15 Must-See Donald Sutherland Movies

Canadian actor Donald Sutherland enjoyed a remarkable career in movies that spanned six decades. Although the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences never nominated Sutherland for an Oscar, he received an Academy Honorary Award in 2017.

Sutherland passed away on June 20, 2024 at the age of 88. He is survived by five children, including the actors Kiefer, Angus, and Rossif Sutherland.

Whether you remember Donald Sutherland from older movies such as The Dirty Dozen or more recent roles in movies such as The Hunger Games, the beloved actor surely made a lasting impression. Here are 15 must-see Sutherland movies to celebrate and remember the iconic actor.

Don’t Look Now

In this 1973 thriller directed by Nicolas Roeg, Sutherland and Julie Christie play a married couple who travel to Venice after the death of their daughter. There they encounter a clairvoyant woman who tells them that their deceased daughter is trying to warn them of danger from beyond the grave.

Don’t Look Now gained notoriety for its intimate scene between Sutherland and Christie, which shocked viewers at the time. Variety wrote that the performances were “right on the button,” adding “Donald Sutherland is (unusually) at his most subdued, top effectiveness as the materialist who ironically becomes the victim of his refusal to believe in the intangible.”

Klute

In the 1971 thriller Klute, Donald Sutherland plays detective John Klute who enlists the assistance of a New York City call girl (Jane Fonda) to find a man who may be stalking her.

Klute received two Oscar nominations and widespread critical acclaim. The Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus reads: “Donald Sutherland is coolly commanding and Jane Fonda a force of nature in Klute, a cuttingly intelligent thriller that generates its most agonizing tension from its stars’ repartee.”

The Dirty Dozen

This 1967 Robert Aldrich-directed film set during WWII stars Donald Sutherland as Vernon L. Pinkley, one of the 12 titular convicts trained by the Allies as commandos for a deadly mission ahead of the Normandy landings. The war drama also stars Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Richard Jaeckel, George Kennedy, Trini Lopez, Ralph Meeker, Robert Ryan, and Telly Savalas.

The Dirty Dozen won an Oscar for Best Sound Editing and became a box office hit. Although some critics were shocked by the level of violence depicted on-screen, the cast, including Sutherland, received near-unanimous praise for their performances.

M*A*S*H

Robert Altman’s 1970 film M*A*S*H follows medical personnel stationed at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) during the Korean War. Sutherland plays Capt. Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce Jr., a role played by Alan Alda on the subsequent TV series of the same name.

M*A*S*H helped launch the careers of several of its actors, including Sutherland. The movie won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar and became a monster hit, grossing $81.6 million worldwide against a budget of only $3 million. M*A*S*H is considered by many as the high point of Altman’s career.

Ordinary People

Robert Redford’s Ordinary People follows a collapsing family dealing with the accidental death of one son and the other son’s attempt to take his own life. The movie stars Donald Sutherland as the family patriarch alongside Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch, and Timothy Hutton.

Ordinary People won four Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor for Hutton. The New York Times summed up Ordinary People as a “moving, intelligent, and funny film about disasters that are commonplace to everyone except the people who experience them.”

Sutherland got a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Motion Picture — Drama for his performance as a father trying to reconnect with his troubled surviving son.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

This 1978 Philip Kaufman-directed remake of the 1956 sci-fi classic of the same name stars Sutherland as a San Francisco health inspector who discovers that people are being replaced by alien clones grown out of seed pods that arrived on Earth from outer space.

Of all Sutherland’s roles, Gen X remembers him best in the final scene of Invasion of the Body Snatchers as he emits an otherworldly scream while exposing another character as “still human.” Rolling Stone and several other publications dubbed 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers one of the best remakes in movie history.

The Hunger Games

If Gen X best remembers Sutherland for Invasion of the Body Snatchers, millennials know him as President Coriolanus Snow from The Hunger Games franchise. The imperious President Snow oversees the deadly Hunger Games in Panem, a dystopian nation situated in North America.

