The Natural (1984)

★ 6.9 2h 17m 653 votes IMDb
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An unknown middle-aged batter named Roy Hobbs with a mysterious past appears out of nowhere to take a losing 1930s baseball team to the top of the league.

The Natural

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Cast

Robert Redford
Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs Died 2025 · Santa Monica, California, USA Charles Robert Redford Jr. (August 18, 1936 – September 16, 2025) was an American actor, director and activist. Throughout his career, he won several film awards, including the Academy Award for Best...
Robert Duvall
Robert Duvall as Max Mercy Died 2026 · San Diego, California, USA Robert Selden Duvall (January 5, 1931 – February 15, 2026) was an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of an Academy Award, four Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, two Primetime Emmy Awa...
Glenn Close
Glenn Close as Iris Gaines Age 79 · Greenwich, Connecticut, USA Glenda Veronica Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress. In a career spanning over five decades on screen and stage, she has received numerous accolades, including three Primetime Emmy Awar...
Kim Basinger
Kim Basinger as Memo Paris Age 72 · Athens, Georgia, USA Kimila Ann Basinger (born December 8, 1953) is an American actress and former fashion model. She has garnered acclaim for her work in film and television, for which she has received various accolades...
Wilford Brimley
Wilford Brimley as Pop Fisher Died 2020 · Salt Lake City, Utah, USA Anthony Wilford Brimley (September 27, 1934 – August 1, 2020) was an American actor and singer. After serving in the Marines and taking on a variety of odd jobs, he became an extra for Western films,...
Barbara Hershey
Barbara Hershey as Harriet Bird Age 78 · Hollywood, California, USA Barbara Hershey (born Barbara Lynn Herzstein; February 5, 1948) is an American actress. In a career spanning more than 50 years, she has played a variety of roles on television and in cinema in severa...

Audience Reviews

John Chard 8.5/10 Apr 24, 2015
The Wonder of Wonderboy.

The Natural is directed by Barry Levinson and adapted to screenplay by Roger Towne & Phil Dusenberry from the novel written by Bernard Malamud. It stars Robert Redford, Robert Duvall, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger, Wilford Brimley, Barbara Hershey, Robert Prosky and Richard Farnsworth. Music is by Randy Newman and cinematography by Caleb Deschanel.

The Natural is a wistful sports movie, one that asks every person who views it to buy into the whimsy and mythologising on show. If able to do that then it's a film of beguiling beauty, awash with strength of the human spirit and of luscious technical credits. The Arthurian core to Roy Hobbs' (Redford a superb presence yet calmness personified) second chance ensures we always know this is fanciful stuff, but that's just fine, we are in Field of Dreams territory here and fans of such fare are rewarded royally. Period art design, photography and musical score are grade "A", snuggling up nicely with a support cast to Redford that is of high end proportions. If it's in you and you know what sort of film to expect, you may well, come the end, be punching the air whilst having a tear in your eye. Lovely film making. 8.5/10
Peter McGinn 7/10 Sep 19, 2020
Many, many years ago when I was a bit of a sports fan, I remember reading stories about scouts who had seen athletes in the olden days like Roy Hobbs. Players who could hit a ball a mile or throw a hundred mile per hour fastball, but who never made it to the big league for some reason. But of course, this movie is based on a novel by Bernard Malamud, though there are hints of actual events here and there.

It is an entertaining movie, presenting baseball as America’s game and therefore, ultimately, above corruption. It has an old timey feel, perhaps even older than the 1939 setting that is presented. The movie is less gloomy than the book, and I guess the purists don’t like that, but for me, life is gloomy enough and the mood and ending were just fine with me. (And I did read the book.) Since actual events and people from bygone days are cleaned up and mythologized for our history books, why get upset when fictional stories are purified with a rose colored lens?

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