The fact that most famous actors have a bizarre final role on their resume is pitched somewhere between conventional wisdom and bizarre trivia. It seems unlikely that such a thing would be true in multiple instances, and yet here we are with examples like Orson Welles voicing Unicron in "Transformers: The Movie," Don Knotts portraying Sniffer in "Air Buddies," and Marlon Brando lending his dulcet tones to Mrs. Sour in the animated comedy "Big Bug Man." That last example becomes even stranger given how the film was made in 2004 and has never been released in any form. It's one thing to have an awkward final role on your IMDb page, but it's quite another to have that tied to a mysterious film which few people have seen.
That dubious club has now grown by one member, upon the passing of actor Robert Redford on September 16, 2025. The actor was prolific in several fields and for numerous reasons, so he's certainly not leaving behind a stained or complicated legacy. As a matter of fact, he appeared in two films toward the end of his career which acted as very fitting farewells: 2018's "The Old Man & the Gun," which gave his rapscallion '70s archetype a fond goodbye, and 2019's "Avengers: Endgame," which saw the screen icon bless the Marvel Cinematic Universe with his presence one more time. Then there's the fact that Redford's actual, final, honest-to-goodness appearance on-screen comes courtesy of a cameo (alongside George R.R. Martin) in the season three premiere of "Dark Winds," the TV series on which Redford was a co-producer.
Redford appeared in one more movie post-"Endgame," and even though it's a voice-only role, it's notable for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the movie is a bizarre anthology film entitled "Omniboat: A Fast Boat Fantasia." For another, Redford's part is of Lokia the Dolphin Monster, an eldritch being who appears toward the end of the film to give the ersatz protagonist a kind of Deus Ex Machina absolution. If that weren't strange enough, there's the matter of "Omniboat" screening at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival ... and nowhere else since, having never gotten any release in the past five years. It's a missing piece to Redford's legacy, which may forever remain a mystery to most.