He subsequently appeared in many leading and supporting roles, including Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), The Day of the Locust (1975), 1900 (1976), Fellini's Casanova (1976), Animal House (1978), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Ordinary People (1980), Max Dugan Returns (1983), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Six Degrees of Separation (1993), Disclosure (1994), Without Limits (1998), Space Cowboys (2000), The Italian Job (2003), and Pride & Prejudice (2005).

[7] During the first six years of his life, Sutherland and his family lived on present-day Kennebecasis River Road in Hampton, a town in Kings County, having moved there from Saint John while he was an infant.

He first received education at a one-room schoolhouse in Hampton; Sutherland's family moved back to Saint John when he was six, his father having secured a position in the New Brunswick Power Company as its vice president and general manager.

[8] In a letter Sutherland sent to a Saint John Free Public Library representative in 2017, he detailed how he and his family had lived in a farmhouse in Lakeside, located in present-day Hampton, before moving to Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, at the age of 12,[2] where he spent his teenage years.

[6] In the early-to-mid-1960s, Sutherland began to gain small roles in British films and TV, such as a hotel receptionist in The Sentimental Agent episode "A Very Desirable Plot" (1963).

[16] Sutherland then appeared in two war films, playing the lead role as Hawkeye Pierce in the Robert Altman–directed comedy M*A*S*H in 1970;[31] and, again in 1970, as hippie tank commander "Oddball" in Kelly's Heroes alongside Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas and Don Rickles.

As a follow-up to their appearance in Klute, Sutherland and Fonda performed together in Steelyard Blues (1973), a "freewheeling, Age-of-Aquarius, romp-and-roll caper" from the writer David S.

[41][42] Sutherland took the role of a health inspector in the science fiction/horror film Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) alongside Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, and Jeff Goldblum.

[45] Sutherland also had a role as pot-smoking Professor Dave Jennings in National Lampoon's Animal House in 1978, making himself known to younger fans as a result of the film's popularity.

[49] Sutherland's performance as Attila, an Italian fascist in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1976 epic film 1900, received praise from critics such as A. O. Scott of The New York Times for his portrayal of a sadistic, "over-the-top villainy" villain.

[50] Sutherland received praise for his role as the conflicted and grieving father in the Robert Redford-directed family drama Ordinary People (1980), alongside Mary Tyler Moore and Timothy Hutton.

[1][51] In September 1980, Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "Mr. Sutherland realizes his best film role in years, playing a fellow who, filled with love for both his wife and his son, is angrily accused by each of fence-sitting, of being weak and indecisive when he's really the only one in the family with some idea of what is wrong.

[58][59] Some of Sutherland's better known roles in the 1980s and 1990s were in the apartheid drama A Dry White Season (1989), alongside Marlon Brando and Susan Sarandon;[60] as a sadistic warden in Lock Up (1989) with Sylvester Stallone;[61] as an incarcerated pyromaniac in the firefighter thriller Backdraft (1991) alongside Kurt Russell and Robert De Niro,[62] as the humanitarian doctor-activist Norman Bethune in 1990's Bethune: The Making of a Hero,[63] and as a snobbish New York City art dealer in Six Degrees of Separation (1993), with Stockard Channing and Will Smith.

[64] In the 1991 Oliver Stone film JFK, he played a mysterious Washington intelligence officer, reputed to have been L. Fletcher Prouty, who spoke of links to the military–industrial complex in the assassination of John F.

[72] In 1998 he took the role of Bill Bowerman in the sports drama Without Limits for which he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture.

[73] Critic Roger Ebert wrote, "Sutherland's performance is the film's treasure... brings a deep patience to Bowerman, who understands that running is a matter of endurance and strategy, as well as heart".

In more recent years, Sutherland was known for his role as Reverend Monroe in the Civil War drama Cold Mountain (2003),[77] Lou Aldryn in the drama thriller Baltic Storm (2003),[78] John Bridger in the remake of The Italian Job (2003),[79] Nathan Templeton in the TV series Commander in Chief (2005–2006),[80] Ogden C. Osbourne in the film Fierce People (2005) with Diane Lane and Anton Yelchin.

[81] Sutherland played the family patriarch, Mr. Bennet, in Pride & Prejudice (2005) directed by Joe Wright starring alongside Keira Knightley.

[96] In 2012 he played Captain Flint in the British series Treasure Island, an adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson 1883 novel of the same name acting opposite Eddie Izzard and Elijah Wood.

[101] Sutherland, who played the Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court named Michel Dorn, was one of only two actors to appear in all episodes across three seasons from 2013 to 2015.

[102] On 6 September 2017, it was announced that Sutherland, along with three other recipients, would receive an Honorary Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences "for a lifetime of indelible characters, rendered with unwavering truthfulness".

[103] Sutherland starred opposite Helen Mirren playing an elderly married couple in the comedy-drama The Leisure Seeker (2017) based on the 2009 novel of the same name by Michael Zadoorian.

Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Sutherland's dignified but memory-robbed English prof often rings true through a veil of gentle humor".

[106] Kristen Baldwin of Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Sutherland does a typically excellent job conveying J. Paul Getty's stern disappointment in his feckless progeny".

[107] The following year he acted in the James Gray directed science fiction drama Ad Astra and the crime thriller The Burnt Orange Heresy.

[122] Sutherland was an antiwar activist who started the Free Theatre Associates (aka Free The Army) tour with Jane Fonda, Peter Boyle, Howard Hesseman, Elliott Gould, Mike Nichols, Ben Vereen, Dick Gregory, Nina Simone, and other celebrities as an alternative to Bob Hope's USO in Vietnam.

[134] Although he was proud to be Canadian, was an officer in the Order of Canada, and had no intention of changing his citizenship, Sutherland complained in 2015 that he was not allowed to vote because he was an expatriate for over five years.

U.S. President Joe Biden wrote, "Donald Sutherland was a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and one-of-a-kind actor who inspired and entertained the world for decades".

[143] Numerous members of the film industry wrote condolences, including Jane Fonda, Alec Baldwin, William Baldwin, Tom Blyth, Josh Brolin, Kim Cattrall, John Cusack, Michael Douglas, Roland Emmerich, Elliott Gould, Ron Howard, John Leguizamo, Janet Maslin, Helen Mirren, David Oyelowo, Lou Diamond Phillips, Richard Roeper, Will Smith, Henry Winkler, Edgar Wright, Rachel Zegler and Jennifer Lawrence.

"[156] Jane Fonda, who worked with Sutherland on the 1971 film Klute, wrote: "Donald was a brilliant actor and a complex man who shared quite a few adventures with me, such as the FTA Show, an anti-Vietnam war tour that performed for 60,000 active duty soldiers, sailors, and marines in Hawaii, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Japan in 1971.