Knight, said he knew a guy who could sub in \u2014 a New York actor with a few impressive screen credits on his resum\u00e9 (To Kill a Mockingbird, The Chase, Bullitt) named Bobby. This was Duvall\u2019s first collaboration with Coppola, and though the role is relatively minor, it\u2019s still a crucial one in terms of the movie\u2019s tragic third act. It also offers a sneak peek of Duvall\u2019s ability to seem simultaneously charismatic and menacing, as well as a preview of the many stern, shouting fathers he\u2019d play later in his career. \u2014David Fear<\/p>\n
\t\u2018M*A*S*H*\u2019 (1970)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: \u00a920thCentFox\/Everett Collection\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tUptight, unpleasant, unskilled, and yet somehow kissable, Duvall\u2019s character in M*A*S*H, Major Frank Burns, is the first domino to fall in Robert Altman\u2019s black comedy about wacky Korean War surgeons (which preceded the Vietnam-set TV series by two years). New arrivals Hawkeye and Duke peg the ultra-religious Burns as a jerk as soon as they meet him (and when he excoriates a younger soldier for accidentally killing a man, that first impression is confirmed) so they set about tormenting him any way they can, broadcasting Burns\u2019 liaison with a female new arrival (\u201cKiss my hot lips,\u201d she tells Duvall) and needling at him until he explodes. Duvall is the perfect straight man in film filled with goofballs. \u2014Kory Grow<\/p>\n
\t\u2018The Godfather\u2019 (1972)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Everett Collection\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tTom Hagen is presented in Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s 1972 masterpiece as the cool head in a family of hot ones. The consigliere to Al Pacino\u2019s Michael Corleone, he represents the traditional way of doing things as an ally and advisor to Vito \u2014 the old-fashioned voice trying to calm the aggressive new generation of warriors like James Caan\u2019s Sonny. When he\u2019s the only one left that Michael can trust, he becomes the acting don, but even Tom is eventually betrayed. Duvall has a ton of unforgettable lines in his filmography, but near the top of the list is \u201cWhy do you hurt me, Michael? I\u2019ve always been loyal to you.\u201d To Tom Hagen, it\u2019s never been just business. Going against him isn\u2019t just going against reason and rationality; it\u2019s going against history, allegiance, and family. Pacino, Caan, Brando, and De Niro arguably got more attention for these films, but they just don\u2019t work without Duvall. \u2014B.T.<\/p>\n
\t\u2018Tomorrow\u2019 (1972)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Everett Collection\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tPlaywright Horton Foote had written the screenplay for To Kill a Mockingbird, Duvall\u2019s film debut, as well as the script for The Chase, the Arthur Penn drama that marked the first time Duvall shared the screen with Marlon Brando. Foote and Duvall were already well acquainted with each other when the actor starred in Foote\u2019s stage adaptation of a William Faulkner short story about a laconic sharecropper named Jackson Fentry who befriends a pregnant woman. When it came time to shoot a film version deep in the rural South, Duvall reprised the role \u2014 and while this modest, black-and-white indie may be the least-known title on this list, it\u2019s definitely one of Duvall\u2019s essential works. In an essay he wrote about Duvall for the book Close-Ups, Foote noted how spent weeks watching the New York actor slowly transform himself into \u201can inarticulate Mississippi tenant farmer,\u201d and by the time he\u2019d arrived on set, almost every trace of him had disappeared into the character. \u201cHe has that special ability to enter another culture,\u201d the playwright noted, \u201cto give himself to it and absorb it for creative use.\u201d There are moments in Tomorrow when you don\u2019t feel like you\u2019re watching someone performing at all. \u2014D.F.<\/p>\n
\t\u2018The Outfit\u2019 (1973)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Everett Collection\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tBased on a Richard Stark crime novel, The Outfit is a gritty revenge masterpiece. In the film, Duvall plays Earl Macklin, a hardboiled ex-con with enough guts to take on a whole mafia family (the titular outfit) after they kill his brother. The Macklins had robbed a bank the Outfit operated and served time for doing so, but the way Earl sees it, the Outfit owes him a quarter of a million dollars \u2014 and he\u2019s determined to collect on the sum however he can and take out anyone who gets in his way. Bloody, explosive, and intense, The Outfit captures Duvall\u2019s knack for playing characters with unquenchable determination at the top of his game. \u2014K.G.<\/p>\n
