Representation-based classification (RC) methods, such as sparse RC, have shown great potential in face recognition (FR) in recent years. Most previous RC methods are based on the conventional regression models, such as lasso regression, ridge regression, or group lasso regression. These regression models essentially impose a predefined assumption on the distribution of the noise variable in the query sample, such as the Gaussian or Laplacian distribution. However, the complicated noises in practice may violate the assumptions and impede the performance of these RC methods. In this paper, we propose a modal regression (MR)-based atomic representation and classification (MRARC) framework to alleviate such limitations. MR is a robust regression framework which aims to reveal the relationship between the input and response variables by regressing toward the conditional mode function. Atomic representation is a general atomic norm regularized linear representation framework which includes many popular representation methods, such as sparse representation, collaborative representation, and low-rank representation as special cases. Unlike previous RC methods, the MRARC framework does not require the noise variable to follow any specific predefined distributions. This gives rise to the capability of MRARC in handling various complex noises in reality. Using MRARC as a general platform, we also develop four novel RC methods for unimodal and multimodal FR, respectively. In addition, we devise a general optimization algorithm for the unified MRARC framework based on the alternating direction method of multipliers and half-quadratic theory. The experiments on real-world data validate the efficacy of MRARC for robust FR and reconstruction.