Woodward returned to features in 1964's "Becket" and went on to appear in "Young Winston" (1972) and "The Wicker Man" (1973) before winning international attention in the title role of Bruce Beresford's "Breaker Morant" (1980). He went on to appear in Beresford's "King David" (1985), as Saul, and "Mister Johnson" (1991), as a hard-drinking, bigoted Englishman in colonial Africa.
But it was television that has provided Woodward with his what is perhaps his best known role, "The Equalizer" (CBS, 1986-89), the retired secret agent Robert McCall, who weekly attempted to help those in trouble. Despite some health difficulties (including a 1987 heart attack), he continued to deliver restrained, solid performances. While the show was never a ratings blockbuster, it had a healthy run and earned a cult following. Woodward's second attempt at series TV, "Over My Dead Body" (CBS, 1990-91), was an attempt to create a male version of the network's hit "Murder, She Wrote". Playing a cranky British mystery writer suffering from writer's block, Woodward gamely tried, but the audience wasn't interested. He had better luck with a variety of TV-movies, including appearing as the Ghost of Christmas Past to George C Scott's Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol" (CBS, 1984), as Merlin in "Arthur the King" (CBS, 1985; filmed in 1982), and as Sherlock Holmes in "Hands of a Murder" (CBS, 1990). Woodward also played retired Scotland Yard detective Edward 'Teddy' Harrison in two TV-movies "The Shamrock Conspiracy" (UPN, 1995) and "Harrison: Cry of the City" (UPN, 1996).