Weekend Classics

On the strength of their 1969 collaboration BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, Robert Redford and co-star Paul Newman teamed up once again with director George Roy Hill for this ‘30s-set caper about two professional grifters’ plot to con a mob boss (Robert Shaw).

John Archibald Dortmunder (Robert Redford), a notorious fresh-out-of-jail cat burglar, is approached by Dr. Amusa (Moses Gunn) with a scheme to steal a gem from a museum that was itself stolen from his African country during colonial times — and he wants the gem returned to its rightful place. Dortmunder quickly assembles a team of the best, most experienced cat burglars he knows. An elaborate plan is hatched, but the perfect heist threatens to run off the rails.

Soured by civilisation, Jeremiah Johnson (Robert Redford) sets out in the mid-1800's to be a mountain man, seeking solitude in a wilderness whose purity he never questioned. Shot on location in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains — the home of Redford’s Sundance Film Festival — and directed by Sydney Pollock (see also THE WAY WE WERE).

Set against the political backdrops of the lead-up to World War II and later McCarthyism, a diametrically opposed couple (Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford) come together only to find that genuine friendship and physical attraction is not enough to overcome fundamental societal beliefs. Directed by Sydney Pollock (see also JEREMIAH JOHNSON).

Directed by first-time filmmaker Robert Redford — more than years deep into his acting career at the time — ORDINARY PEOPLE stars Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore in this intense examination of a family being torn apart by tension and tragedy. Superb performances and masterful direction complement the award-winning screenplay, based upon the novel by Judith Guest.

The Maclean brothers, Paul (Brad Pitt, in a pivotal early role) and Norman (Craig Sheffer), live a relatively idyllic life in rural Montana, spending much of their time fly fishing. The sons of a minister (Tom Skerritt), the boys eventually part company when Norman moves east to attend college, leaving his rebellious brother to find trouble back home. Robert Redford directs Norman McClean’s semi-autobiographical novel in the bucolic splendor of Montana.