Robert Downey Jr. wins the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor 2024 for ‘Oppenheimer’

Lead actors and actresses tend to steal the limelight in most movies, yet anyone who knows anything about the film industry knows supporting actors often have an equally important role to play. The Academy, of course, make a point of rewarding such “secondary” figures, handing out an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and Actress each year. In 2024, Robert Downey Jr. scooped the male prize, adding further shine to a superb night at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles for Oppenheimer.

Downey Jr. buries Iron Man to play Lewis Strauss

When an actor repeatedly plays the same role - Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, for instance - it can be difficult for them to convince the audience they are playing a completely different one in another movie. Many will think of Downey Jr. as superhero Iron Man, yet he is almost completely unrecognisable in his performance as the unlikeable Lewis Strauss, the former United States Secretary of Commerce, in Oppenheimer.

The 58-year-old barely features in the first two hours of the film but plays a key role in the final 60 minutes, so much so that it was highly anticpated he would be going home with the Best Supporting Actor gong, one of seven Oppenheimer collected on Sunday.

Downey Jr. had previously been nominated for an Academy Award on two occasions (Best Actor for Chaplin in 1992, Best Supporting Actor for Tropic Thunder in 2008) and now he finally has his hands on a statuette.

Oppenheimer: everything you need to know

Original Title: Oppenheimer

Duration: 180 minutes

Country: United States

Director: Christopher Nolan

Screenplay: Christopher Nolan (based on the book by Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin)

Music: Ludwig Göransson

Cinematography: Hoyte van Hoytema

Cast: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Josh Hartnett, Rami Malek, Gary Oldman, Florence Pugh, Jason Clarke, Alden Ehrenreich, David Krumholtz, Ben Safdie, Kenneth Branagh

Production Companies: Atlas Entertainment, Syncopy Inc.

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Genre: Legal drama, thriller, biographical, historical

Winners of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in the 21st Century