Robert Redford, Oscar-Winning Actor and Director, Dead at 89

Robert Redford — the Oscar-winning director and actor known for his work on films including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, Ordinary People, and many more — is dead at 89. “Robert Redford passed away on September 16, 2025, at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah — the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved. He will be missed greatly,” his publicist Cindi Berger confirmed in a statement to CNN. “The family requests privacy.” No cause of death was shared, but Berger told the New York Times that Redford died in his sleep.

Born in 1936 in Santa Monica, California, Redford became one of Hollywood’s most in-demand leading men following his breakthrough role as a charismatic outlaw alongside Paul Newman in 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He established himself as a heartthrob by starring alongside Jane Fonda in Barefoot in the Park, Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were, and Meryl Streep in Out of Africa, but he was known for a variety of genres in a filmography that includes Three Days of the Condor, The Old Man & the Gun, Quiz Show, and Avengers: Endgame, among many other titles.

In his 40s, Redford also built a reputation for his work behind the camera. Although he received his first Oscar nomination for acting in the 1973 caper film The Sting, it was his feature directorial debut, Ordinary People, that earned him his first win at the Academy Awards in 1980. He has also served as an executive producer on a number of projects, most recently on AMC’s Dark Winds.

Offscreen, he was known for his work with the Sundance Institute, the nonprofit he founded in 1981 that has launched independent filmmakers to fame for decades through its annual Sundance Film Festival. And outside of the entertainment industry, he was a long-serving National Resources Defense Council trustee known for his environmentalist efforts, especially in Utah. He moved there in 1961 and went on to successfully campaign against a six-lane highway and a coal-fired power plant in the state. When Barack Obama presented Redford with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, he praised Redford for his support of U.S. national parks and natural resources and described him as “one of the foremost conservationists of our generation.”

Thanks for the memories  

If you'd like to celebrate Robert Redford's career by remembering your favorite Redford films, here are three Cinematrix grids that feature him. 

➼ Cinematrix No. 77: June 11, 2024
➼ Cinematrix No. 186: September 28, 2024
➼ Cinematrix No. 482: July 21, 2025