Robards appeared alongside his Father in 1988's Bright Lights, Big City, in their only film collaboration (his Father died in 2000). He co-starred with his mother in the 1993 Robert Altman film Prêt-à-Porter. He portrayed Harold Ross, first Editor of The New Yorker, in the Dorothy Parker biographical film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle in 1994 for writer-director Alan Rudolph. His film résumé also includes Fandango, Casualties of War, American Beauty, Beautiful Girls, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Life as a House, The Other Side of the Tracks and The Art of Getting By.