--- name: "Robert Ryan" canonical: "https://film.one/person/robert-ryan-8253" roles: ["Actor"] born: "11 November 1909" died: "11 July 1973" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 68 average_as: "actor" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-20T01:36:46.722351+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Robert Ryan Actor. Born 11 November 1909 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Died 11 July 1973. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 11 November 1909, Chicago, Illinois, USA - **Died:** 11 July 1973 - **Active:** 1947–1951 - **Also known as:** Robert Bushnell Ryan, Роберт Райан, رابرت رایان - **Frequently works with:** [Robert Mitchum](https://film.one/person/robert-mitchum.md) - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination - **Average Fi1m score:** 68, as actor, over 2 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1940s 77 (1), 1950s 60 (1) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ryan, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q350680, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0752813/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/8253 ## Fi1m on Robert Ryan > Robert Ryan played men who had already lost and had not yet been told, and he let us watch the news arrive. The heavies paid his rent; the stillness underneath them was the art. Few actors of his generation reward a second look as well. In *The Racket* (1951) a gangster called Nick Scanlon is told to calm down, and he does, and it is the most frightening thing in the film. Ryan's temper was never the point. What he did better than almost anyone was the moment after the temper, when a man realises the people he thought he owned have turned on him and the knowledge goes across his face before he can stop it. We were properly frightened of him in that scene and we still are, because the calm tells you what the shouting was hiding. He came to films from the stage and small parts in the early 1940s and broke through in 1947 as the anti-Semite in *Crossfire*. That set the pattern for a decade of noir and westerns: the ageing boxer who will not throw the fight in *The Set-Up* (1949), the burnt-out policeman in *On Dangerous Ground* (1951), Reno Smith standing over a small town opposite Spencer Tracy in *Bad Day at Black Rock* (1955). The sixties were mostly supporting work in war films and westerns, and then two late parts that critics still reach for: the weary bounty hunter Deke Thornton in Sam Peckinpah's *The Wild Bunch* (1969) and Larry Slade in *The Iceman Cometh* (1973), the year he died. He was never the star Mitchum or Lancaster was, and it is hard not to think the industry got that wrong. The instrument was the eyes and how little he did with the rest. He could hold a face still and let a look do the work of a page of dialogue, and the directors who understood that got the best of him. Nicholas Ray and Robert Wise, two films each, gave him men who were hard and hurt at once, and those are the performances that hold up. He made three films with Robert Mitchum, and *The Racket* shows the difference between them plainly: Mitchum barely wakes up, and Ryan is awake, uncomfortably so, from his first scene to his last. It is the one performance in that film we would send anyone to see, and the film around it does not deserve him. The cost of all this was typecasting. Once Hollywood had seen him do menace it kept asking for menace, and the sympathetic leads went elsewhere. Plenty of the eighty-odd pictures were beneath him; *Lonelyhearts* (1958) is the usual example, and there are others. He knew it. "Eighty pictures. And seventy of them were dogs. I mean, dogs." That is roughly our count too. He was right about the dogs, and he was the best thing in most of them. ## Biography Robert Ryan (1909–1973) was an American actor known for his roles in film noir and Westerns. He appeared as Nick Scanlon in *The Racket* (1951) and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in *Crossfire* (1947). Other notable films include *The Set-Up* (1949), *The Naked Spur* (1953), *Bad Day at Black Rock* (1955), *The Professionals* (1966), *The Dirty Dozen* (1967) and *The Wild Bunch* (1969). Ryan was born in Chicago and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1932, where he was the heavyweight boxing champion. He served in the United States Marine Corps during the Second World War as a drill instructor. He also worked in the theatre and received a Drama Desk Award for a 1971 revival of *Long Day's Journey into Night*. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *The Racket* (1951), Fi1m 60, as Nick Scanlon — [page](https://film.one/film/the-racket.md) - *Crossfire* (1947), Fi1m 77, as Montgomery — [page](https://film.one/film/crossfire.md) ## Complete filmography (87) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller* (2002), as Sandy Dawson (archive footage) (uncredited) - *The Iceman Cometh* (1973), as Larry Slade - *Executive Action* (1973), as Foster - *The Outfit* (1973), as Mailer - *The Man Without a Country* (1973), as Lt. Cmdr. Vaughan - *Lolly-Madonna XXX* (1973), as Pap Gutshall - *And Hope to Die* (1972), as Charley - *The Love Machine* (1971), as Gregory 'Greg' Austin - *Lawman* (1971), as Sabbath Marshal Cotton Ryan - *The Reason Why* (1970), as Roger - *Captain Nemo and the Underwater City* (1969), as Captain Nemo - *The Wild Bunch* (1969), as Deke Thornton - *Anzio* (1968), as Gen. Carson - *A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die* (1968), as New Mexico Gov. Lem Carter - *Custer of the West* (1967), as Mulligan - *Hour of the Gun* (1967), as Ike Clanton - *The Dirty Dozen* (1967), as Col. Everett Dasher Breed - *The Busy Body* (1967), as Charley Barker - *The Professionals* (1966), as Ehrengard - *Battle of the Bulge* (1965), as General Grey - *The Dirty Game* (1965), as General Bruce - *The Crooked Road* (1965), as Richard Ashley - *The Inheritance* (1964), as Narrator (voice) - *World War One* (1964), series, as Narrator - *World War I: The Complete Story* (1964), series, as Narrator - *A Regular Bouquet: Mississippi Summer* (1964), as Narrator (voice) - *Kraft Suspense Theatre* (1963), series, as Thomas Bollington - *Billy Budd* (1962), as John Claggart, Master of Arms - *The Longest Day* (1962), as Brig. Gen. James M. Gavin - *King of Kings* (1961), as John the Baptist - *The Canadians* (1961), as Inspector William Gannon - *The Snows of Kilimanjaro* (1960), as Harry Walters - *Ice Palace* (1960), as Thor Storm - *Odds Against Tomorrow* (1959), as Earle Slater - *Day of the Outlaw* (1959), as Blaise Starrett - *Lonelyhearts* (1959), as William Shrike - *God's Little Acre* (1958), as Ty Ty Walden - *The Great Gatsby* (1958), as Jay Gatsby - *Alcoa Theatre* (1957), series, as Trilbridge, Mike Ripetti - *Goodyear Theatre* (1957), series, as Frank Berry - *Men in War* (1957), as Lt. Benson - *Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre* (1956), series, as Matt Jessop, Cob Oakley, Sheriff Amos Parney, Captain William Kraig - *Back from Eternity* (1956), as Bill Lonagan - *The Proud Ones* (1956), as Marshal Cass Silver - *The House Without a Name* (1956), as Fernand Fox - *The Tall Men* (1955), as Nathan Stark - *House of Bamboo* (1955), as Sandy Dawson - *Escape to Burma* (1955), as Jim Brecan - *Bad Day at Black Rock* (1955), as Reno Smith - *Her Twelve Men* (1954), as Joe Hargrave - *About Mrs. Leslie* (1954), as George Leslie - *Alaska Seas* (1954), as Matt Kelly - *Inferno* (1953), as Donald Whitley Carson III - *City Beneath the Sea* (1953), as Brad Carlton - *The Naked Spur* (1953), as Ben Vandergroat - *Horizons West* (1952), as Dan Hammond - *Beware, My Lovely* (1952), as Howard Wilton - *Clash by Night* (1952), as Earl Pfeiffer - *On Dangerous Ground* (1951), as Jim Wilson - *The Racket* (1951), as Nick Scanlon — Fi1m 60, [page](https://film.one/film/the-racket.md) - *Flying Leathernecks* (1951), as Capt. Carl 'Griff' Griffin - *Best of the Badmen* (1951), as Jeff Clanton - *Hard, Fast and Beautiful!* (1951), as Seabright Tennis Match Spectator (uncredited) - *Born to Be Bad* (1950), as Nick - *The Woman on Pier 13* (1950), as Bradley Collins / Frank Johnson - *The Secret Fury* (1950), as David McLean - *The Set-Up* (1949), as Stoker - *Caught* (1949), as Smith Ohlrig - *Act of Violence* (1949), as Joe Parkson - *The Boy with Green Hair* (1948), as Dr. Evans - *Return of the Bad Men* (1948), as Sundance Kid - *Berlin Express* (1948), as Robert Lindley - *Crossfire* (1947), as Montgomery — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/film/crossfire.md) - *The Woman on the Beach* (1947), as Scott Burnett - *Trail Street* (1947), as Allen Harper - *Marine Raiders* (1944), as Capt. Dan Craig - *Tender Comrade* (1944), as Chris Jones - *Gangway for Tomorrow* (1943), as Joe Dunham - *The Iron Major* (1943), as Father Timothy 'Tim' Donovan - *Behind the Rising Sun* (1943), as Lefty O'Doyle - *The Sky's the Limit* (1943), as Reginald Fenton - *Bombardier* (1943), as Joe Connors - *The Texas Rangers Ride Again* (1940), as Eddie (uncredited) - *North West Mounted Police* (1940), as Constable Dumont - *Golden Gloves* (1940), as Pete Wells - *Queen of the Mob* (1940), as Jim - *The Ghost Breakers* (1940), as Intern (uncredited) ## Gallery - ![Robert Ryan](https://film.one/media/person/1224110/gallery-015ab16f9bc0.jpg) Robert Ryan — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Robert_Ryan_in_Naked_Spur.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Robert Ryan](https://film.one/media/person/1224110/gallery-b2524ee52649.jpg) Robert Ryan — Image via TMDB - ![Robert Ryan](https://film.one/media/person/1224110/gallery-f1ce8fb2f015.jpg) Robert Ryan — Image via TMDB - ![Robert Ryan](https://film.one/media/person/1224110/gallery-1845b27c8d49.jpg) Robert Ryan — Image via TMDB - ![Robert Ryan](https://film.one/media/person/1224110/gallery-f39ef2072ff1.jpg) Robert Ryan — Image via TMDB - ![Robert Ryan](https://film.one/media/person/1224110/gallery-52fd0491738b.jpg) Robert Ryan — Image via TMDB - ![Robert Ryan](https://film.one/media/person/1224110/gallery-30a36aad726f.jpg) Robert Ryan — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - 1948: Best Supporting Actor (nominated), for *Crossfire* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/robert-ryan-8253