Robert Downey Jr., an Oscar winner for Oppenheimer, returns to the Marvel Cinematic Universe next year as Doctor Doom — aka Victor Von Doom.
Here are the 12 best Robert Downey Jr. roles, including his most famous one: playing Tony Stark in the Iron Man and Avengers films.
Here we go.
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Back to School (1986)
Orion – Credit: C/O
Robert Downey Jr. is the son of a beloved cult filmmaker (you can probably guess his name), and the younger Downey appeared in a couple of his father’s films as a child., starting with 1970’s Pound, when the younger Downey was five.
But as a young adult, he found himself finding his footing. He was briefly a cast member of Saturday Night Live starting in 1985, and also appeared that year in Weird Science.
He came to be associated with the group of young actors condescendingly called The Brat Pack, alongside young stars like Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall. One of his first major roles was in the Rodney Dangerfield campus comedy Back to School.
While he doesn’t play Dangerfield’s character’s son (that would be Keith Gordon), Downey got to play Derek Lutz, the quippy, partying best friend of Gordon.
Less Than Zero (1987)
20th Century Fox – Credit: C/O
On the flip side of the silly comedy of Back to School (a movie that climaxes with Dangerfield winning a diving competition) there’s Less Than Zero. It’s based on a Bret Easton Ellis novel, so you know it’s dark and sordid. It’s the film where Downey first demonstrated his serious dramatic chops.
He plays Julian, who comes from money and lives a life of leisure, but collapses into addiction. In a 2024 career retrospective at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Downey said the role “was “was a bit of a Ghost of Christmas Future,” given the problems he would eventually have with addiction.
He starred in the film alongside Andrew McCarthy, playing his best friend, Clay. And while the movie is a mixed bag, they are both quite good.
Chaplin (1992)
Tri-Star – Credit: C/O
To prove his bona fides as a serious adult dramatic actor, Robert Downey Jr. did the same thing many had done before him: Starred in a prestige biopic.
Charlie Chaplin was probably the biggest movie star of his generation, and Downey got to play him from youth to old age, under the guidance of Gandhi director Richard Attenborough, no less.
Chaplin was commercially unsuccessful, but Downey came off well: He earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, and won the BAFTA in the same category.
Natural Born Killers (1994)
Warner Bros. – Credit: C/O
Natural Born Killers is an Oliver Stone film based on a story that originated with Quentin Tarantino, so you know it’s bananas. Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis play Mickey and Mallory Knox, a couple who also happen to be mass murderers.
They also become celebrities for it because… satire? It’s Stone, so it’s not subtle — but it’s kind of a mess. Tarantino has said the movie on-screen isn’t the one he wrote.
Even so, Natural Born Killers was a bit hit and embedded itself into the culture to a degree. While Downey was not one of the two thrill-killing lovers, he popped as the third billed as Wayne Gale, an Australian tabloid journalist who is primarily responsible for turning the Knoxes into sordid celebrities. He’s the highlight of the movie.
Oh! And it’s the second of his films that also features Rodney Dangerfied.
U.S. Marshals (1998)
Warner Bros. – Credit: C/O
The Fugitive was a huge hit and won Tommy Lee Jones an Oscar. That led to a sequel, U.S. Marshals, which brought back Jones as Sam Gerard, with most of his team from The Fugitive intact as well. The two key new additions to the cast? Wesley Snipes as the fugitive, and Downey as DSS Special Agent John Royce, who joins Gerard’s team, but may be hiding something.
Yeah, spoilers we guess: Royce is hiding something. It’s a sequel to The Fugitive! Of course the presumed killer didn’t do it.
U.S. Marshals is fine. It’s a step down from The Fugitive, but it’s a sequel to a bit hit, and it gave Downey a notable role at a time when he was starting to slip from the spotlight. Don’t worry: He would soon be back.
Wonder Boys (2000)
Paramount – Credit: C/O
Wonder Boys was Downey’s last notable film role before his comeback. He’s not the star, but settled contributed in a supporting role.
In this adaptation of a Michael Chabon novel, Michael Douglas stars as a college professor and novelist who is struggling with his writing work, and Tobey Maguire (pre-Spider-Man) plays a promising, troubled student.