\t\u2018Network\u2019 (1976)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Everett Collection\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tIn The Godfather, Robert Duvall played a character who swam with sharks, but even the Corleone family pales in comparison to the monsters who run network television. In Sidney Lumet\u2019s Oscar-winning smackdown of evil corporations and the idiocy of the small screen, Duvall\u2019s Frank Hackett is a ruthless executive at the struggling Union Broadcasting System who gets his prayers answered when his nighttime news anchor goes bonkers on camera, triggering a ratings juggernaut. Duvall\u2019s ability to both simmer with rage and ooze superiority was perfectly wielded here, creating the definitive portrait of the soulless company man who values profits over everything else. Some of Network\u2019s satirical targets haven\u2019t aged well in 50 years, but the Frank Hacketts of the world have only multiplied. Duvall made the man utterly contemptible and absolutely unstoppable. \u2014Tim Grierson<\/p>\n
\t\u2018Apocalypse Now\u2019 (1979)<\/p>\n
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\n\tEveryone knows the line that became one of the most famous in the history of war movies: \u201cI love the smell of napalm in the morning.\u201d But there\u2019s another one at the end of the same scene that also has a striking resonance: \u201cSomeday this war\u2019s gonna end.\u201d Duvall hits it with a sigh and something akin to a frown instead of optimism. It\u2019s almost defeated resignation, as if his Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore isn\u2019t sure he wants this chaos to end. He\u2019ll miss the surfing, the soldiers, \u201cRide of the Valkyries,\u201d and, yes, the smell of napalm. Duvall reportedly thought Kilgore was too exaggerated on the page (where he was named Colonel Carnage), and asked Coppola if he could do his own research to make the guy more genuine. And it\u2019s that character work, the backstory and detail that\u2019s there in every subtle beat, that makes this part so memorable. \u2014B.T.<\/p>\n
\t\u2018The Great Santini\u2019 (1979)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: \u00a9Orion Pictures Corp\/Everett Collection\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThere are problematic screen dads, and then there\u2019s Lt. \u201cBull\u201d Meachum, the Marine pilot who runs his family with the same zero-tolerance, drop-and-give-me-20 attitude as a drill sergeant runs his platoon. Whether Duvall based any of his character\u2019s military-man parenting style on his own upbringing \u2014 his own father was a rear admiral in the Navy, though Duvall claimed he was a lot more passive than Meachum \u2014 he certainly committed 100 percent to playing this patriarch without sanding down the rougher edges. Bull is especially hard on his eldest son Ben, played by Caddyshack\u2019s Michael O\u2019Keefe, and the scene<\/a> in which a competitive one-on-one game ends with Dad bouncing a basketball off his boy\u2019s head while taunting him is still hard to watch. (Ditto the scene where Bull tells Ben to take out a player on another team who\u2019s fouled him, or he shouldn\u2019t bother coming home.) The performance nabbed Duvall his first Best Actor Oscar nomination. He should have won. \u2014D.F.<\/p>\n \t\u2018Tender Mercies\u2019 (1983)<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tWhen Robert Duvall won Best Actor for his portrayal of faded country star Mac Sledge, he told the Academy Awards audience that he was especially honored that the giants of the music genre \u2014 including Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings \u2014 thought so highly of his performance. \u201cIf I didn\u2019t have that on one hand,\u201d Duvall said, \u201cI would feel that this on the other hand was not complete.\u201d When making Tender Mercies, Duvall insisted that he do his own singing, even writing a few of Sledge\u2019s songs. It was just one example of the authenticity and compassion he brought to his portrayal of a has-been musician laid low by addiction and personal failings who was determined to redeem himself. So often, Hollywood condescends to or mocks characters who live in the \u201creal America,\u201d but Duvall never allows Sledge to be a simplistic good ol\u2019 boy or, conversely, a blandly saintly figure of pure virtue. It\u2019s a tough, tender performance \u2014 and one of those rare cases when a great actor actually took home an Oscar for one of his best roles. \u2014 T.G.<\/p>\n \t\u2018Colors\u2019 (1988)<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tReleased a year after Lethal Weapon, this Dennis Hopper\u2013directed film tackled the familiar ground of a hotshot rookie cop (in this case, Sean Penn) paired with a hardened veteran (Duvall), only with a more believable plot (these two are fighting gangs, not Lethal Weapon\u2019s Gary Busey in a helicopter) and a better soundtrack (Ice-T!<\/a>). At the time, Penn had cultivated an off-screen bad-boy image that seemed to define the role and played well against Duvall\u2019s professionalism. Ultimately, Duvall stole the show in a scene where Penn\u2019s character lusts after a fast-food server. \u201cYou heard the one about the two bulls?\u201d<\/a> Duvall asks, leading him to tell a parable anyone who\u2019s seen the movie has never forgotten. \u2014K.G.