10 essential Robert Duvall films to watch in tribute to The Godfather icon

In the last year or so, we've lost so many of the greats of the New Hollywood era – that defining movement in American film that brought us an incredible variety of complex, layered and captivating pieces of cinema in the late '60s and '70s.

After Gene Hackman, Robert Redford and Diane Keaton all passed away in 2025, yesterday brought the sad news that legendary character actor Robert Duvall had died at the age of 95. The news was announced in a statement by his wife Luciana, who wrote that he had passed "peacefully" at their home in Middleburg, Virginia.

"To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller," she added. "To me, he was simply everything. His passion for his craft was matched only by his deep love for characters, a great meal, and holding court."

Duvall's career was one marked by excellence across more than six decades, excelling in a number of seminal films in both supporting and leading roles. Indeed, with his very first film credit, he was already playing an indelible character in an American classic – starring as Boo Radley in Robert Mulligan's adaptation of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

It's for his work in the 70s for which Duvall will likely be most remembered. He was the only actor to star in all four of Francis Ford Coppola's unrivalled streak of hits in that decade (though his small part in the magnificent The Conversation was uncredited) with his Oscar-nominated roles as consigliere Tom Hagen in The Godfather films and as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore in Apocalypse Now particularly iconic. Few lines in cinema history have been more immortalised than the latter's declaration that he loves the smell of napalm in the morning.

In total, Duvall was nominated for seven Oscars, winning just the once for his leading turn in 1983 drama Tender Mercies, with his final nomination coming for his supporting role in The Judge in 2014.

Meanwhile, alongside the classics, there were also plenty of interesting oddities – including an unlikely collaboration with Ally McCoist for Scottish football film A Shot at Glory in 2002 – meaning he leaves behind a singular filmography filled with a huge variety of fascinating roles.

We've picked out ten of the best from that filmography below – scroll down for our picks on what films to watch to pay tribute to a true Hollywood icon.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning modern classic by Harper Lee, this Depression-era tale of small-town insularity and racial inequality was the break-out film of director Robert Mulligan and the debut of Robert Duvall.

Seen through the child’s eyes of a brother and sister in Maycomb, Alabama, it distils the numerous stories told in the novel down to two key strands: the mystery surrounding reclusive Boo Radley (Duvall), a childlike man whom the kids imagine as a monstrous bogeyman; and the defence by their widowed father, lawyer Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck, in a role that defined his career and earned him a best actor Oscar), of a black man accused of the rape of a white woman.

The town’s lynch-mob reaction to the trial proves an education for the two children, as do the ultimate revelations about Boo. A fine, moving, informative period piece for all ages, To Kill a Mockingbird is as much an abiding favourite as the book. – Andrew Collins

THX 1138 (1971)

The debut feature from Star Wars maestro George Lucas is a bleak, claustrophobic affair which is light years away from the straightforward heroics of Luke Skywalker and co. The always excellent Robert Duvall takes the title role as a man quietly rebelling against a repressive world where everyone has to have Yul Brynner haircuts, and the police are as frighteningly bland as a McDonald’s assistant.

The obtuse script doesn't help, but it looks wonderful and Lucas conjures up a genuinely chilling air. Executive producer is none other than Francis Ford Coppola, made under the banner of his Zoetrope production company. – John Ferguson

The Godfather (1972)

This elegiac organised-crime saga from the young Francis Ford Coppola is one of the all-time high-water marks of American cinema, rich with subtle acting and blessed with stunning cinematography from Gordon Willis. It proves that an intelligent, sometimes slow-moving drama with impeccable artistic credentials can create queues around the block.

Taken with its 1974 sequel, it manages to define the age in which it was made, while remaining a period piece. Beginning after the Second World War, it traces the handover of power within the Corleone family, from the old world values of Don Vito (a heavily disguised but stately Marlon Brando) to his son, the white sheep Michael (Al Pacino, proving that his risky casting was inspired).

The Mafia is never mentioned by name, but underneath all the slayings and sinister "offers you can’t refuse", this is an immigrant family drama about assimilation, blood loyalty and honour. – Andrew Collins

The Godfather Part II (1974)

In The Godfather, Don Corleone's war hero son Michael (Al Pacino) turns into a man who orders death like room service. In this sequel, Michael is a symbol of an America born of immigrant idealism and dying of corruption. The only moral support is the Family. Breathtaking in scope, Part II also shows the early life of the Don, brilliantly portrayed by Robert De Niro, as he flees Sicily and sails for New York.

