It's been a year since the last comment on this guy, but he's one of my favorite actors, and so I must pay my respect. I echo the sentiments of the first poster, Timberwulf. Duvall plays all his parts convincingly by becoming the character. He's turned in many fine performances, and he's one of the few stars that I'll always give the benefit of the doubt to, meaning that I might suspect that a movie he's in may not be very good, but I'll give it a shot simply because he's in it.
Oh, and you know he had to have SOME talent; he hasn't been around for getting damn near 50 years on his looks alone, right?

"SilverFox" nails it. One of the best actors ever IMO.  He truly delivers the goods.

One of the best of his generation who improves everything he is in.  He's hardly been in a single turkey and has developed into a very good director.

One of the best actors ever. Brilliant.

Duval is amazing with his talent for acting, he's on my top 50 greatest actor list in my opinion.

It pains me to see Duvall rated lower than so many mediocre actors above. How many of those mediocrities can claim the Academy Award credits that Duvall has: He won Best Actor in Tender Mercies, was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in The Godfather, for Best Supporting Actor in Apocalypse Now ["You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning."], for Best Actor in The Great Santini, for Best Actor in The Apostle, which he also directed, and for Best Supporting Actor in A Civil Action. I consider him one of our finest actors ever. So versatile and convincing. Others below have nailed it--when Duvall assumes a role, he becomes the character. Surprisingly, no one has mentioned what I consider to be his finest and most nuanced performance, the one for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor--Tender Mercies. See my review of it here. His career spans a veritable lifetime,
from his screen debut in 1962 as Boo Radley in the critically acclaimed To Kill A Mockingbird, starring Gregory Peck; to Captain Newman, M.D.; Bullitt; True Grit; M*A*S*H; THX 1138; Joe Kidd; The Outfit; The Conversation; The Director; The Godfather: Part II; Network; The Eagle Has Landed; True Confessions; The Natural; Colors; Lonesome Dove; Days of Thunder; Thank You for Smoking ; through Broken Trail (2006). He's one of the group of great American film icons who are unfortunately beginning to fade because of age or inability to get good scripts. I spent many hours watching him on the screen, drawing me into the atmosphere, leading me to the reality of it, following behind his character as he led me from place to place. There are very few actors that have his enormous, understated talent, who can truly make me forget that he's acting a part instead of living as a character in the film.

Nobody does it better than Duvall...what a treat to watch him do his stuff in Apocalypse Now, The Godfather and The Apostle. I hear he dances a mean Tango too!

He is a truly great talent. Gus in "Lonesome Dove" is his climax I would think.

In my opinion, Robert Duvall is the best actor I have ever had the pleasure of seeing. He can play anything. A backwoods, redneck from Arkansas, a street smart New York City cop, a lazy cowboy from Texas, a small town doctor, a big city lawyer. He's done it all, and done it incredibly well. Lonesome Dove would not have been the excellent mini-series it was without Duvall (all due respect to Tommy Lee Jones and the others). He made Augustus McCrae the modern version of Hamlet, delivering each line with such ease you believed he was an old, ornery cowboy. There just isn't enough I can say about Duvall. If you haven't seen it, check out The Stars Fell on Henrietta. It's a nice movie, set near where I live, and Duvall is aces again.

he did a great job in the godfather movies and colors

His performance in Lonesome Dove was one of the finest ever on stage or on screen.

The speeches he gave in Secondhand Lions and Open Range, his brilliance in the Lonesome Dove series, this guy can captivate ya on film.

He blows em all away with his performance. This guy has talent to spare.He's been paired with James Earl Jones, Richard Harris and many other fine actors. He truly shines though in Wrestling Ernest Hemingway and The Apostle. I also hear he likes to Tango...

The comments below have made me rethink my opinion of Duvall. I am starting to wonder whether he really was great in the Godfather, or whther he was made great by soaking up the greatness that leaked copiously from James Caan in the movie. Interesting.

Always convincing!!

Robert Duvall is a fine, solid, superb actor. If you watch To Kill a Mockingbird, his first film and one where he acts without saying a word but conveys his thoughts and emotions effectively and say he's a bad actor, then something is wrong with you.

Desinitely one of the greats in Hollywood. has done it all and has been successful. From "The Godfather", "The Great Santini", to "The Apostle", he has been so good.

Robert Duvall is one of the only actors I have ever seen that has convinced me that he is crazy in real life. Almost nobody else can get so deep inside such a wide variety of characters. He completely subordinates his own personality to that of the character. Watching some actors you get an idea of what they are like outside of films, because there is a little part of them in every character they play. Duvall is able to completely change his entire persona into that of a maniac colonel in Vietnam(Apocalypse Now), religious weirdos (MASH and the Apostle), a mafia lawyer (the Godfather), or a kindly old grandfather type (the name escapes me). Brilliant, the male Meryl Streep, but better.

I fell in love with him as Gus McCrae when I was only 11-

From Boo Radley (“To Kill a Mockingbird”) to Tom Hagen (“The Godfather”) to Gus McCrae (“Lonesome Dove”) this man has never put in a less than brilliant performance. He is one of the most versatile, gifted actors ever. Actors with that kind of range are completely fascinating to watch and you never have to wonder why they’re doing what they do for a living.

I fell in love with this man in the mini-series 'Ike'. He was fantastic and I've loved him ever since.

Augustus Macrae.

Any and all aspiring actors, and most of the currently acclaimed famous one, need to study this man's work, to see what true acting is. When Duvall assumes a role, he becomes the character. You no longer see Duvall on the screen, only the character is there. THAT is what true acting is. The only actor currently in Duvall's calibur is Gary Oldman. Between the two of them, they have more real talent than the rest of Hollywood combined.