<\/p>\n \t\u2018Lonesome Dove\u2019 (1989)<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tDuvall said it took him 10 days to read Larry McMurty\u2019s doorstopper of a novel, about two former Texas Rangers who embark on a cattle drive from the Lone Star State to Montana, and roughly 16 weeks to shoot the four-part TV adaptation. The impact it had on the actor, however, would last a lifetime, and he routinely referred to this miniseries as the highlight of his career well into his autumn years. Duvall had originally been offered the role of Captain Woodrow F. Call, the more straitlaced and upstanding of the duo. He reportedly told the producers that he\u2019d already done a million variations on that type of cowboy and was more interested in playing the other part: Captain Gus McCrae, a gentleman with a love of good times, strong women, and even stronger liquor, provided the bartender serving it shows the proper amount of respect<\/a>. It\u2019s impossible now to think of anyone else playing this lawman \u2014 the same goes for Tommy Lee Jones, who\u2019d end up steeping into Call\u2019s dusty boots \u2014 and their pairing on the prairie is a big part of why Lonesome Dove\u2019s fan base keeps growing with every generation. \u201cThe only healthy way to live, as I see it, is to love the little everyday things,\u201d McCrae says in a moment of philosophical reflection. \u201cLike a good whiskey, a soft bed, a glass of buttermilk. Or, say, a feisty gentleman like myself.\u201d If you ever want to see grown men burst into tears, just show them the goodbye scene between the two old friends, which Duvall plays close to the vest yet still leaves you quietly wrecked. \u2014D.F.<\/p>\n \t\u2018Rambling Rose\u2019 (1991)<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tRoger Ebert once said<\/a> that the movies that make him cry are \u201cthe films about goodness \u2014 about people acting bravely or generously in self-sacrifice.\u201d Director Martha Coolidge\u2019s hybrid of character study, memory play, and coming-of-age story Rambling Rose is one of the best examples of how Duvall could so deftly play goodness. His ability to project old-fashioned decency served him well in period pieces, his square jaw and classic Hollywood good looks never feeling anachronistic for films set generations ago. His presence adds veracity to this Great Depression tale of a prostitute (played by Laura Dern, in one of her best performances) who is taken in by a Southern family led by Duvall and Diane Ladd. Duvall\u2019s patriarch, Buddy Hillyer, is a man who makes mistakes, but also one who knows right from wrong, a truth Duvall gets across with small gestures instead of big monologues. In a film in which Dern and Ladd got a lot of deserved attention, he\u2019s the foundation of the ensemble. \u2014B.T.<\/p>\n \t\u2018The Apostle\u2019 (1997)<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tDuvall wrote, directed, financed, and starred in this 1997 tale of sin and redemption about a Pentecostal preacher who kills his wife\u2019s lover, goes on the lam, and reinvents himself as the anonymous \u201cApostle E.F.\u201d in the deep swamps of Louisiana. Duvall is electric as E.F., whether he\u2019s preaching the word to his new congregation, administering last rites to a car-crash victim in a field, or beating the ass of \u2014 and later converting \u2014 a racist hell-bent on tearing down the E.F\u2019s church. Duvall earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, mesmerizing audiences with a performance that, like those given by the best evangelists, was both charismatic and compassionate. \u201cPreaching is one of the great American art forms. The rhythm, the cadence,\u201d he told The New York Times in 1997. \u201cAnd nobody knows about it except the preachers themselves.\u201d \u2014Joseph Hudak<\/p>\n \t\u2018Get Low\u2019 (2009)<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tDuvall spent much of the last few decades of his career showing up for glorified cameos that mainly called on him to play the embodiment of \u00e9minence grise gravitas. But he was given a gift by director Aaron Schneider in the form of Felix Bush, a recluse living in the hills of Tennessee. One day, Bush rides into town and invites the locals to attend his funeral. Never mind that he hasn\u2019t gone to the Great Beyond just yet \u2014 the old man has decided to throw himself a pre-emptive wake. Duvall leans into the character\u2019s cantankerous old-coot persona, and it\u2019s a pleasure to see Duvall sink his teeth into a lead role again. Then comes his time to deliver a eulogy, and an entirely different side of Bush comes out. Over the course of a six-and-a-half minute monologue<\/a>, we find out why this hermit feels he doesn\u2019t belong to the community. The way that Duvall reveals someone unburdening their soul from decades of shame and regret is a powerful reminder of how he could turn a confessional speech into its own three-act play. Get Low gave him the opportunity for one last great performance in a career already filled with so many heights. \u2014D.F.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From cops and cowboys to cool-headed consiglieres, the actor turned in game-changing performances over his remarkable 60-plus-year screen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206,1593,86227,123200],"class_list":{"0":"post-473060","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-oscar","11":"tag-robert-duvall","12":"tag-the-godfather"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: \u00a9Orion Pictures Corp\/Everett Collection\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: CBS\/Everett Collection\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: \u00a9New Line Cinema\/Everett Collection\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: \u00a9October Films\/Everett Collection\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Sony Pictures Classics\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n