These sequences have the grandeur of a silent movie by DW Griffith or Erich von Stroheim; the later sequences, with Michael in Cuba, are clumsy and confusing, though the climax is as chilling as the look on Michael's face when he realises that even Family members can be rubbed out. Pacino gives a monumental performance, and it was an equally monumental crime that he never won an Oscar for it. – Adrian Turner

Network (1976)

This was a thunderous, strangely eerie swansong for Peter Finch, who plays a bilious and increasingly demented TV anchorman, ranting on air against his powerlessness. It’s a bravura performance from Finch – who was awarded a posthumous Oscar – given full flight by Paddy Chayefsky's daring, sumptuously satirical script, which throws a continuous hail of barbs at the electronic eye.

Sidney Lumet directs with wild aplomb, allowing Finch free rein and keeping up a furious pace. Criticised by some at the time for a certain naivety and lack of subtlety, this remains one of the most devastating condemnations of the media's urge to exploit. – Sue Heal

The Great Santini (1979)

Shot in the historic town of Beaufort, South Carolina, and produced by Bing Crosby's company, this adaptation of Pat Conroy's novel has a title that suggests it's a story about an escapologist or a racing driver. In fact, it's about a retired fighter pilot called Bull Meechum (nicknamed Santini), whose drunkenness makes life a misery for his wife (Blythe Danner) and children.

Like that other Conroy tale, The Prince of Tides, it's a thick slice of Deep South angst and sour-mash philosophy in which drink turns dialogue into poetry. But Robert Duvall is magnificent in the lead role and earned an Oscar nomination, as did Michael O'Keefe as his eldest son. – Adrian Turner

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Director Francis Coppola inherited a modest movie about the Vietnam War from writer John Milius and turned it into this phantasmagorical ride, in which Martin Sheen travels up the Mekong river to terminate Marlon Brando’s rebel command "with extreme prejudice".

Working under difficult conditions in the Philippines and running way over budget, Coppola delivered a harrowing masterwork that bursts with malarial, mystical images, such as Playboy playmates in the jungle and the Wagnerian helicopter attack that ends with marines surfing and Robert Duvall famously saying, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning."

Notable faces in support include Harrison Ford and Dennis Hopper, the latter playing a photographer among the fanatical Brando followers. Coppola restored a whopping 50 minutes of extra footage for Apocalypse Now Redux, which was released in 2001. – Adrian Turner

Tender Mercies (1983)

A spare, lean performance from spare, lean Robert Duvall won him his first and only Oscar. Duvall wakes up, after a drunken binge, in a Texan motel owned by religious widow Tess Harper and her young son Allan Hubbard. Having failed once in both his life and career as a country singer (Duvall sings his own songs) he hesitatingly tries again with Harper.

Australian director Bruce Beresford shows a sympathetic connection to the hot dusty Texan locations for his first Hollywood film and screenwriter Horton Foote (who also won an Oscar) provides a realistic pace. As with Foote's The Trip to Bountiful, the episodic and atmospheric story is a poignant portrayal of redemption. – Frances Lass

Falling Down (1993)

Made from a script that was rejected by every major Hollywood studio, this is a storming portrait of urban alienation in America. Some stateside critics were quick to brand the film racist, as Michael Douglas’s white-collar worker snaps one day, abandons his car in gridlock and engages in a violent spree that sees him destroy a Korean store and take on a Latino gang.

But Douglas is no racist vigilante. In director Joel Schumacher’s bold, believable and darkly funny film, he is a man consumed by rage at his own powerlessness, who reacts with violence to anyone who tries to prevent him from reaching "home" – now more of a concept than a place. The film loses momentum towards the end, but Douglas gives a superb performance and he’s matched by the excellent Robert Duvall as an ageing, world-weary cop tackling his last case before retirement. – Alan Jones

The Apostle (1997)

Robert Duvall writes, produces, directs and stars in this beautifully detailed character study of a Pentecostal preacher on a quest for atonement. The journey begins when his wife (Farrah Fawcett) has an affair with a younger minister, forcing him to take a long, hard look at his own life, the rural Texan community he serves and the Word of God itself.

Expertly using little-seen Bible Belt locations and a great supporting cast (that includes Miranda Richardson and Billy Bob Thornton), Duvall then proceeds to act everybody else off the screen. The result is an engrossing labour of love and a literal tour de force. – Alan Jones

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