All 5 Robert Redford Western Movies, Ranked

Robert Redford never made a vast number of Westerns, but the ones he did appear in span decades and tones — from revisionist and neo-Westerns to modern-day takes on the cowboy figure. Four came between 1969 and 1979, around the peak of his acting career, and a later film from the late 1990s can be read as a neo-Western.

He also moved into directing around 1980, which shifted his onscreen focus. At the bottom of this list is The Horse Whisperer, a long, old-fashioned-feeling film that Redford both directed and starred in; it follows a horse trainer helping a young girl and, predictably, forming a bond with her mother.

Slightly higher is Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, an obscure revisionist Western in which Redford plays the deputy pursuing a man on the run; the film tackles racial tensions for its era but has pacing that feels clunky today.

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