Barbra Streisand made a surprise appearance at Academy Awards on Sunday night to honor the memory of her late co-star and friend, Robert Redford.

The stage and screen legend sang a portion of “The Way We Were,” the Oscar-winning ballad from the 1973 film of the same name, during the night’s “In Memoriam” segment. The moment was a bittersweet tribute to Redford, who died in September of last year at age 89.

In her introductory remarks, Streisand drew parallels between “The Way We Were,” which she described as taking place during a “dark time in our history,” and the present day while praising Redford’s real-life political activism.

“He spoke up to defend freedom of the press, protect the environment and encourage new voices at his Sundance Institute, some of whom are up for Oscars tonight,” she said. “He was thoughtful and bold. I called him an intellectual cowboy who blazed his own trail ... I miss him now more than ever.”

While it had been rumored for weeks, Streisand’s tribute was not publicly announced before Sunday’s ceremony. The 83-year-old last appeared at the Oscars in 2019, when she introduced Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman,” one of the year’s Best Picture nominees, and snapped a selfie with “Can You Forgive Me?” actor Richard E. Grant, who famously wrote her a fan letter at age 14.

Her last Oscars night performance was in 2013, when she sang “The Way We Were” in honor of the late composer Marvin Hamlisch, who co-wrote the song with Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

Redford and Streisand have been paired in the public imagination ever since the release of “The Way We Were” some 53 years ago. Directed by Sydney Pollack, the movie follows a sweeping romance between a Jewish Marxist activist, Katie Morosky (Streisand), and Hubbell Gardiner (Redford), a privileged and apolitical novelist, in the 1940s and early ’50s.

Despite a famously tumultuous production, “The Way We Were” was a critical smash, receiving six Oscar nominations and winning two.

In her 2023 memoir “My Name is Barbra,” Streisand recalled how Redford had rejected the role of Hubbell at least twice before he was convinced to sign on for the movie.

“The courtship had been tough, but Bob’s reluctance had a big influence on the script and ultimately resulted in a richer, more interesting character,” she wrote, adding: “He and I had a real rapport and the audience could sense it.”

She shared similar sentiments in an Instagram post last year, calling Redford “charismatic, intelligent, intense, always interesting— and one of the finest actors ever.”

“We were such opposites: he was from the world of horses; I was allergic to them!” she noted. “Yet, we kept trying to find out more about each other, just like the characters in the movie.”

While the success of “The Way We Were” spurred talks of a sequel for years, a follow-up to the film never materialized. Still, Redford and Streisand remained close friends, and publicly reunited on several occasions, including a 2010 interview with Oprah Winfrey.

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