Critics praised the first Hunger Games as “thrilling and superbly acted” before the franchise wore out its welcome in later entries. Throughout all of the movies, however, Sutherland steals scenes as the misguided president struggles to squash a rising rebellion ignited by tribute Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence). Sutherland last appeared as Snow in 2015’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2.

Backdraft

Ron Howard’s 1991 thriller Backdraft follows a group of Chicago firefighters battling the destruction caused by a serial arsonist.

In Backdraft, Sutherland plays incarcerated pyromaniac Ronald Bartel, whose previous fires resemble those that the Chicago firefighters are trying to extinguish for good. The box office hit received praise for its fiery special effects and the actors’ performances.

National Lampoon’s Animal House

John Landis’ 1978 comedy National Lampoon’s Animal House is set at a troublemaking college fraternity house in 1962.

In Animal House, Sutherland plays Professor Dave Jennings, a laid-back, counterculture figure, down to hang with the students and smoke weed with them. National Lampoon’s Animal House became a huge box office hit and routinely lands on lists of the top comedies of all time.

Space Cowboys

Clint Eastwood directed this 2000 adventure-drama about four senior test pilots who accept a mission to go to space to fix an aging Soviet satellite.

The box office hit got a warm reception from critics, with many noting the “superb acting” by everyone in the cast, including Sutherland. Space Cowboys received an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound Editing.

Citizen X

Sutherland plays Colonel (later General) Mikhail Fetisov in this 1995 TV movie about detectives in the Soviet Union who try to overcome bureaucratic obstacles to catch a serial killer. The movie, based on Robert Cullen’s nonfiction book The Killer Department, also stars Stephen Rea and Max von Sydow.

Citizen X received critical praise, with Scott Weinberg of eFilmCritic.com describing it as “Fascinating and absorbing. One of HBO’s finest made-for-cable flicks.” Sutherland won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Special for his performance in the TV movie.

The Eagle Has Landed

John Sturges directed this 1976 war film based on a fictional German plot to abduct Winston Churchill during WWII. The ensemble cast includes Michael Caine, Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Jenny Agutter, and Donald Pleasence.

Sutherland plays Liam Devlin, an IRA agent who gives lectures at a Berlin university and who is recruited for the “Eagle” operation. The New York Times described the box office hit as “a good old-fashioned adventure movie that is so stuffed with robust incidents and characters that you can relax and enjoy it without worrying whether it actually happened or even whether it’s plausible.”

The Day of the Locust

In 1975’s The Day of The Locust, Sutherland plays an accountant named Homer Simpson (not that one) who longs for aspiring actress Faye Greener (Karen Black) in this historical drama set in Hollywood, California just before the start of World War II.

Although The Day of the Locust flopped at the box office, Roger Ebert called it a “daring, epic film” with “a wealth of sharp-edged performances,” singling out Sutherland as “one of the movie’s wonders.”

Eye of the Needle

In case you haven’t yet realized, Donald Sutherland has starred in more than a few movies set during World War II. In the 1981 British spy film Eye of the Needle, Sutherland plays a German sleeper agent stationed in the U.K. during WWII who discovers critical information about the planned D-Day invasion.

Roger Ebert liked Eye of the Needle, writing that it “resembles nothing so much as one of those downbeat, plodding, quietly horrifying, and sometimes grimly funny war movies that used to be made by the British film industry.”

The Italian Job

The 2003 heist action film The Italian Job, directed by F. Gary Gray, remakes the 1969 British film of the same name. The movie about follows a diverse group of thieves who get together to steal gold from someone who screwed them over. Sutherland plays John Bridger, the father of Charlize Theron’s character and a seasoned safecracker who gets talked into doing one more job.

The Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus reads: “Despite some iffy plot elements, The Italian Job succeeds in delivering an entertaining modern take on the original 1969 heist film, thanks to a charismatic cast.”