Robert Redford, the Oscar-winning actor, director and Sundance Film Festival founder, died on Sept. 16, 2025, at his home at Sundance in Utah, the family said. In the years before his death, Redford publicly declared his intention to retire after the 2018 film The Old Man & the Gun, then later said announcing that decision was a mistake — a stance friends and collaborators said reflected his wish to leave the screen quietly and to focus attention on others.
Redford, 89, told reporters at the Telluride Film Festival world premiere of The Old Man & the Gun in August 2018 that he felt it was time to ‘‘move into retirement,’’ explaining that he had been working since he was 21 and wanted to ‘‘quit while you’re a little bit ahead.’’ A month later, at another premiere event, he told Variety that saying he would retire ‘‘was a mistake’’ and that he should have slipped away without comment because talking about it drew ‘‘too much attention in the wrong way.’n
The announcement and subsequent backtrack were among the last public commentaries Redford made about his career. His final film roles were in 2018’s The Old Man & the Gun and a cameo in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. He continued to work selectively on projects he supported; in March 2025 he appeared in a cameo on AMC’s Dark Winds, which he and Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin executive produced. In that episode Redford and Martin appeared briefly as two inmates playing chess.
Cindi Berger, chief executive of Rogers & Cowan PMK, told The Post that Redford died at his home at Sundance "— the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved.” The family requested privacy, Berger said. Throughout his later years Redford remained connected to the film community he helped nurture. He co-founded the Sundance Institute, including the Sundance Film Festival, in 1981, and the festival and institute became major platforms for American independent filmmaking.
Colleagues recalled a commitment to collaboration and a preference for letting fellow artists take the spotlight. Director Chris Eyre, who oversaw the March 2025 Dark Winds episode in which Redford appeared, said Redford wanted to give the director latitude. Eyre recalled Redford saying, "Whatever Chris wants," and that the veteran actor left creative choices, including details of his appearance, up to the production. The short shoot involved about a dozen people and lasted roughly four hours, Eyre said.
Dark Winds star Zahn McClarnon, who appears in the scene with Redford, told reporters he was exhilarated to work with him. Eyre said Redford was generous in the way he treated collaborators, recalling their time together at Sundance labs early in Eyre’s career. That generosity, colleagues said, extended to Redford’s attitude toward the projects he chose late in his career: modest cameos, mentorship, and occasional executive producing.
When he announced his intention to retire in 2018, Redford framed the decision as a personal one, saying he had ‘‘put [his] soul and heart into’’ his work over many decades. He acknowledged to Entertainment Weekly that he would ‘‘never say never,’’ but that he ‘‘pretty well concluded that this would be it for me in terms of acting’’ and that he would move toward retirement after The Old Man & the Gun. His later remark to Variety that the public declaration had been a mistake indicated unease with how such pronouncements can redirect attention away from a current project and its collaborators.
Redford’s career spanned six decades and included landmark roles and films that shaped American cinema. He rose to stardom in the 1960s and 1970s with films such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting and All the President’s Men, and later achieved acclaim as a director and producer. He received an honorary Academy Award in 2002 and maintained a high profile as a champion of independent film through the Sundance Institute.
In addition to his film and television work, Redford’s influence on filmmaking infrastructure endured through the programs and festivals he helped create. Friends and collaborators emphasized that his stated wish to retreat from the spotlight was consistent with a longtime practice of focusing attention on projects and people he supported.
Redford’s public comments about retirement, and his later regret at having announced them, illustrate the tension some veteran artists feel between ending a public career and preserving a private life. His decision to revisit the topic and to downplay it afterward allowed him to continue making select contributions to film and television while signaling a desire to avoid ceremonies and media focus on himself.
He is survived by family members who asked for privacy, and by a film community shaped in part by his advocacy for independent filmmakers and creative autonomy.