Downey plays Douglas’ editor, and he’s good in a flashy, if limited, role. That’s about what Hollywood had to offer the actor at that point. He couldn’t be called upon, or relied upon, to carry a film. Still, the charisma was there, even in fitful doses.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Warner Bros. – Credit: C/O
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is generally considered the “rebirth” of Downey’s film career. For the first time in a while, he had a lead role in a flashy film, and was wildly charming.
Downey plays a criminal who accidentally lucks his way into Hollywood, where he finds himself hanging out with Val Kilmer’s private eye, who is supposed to teach Downey the “actor” the ropes of his job. They end up working on an actual mystery together.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was popular, paid off for both Downey and famed screenwriter Shane Black, who made his directorial debut with the film. The two reunited when Black directed Iron Man 3.
Zodiac (2007)
Paramount – Credit: C/O
David Fincher’s lengthy look into the Zodiac Killer mystery is an ensemble piece. It’s dark, obviously, but many consider Zodiac his finest work, and one of the best movies of the 2000s.
What part does Downey play in the ensemble? He’s Paul Avery, a real-life journalist who covered the Zodiac murders in San Francisco. It was bleak stuff, and Avery suffered from his efforts to unfold the story, and the mystery. Downey, able to call upon a lot of his own personal demons, excelled in the role.
Tony Stark, aka Iron Man (2008-2019)
Robert Downey Jr. de-aged for a scene in Captain America: Civil War. Disney – Credit: C/O
Tony Stark is one of the iconic roles of the last 20 years. After years of addiction issues, the film helped Downey rise to levels of fame and success he had never achieved before.
“I will never be as cool as Tony Stark, but it was it was so great to be associated with someone like that for a while, you know? And then it wore off,” he told critic Leonard Maltin at the aforementioned Santa Barbara International Film Festival retrospective.
But once he won his Oscar — and had nothing to prove to anyone — he agreed to return to the MCU, albeit in a different role, for Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars.
He’ll be joined by Chris Evans, who previously played Captain America — and who we think will play someone different next time.
Tropic Thunder (2008)
Dreamworks – Credit: C/O
Tropic Thunder allowed Downey to take a major creative risk — playing a daffy Australian actor, Kirk Lazarus, who undergoes surgery to play an African-American character in a war movie.
Downey joked at his Santa Barbara International Film Festival career retrospective that he knew either he would get in trouble for the role, or Ben Stiller — who wrote, directed and starred — would get in trouble for playing an actor who becomes “Simple Jack,” a mentally challenged man, in desperate pursuit of an Oscar. Downey joked in Santa Barbara that he emerged unscathed, and that Stiller took the bigger hit.
Oscar voters seem to have gotten what Downey was doing: He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Warner Bros. – Credit: C/O
Marvel taking a gamble on Downey to play Tony Stark paid off, but so did its gamble on an Iron Man movie. He was far from the most-famous superhero out there, until Downey got a shot at him.
The year after Iron Man, Downey played one of the iconic literary characters of all time. Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes was more action-packed than most films about the character, but Downey had fun as Sherlock, and Jude Law is also good as Watson.
The first film is actually quite enjoyable, and was successful enough to earn a sequel. That film is fine, but is never going to make our list of sequels that are better than the originals.
Oppenheimer (2023)
Universal – Credit: C/O
The MCU largely took over Downey’s 2010s, and after 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, he made just two films — 2020’s Dr. Doolittle and Sr., a documentary about his film director father — before making another impressive return with Oppenheimer.
He might have seemed like an odd choice to play the calculating, secretive Lewis Strauss, the Salieri to Oppenheimer’s Mozart. But Downey is grateful Christopher Nolan choose him.
“A visionary filmmaker can see things that other people can’t see,” Downey said at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival retrospective, where he also called Oppenheimer “probably the best movie I’ve ever been a part of.”
Besides earning nearly a billion dollars, Oppenheimer has swept up awards and earned the most Oscar nominations of any film released in 2023. The 13 nominations include one for Downey for Best Supporting Actor — and he’s favored to win.
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Ben Stiller in Tropic Thunder. Dreamworks. – Credit: Paramount
If you liked this list, you might also like this list of ’90s Movies Only Cool Kids Remember.
Main image: Robert Downey Jr. in Chaplin. Tri-Star.
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