The Chase Was the Robert Redford and Marlon Brando Thriller Hollywood Wasn't Ready For

Some movies show up early to the party and get side-eyed for it. Arthur Penn's The Chase turns 60 on Feb. 18, 2026, and it plays like a trial run for the rougher, nervier American films that took over a few years later. It stumbled in 1966, built a reputation over time, and, yes, it is streaming on Tubi if you want to finally cross it off the list.

What the movie is actually about

Set in a small Texas community in Tarl County, the story kicks off when two inmates break out of prison. One of them is Bubber Reeves (Robert Redford), a local kid who got slapped with a murder conviction he swears he did not earn. The town starts frothing. Sheriff Calder (Marlon Brando) is one of the few who thinks Bubber might be innocent, and he tries to keep the law from turning into a lynch mob while he works the truth.

Complicating everything: Bubber's wife, Anna (Jane Fonda), is secretly sleeping with Bubber's best friend, Jake (James Fox). Jake's father, Val (E.G. Marshall), happens to be one of the most powerful men around, and he all but runs the manhunt, pushing for a swift, public takedown. When Bubber gets blamed for another killing after the escape, the temperature spikes. Some townsfolk howl for blood, others hesitate, and the whole place starts looking less like a community and more like a pressure cooker.

The movie sells itself as a chase thriller but mostly digs into the rot underneath polite smiles: affairs crackle, secrets ooze, and patience evaporates. Beyond Anna and Jake, Emily Stewart (Janice Rule) moons over the younger Damon Fuller (Richard Bradford) while still married to Edwin (Robert Duvall). It all barrels toward an ending that refuses comfort and leaves a bruise.

Why it felt ahead of its time

Back in 1966, The Chase did decent business and drew so-so reviews. The thing is, it was playing a different game. Heroes and villains do not line up neatly here; almost everyone is compromised. That murky morality became a calling card of the New Hollywood wave that exploded in the 1970s, when movies leaned into realism shaped by Vietnam, civil rights fights, social unrest, and a steady drumbeat of national trauma.

One sequence still stuns: a trio of locals jumps Sheriff Calder and beats him to a pulp for not moving fast enough to bring Bubber in. Penn staged it with the actors striking in extreme slow motion and making contact, then processed the footage at normal speed. Brando reportedly pointed to the moment as raw, lived-in method work. He was not hurt, but the result looks shockingly real — decades later, it still ranks among the most stomach-turning on-screen assaults. Penn was pushing for a you-are-there physicality, and he got it.

Penn, Dunaway, and the door that closed (then swung wide open)

Penn followed The Chase with Bonnie and Clyde a year later, a landmark for graphic violence on American screens. One footnote that says a lot: Faye Dunaway tried to read for The Chase and got told by a casting director she was not attractive enough. Nonsense. Penn cast her as Bonnie Parker soon after, and the legend wrote itself.

Why it still plays in 2026

Formally, the film moves. Penn keeps the camera gliding — big pans, long tracking shots — so the tension keeps building instead of stalling. Joseph LaShelle, an Oscar winner for Laura, stepped in as cinematographer after Robert Surtees (Ben-Hur) exited, and the Technicolor images still pop like fresh paint.

• Marlon Brando brings a quiet, stubborn dignity to Sheriff Calder — one of his most restrained turns.
• Robert Redford and Jane Fonda spark as Bubber and Anna; they would team again in Barefoot in the Park (1967) and much later in Our Souls at Night (2017).
• Angie Dickinson, playing against type, anchors the home front as Calder's wife, Ruby.
• Robert Duvall nails a slick, insecure social climber — and he and Brando would share the screen again six years later in The Godfather.
• E.G. Marshall radiates chilly authority as Val, tightening the screws on the town and the chase.

Underneath the star power, Horton Foote's material holds up. Lillian Hellman's adaptation keeps the edges sharp: no easy heroes, no tidy answers. The movie keeps poking at sore spots that never really stop aching — small-town power games, how the legal system bends under pressure, desire that risks burning everything down, and the way suspicion alone can turn neighbors into enemies.

The Chase is not the most famous title on the résumés involved, but it is one of those films that deepens when you revisit it — tougher, stranger, and truer than its early reputation gave it credit for. And if you want to see what the late-60s pivot to grit and ambiguity looked like before it had a brand name, this is an essential stop.

Where to watch right now: The Chase is streaming on Tubi.