When you scroll down the IMDb page for Robert Redford to view his 82 acting, 57 producing and 10 directing credits, you’ll soon get to the “Known For” section. In that section, there are four movies, three of which have immense movie industry weight — “Ordinary People,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “All the President’s Men.”

“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” made Redford a megastar as the Sundance Kid in 1969, and he used that iconic character’s name when he founded the Sundance Institute for independent filmmakers. He used the name again when he took over the US Film Festival in 1984 and later rebranded it as the Sundance Film Festival.

In “All the President’s Men,” he played Bob Woodward, one of the reporters who helped crack the Watergate case. The 1976 movie, made by his Wildwood Enterprises production company, won four Academy Awards. Four years later, Redford won Best Director for “Ordinary People,” which also won Best Picture.

We are deeply saddened by the loss of our founder and friend Robert Redford.

Bob’s vision of a space and a platform for independent voices launched a movement that, over four decades later, has inspired generations of artists and redefined cinema in the U.S. and around the… pic.twitter.com/O0MNc192MC

— Sundance Film Festival (@sundancefest) September 16, 2025

Then there is “The Natural,” in which Redford, who died Tuesday morning at the age of 89, starred in 1984.

It’s the first movie poster thumbnail that catches the eye — Redford tanned, wearing short sleeves and a 1,000-kilowatt smile as he draws his left arm back to throw — as it sits on the upper left, above and ahead of Redford’s three more prominent, and some would argue, more important films.

Yet, of the four features, it has the lowest IMDb user rating: 7.4.

Vanity Fair’s obituary doesn’t mention “The Natural” in the eight Redford movies it cites. In The Athletic’s 2020 100 top sports movies ranking, “The Natural” came in at No. 30, tied with the original “The Karate Kid” and behind eight other baseball movies, including “Bull Durham,” “A League of Their Own” and “Moneyball.”

One of the bigger criticisms of the cinematic offering is that the ending is a 180 from author Bernard Malamud’s novel. (Spoiler alert: In the movie, Hobbs is a hero. In the book, he is not.) Hollywood has not always been faithful to the text of the works it adapts, but to completely change the ending, and therefore, the tone, meaning and message of the book, was a bridge too far for many. The late, great Roger Ebert was also not a fan.

So, why then, even with its flaws and detractors, is “The Natural” the first thing you see that Redford, as imperfect hero Roy Hobbs, is “Known For” on IMDb? And why does he and the movie resonate with people in such a way?

The Hall of Fame remembers Robert Redford, whose portrayal of Roy Hobbs in “The Natural” created a lasting image in the National Pastime’s cinematic lore.

The Museum is home to the complete New York Knights uniform worn by Redford in the 1984 film. https://t.co/YnxjbiyIYf pic.twitter.com/Mc5t6qcPPi

— National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum ⚾ (@baseballhall) September 16, 2025

A lot of why people love “The Natural” is that Redford looks the part. Actors, especially in baseball movies, famously had a tough go of making sports action appear legitimate. (Notice how “The Pride of the Yankees” preview features Babe Ruth swinging and Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig giving his “Luckiest Man” speech.)

As Hobbs, Redford, who was 47 when the movie premiered in May of 1984, was an athlete and avid outdoorsman, and could actually play.

According to The New York Times obituary, Redford enrolled at the University of Colorado on a baseball scholarship. Some three decades later, Redford’s sweet lefty swing looks, yes, natural, and like his character, is far superior to anyone else’s in the movie. Redford’s swing provides a layer of believability when director Barry Levinson uses it to make the mythical (“OK, Roy, knock the cover off the ball!”) literal.

Some saw Redford’s performance as Hobbs as too wooden or too reticent. Those are legit arguments. However, one could also argue that Redford’s reserved performance as Hobbs is crucial to the character’s inscrutability and his mysterious past.

When we meet Hobbs, he’s a naive farm boy, new to train travel and the ways of the world. Even as a youngster (which the movie can’t pull off as well), when he strikes out The Whammer, Hobbs is not one for vainglory, and his celebration is noticeable but muted.

A few scenes later, the one person he opens up to nearly kills him. It makes even more sense that, when he arrives years later in the New York Knights’ dugout, he’s reluctant about revealing his past. Redford’s Hobbs is great, but he’s going to show you, not tell you.

Being great at baseball almost killed Hobbs, but being great at baseball has also given him a second chance to do what he does best: mash baseballs into oblivion better than anyone ever has in the game’s history.

From his first batting practice (which strangely comes weeks after he arrives with the Knights) with his bat, Wonderboy, which he carved out of a tree struck by lightning on his boyhood farm to his knocking the cover off the ball, to his shattering the clock to the Hollywood ending, “The Natural” is filled with these iconic moments, which are perfectly complemented by Caleb Deschanel’s gauzy Oscar-nominated cinematography and Randy Newman’s soaring Oscar-nominated score. It’s Hollywood myth-making at its zenith.

And of all the great moments in sports movie history, there may be no finer shot in the canon than when Hobbs rounds first base, his back to the camera, his No. 9 centered lower in the frame with the lights exploding above him. The slow-motion cinematography (everything great Hobbs does in this movie is in slow motion) and the resonant horns may be over-the-top and are definitely antithetical to Malamud’s original text.

But it’s also beautiful because it’s the stuff that dreams are made of. If you have played sports, you know failure, especially in baseball, is part of the game. But we also know what success looks like. Anyone who has played in their backyard, driveway, local park or gym has imagined a moment where they hit the last-second shot, plunged across the goal line for a game-winning touchdown, slapped one top-shelf in overtime, and, yes, crushed the pennant-clinching home run as the world bursts with joy and electricity all around you.

After that homer, we don’t know if the Knights go on to win the World Series or if Hobbs retires. But it doesn’t matter because Hobbs is, in a way, everything we hoped he could be. We get to see someone make good on numerous second chances. We get to witness someone with greatness in them fulfill their destiny — “When I walk down the street, people will look at me and say, ‘There goes Roy Hobbs, the best that ever was in this game.’” — if even for a moment.

And that’s something most of us can only dream about.

Rest in Peace to The Natural, Robert Redford pic.twitter.com/owXFs6aCYC

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) September 16, 2025

(Photo of Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs: Cover Images via Associated Press Images)