Robert Duvall's legacy in 10 essential films

These staff favorites capture the Oscar- winning actor's grace and screen presence.

- BY AMY NICHOLSON, MARK OLSEN, JOSHUA ROTHKOPF, JOSH ROTTENBERG AND GLENN WHIPP

Bettmann Archive

ONE OF Robert Duvall's most iconic roles was as Tom Hagen in "The Godfather."

He whispered in the ears of the powerful, strode the battlefield like a god of war and ultimately embodied both of those extremes in performances of exquisite complexity. Robert Duvall’s death Sunday at age 95 signifies not just an incalculable loss to movie fans, but also the turning of a generational page, away from the dazzling character actors who redefined screen performance in the '60s and '70s to a new, as yet undefined group who will carry the work further. While Duvall’s filmography is too rich for us to be comprehensive — even when he’s on the margins, he shines — here are our 10 favorites, presented in the order of their release.

'To Kill a Mockingbird' (1962)

How marvelous that Duvall made his screen debut as Boo Radley in the 1962 classic “To Kill a Mockingbird.” So what if the role had no dialogue? An unknown theater actor couldn't ask for a better drum roll than a script that talks about his character nonstop but doesn’t show his face until the last five minutes. To young Scout (Mary Badham), Boo is the neighborhood boogeyman who stabbed his abusive father with scissors and spent years locked inside a bat-infested cell.

When she gets her first real peek at him, he's stabbing someone again in self-defense. Even so, what a jolt to finally see Duvall's pale, blond Boo hiding behind a door as though scared of the spotlight. He barely allows the petrified Boo to twitch, yet somehow, we catch a glimpse of the qualities Duvall the actor will go on to reveal: dangerous and vulnerable, mythic and man-sized, electrifyingly watchable. —Amy Nicholson