RDJ’s Oscar For Oppenheimer Is Long Overdue – He Should’ve Won 30 Years Ago

Robert Downey Jr. is one of the top contenders for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars this year for his performance in Oppenheimer, a win that has been 30 years in the making. Downey Jr. played Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s biographical thriller about the “father of the atomic bomb,” J. Robert Oppenheimer. RDJ’s stellar performance as Strauss, who was one of the original members of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, has been lauded by critics and audiences alike, garnering tons of Oscar buzz since the film premiered in July 2023.

Downey Jr. is almost guaranteed to get a nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the 96th Academy Awards ceremony in 2024, and the veteran actor is even predicted to take home the trophy. Not only would this win be deserved, it would also be long overdue. RDJ’s first Oscar nomination was exactly 30 years ago, and he deserved to win even then.

Robert Downey Jr. Should’ve Won The Best Actor Oscar For Chaplin

Downey Jr. received his first Oscar nomination at the 65th Academy Awards in 1993 for his performance as the titular silent film star in Chaplin. RDJ was nominated for Best Actor alongside Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino, Stephen Rea, and Denzel Washington. He ultimately lost to Pacino for his performance in Scent of a Woman. Pacino himself was overdue for an Oscar at that point, having been nominated six times already: four for Best Actor and twice for Best Supporting Actor. He was even nominated for Best Supporting Actor that same year for his performance in Glengarry Glen Ross, but he lost to Gene Hackman.

While Pacino’s win may have already been long overdue back then, Downey Jr.’s performance in Chaplin was definitely still worthy of a win. In the 30 years since this loss, RDJ’s only been nominated one other time. His second chance came in 2009 when he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 81st Academy Awards for his comedic role in Tropic Thunder, but he lost to the late Heath Ledger for his performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight. While RDJ certainly made an impression as Kirk Lazarus in Tropic Thunder, Ledger’s posthumous win was completely merited and expected.

Will Robert Downey Jr. Win An Oscar For Oppenheimer?

Oscar nominations for the 96th Academy Awards ceremony won’t be announced until January 23, 2024, but Downey Jr. is sure to at least be nominated for Oppenheimer. At the moment, RDJ’s biggest competition for the Best Supporting Actor award is two-time-Academy-Award winner, Robert DeNiro, for his role in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Athough De Niro’s performance was his best in a long time, Downey Jr. is the most deserving of and overdue for this accolade.

While it’ll still most likely come down to the battle of the Roberts, Downey Jr’s odds were better prior to the end of the SAG-AFTRA strike. Oppenheimer was released at the beginning of the strike, but now that it’s over, actors are now able to campaign for their Oscar nomination, so long as their film’s release met the eligibility deadline (November 18, 2023). Other possible contenders for the category are Ryan Gosling as Ken in Barbie, Holt McCallany in the recently released The Iron Claw, Willem DeFoe and Mark Ruffalo in Poor Things, and Riverdale star, Charles Melton, whose performance in May December is receiving unanticipated praise.

The 96th Academy Awards ceremony will air on March 10, 2024. Oppenheimer is now available to watch in 4K Ultra HD via digital release, and will be streaming on Peacock in the near future. Limited screenings of Oppenheimer are also still playing in select theaters.