It’s an important time in Robert Downey Jr.’s career. He has just received his third Oscar nomination for Oppenheimer, and it currently feels like he is a favorite going into the award ceremony. RDJ has a career that has lasted close to 40 years, and despite a bit of personal turmoil in the middle of it, he is still going strong to this day. With the Marvel Cinematic Universe under scrutiny the last few months, one must ask: Where would Robert Downey Jr. be without the gamble that was taken on him playing Tony Stark/Iron Man in the self-titled superhero film that launched what we now know as cinematic universes?
However, scattered throughout his career, he has played roles in films that stick out even if the film itself isn’t in movie lovers’ minds. You’re not going to be seeing some of the favorites on this list of underrated RDJ-led movies; you’re going to see ones you may have forgotten about or even didn’t even know of. His longevity shows in his personal life and in his craft. So, prior to him potentially taking home his first-ever Oscar, be sure to seek out some of the overlooked installments in his filmography.
12 Game 6 (2006)
Game 6 takes place in New York City in October 1986 during the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Mets. However, the game being played is only the backdrop to all of this. Game 6 follows playwright Nicky Rogan (Michael Keaton), who worries about what a critic (Robert Downey Jr.) will say about his Broadway play in his review. All of this ties in with the fact that Nicky’s Boston Red Sox are on the verge of a World Series win that they fatefully would end up losing.
Is It a Sports Movie or Not?
Clocking in at one hour and twenty-seven minutes, Game 6 does not really know what it wants to be. It uses baseball as a metaphor for the life and struggles of the protagonist of the film. It’s an indie released during strange times in both Keaton and Downey Jr.’s careers. Neither of them were in big movies at the time, but both deliver on the material here, even if the material is a bit convoluted.
Robert Downey Jr. plays a critic who Keaton’s character fears will give a review that tarnishes all his work, and yet Downey Jr.’s portrayal of critic Steven Schwimmer comes off as very eccentric. He’s definitely a guy with a lot of issues that he’s also battling with. All of this culminates when the two finally share the scene together at the end of the film.
11 Hearts and Souls (1993)
Hearts and Souls is a comedy about a group of people who die in a bus accident in the 1950s. What ends up happening is that the ghosts of the people on the bus become guardians of a child that was born on that same fateful day. The boy grows up to be a businessman (Robert Downey Jr.) and is now revisited by these ghosts, who need his help to move on.
An All-Star Cast
This is another great comedy with a great heart. Something that Robert Downey Jr. is known for being a part of throughout his career. Compliments to the cast that plays the ghosts, which includes Tom Sizemore, Alfre Woodard, Kyra Sedgwick, and Charles Grodin. The chemistry is all there and helps push the film to a tear-jerking finale. There are so many films throughout the years when we take the concept of death and make it somewhat humorous that you have got to wonder: maybe we should maybe go back to making movies like this.
10 U.S. Marshals (1998)
U.S. Marshals stars Tommy Lee Jones as the memorable Sam Gerard, who survives a plane crash and learns that one of the prisoners on board, Mark Sheridan (Wesley Snipes), has survived and escaped. Sheridan is wanted for a double murder but believes he’s innocent. Gerard, with the help of State Department agent John Royce (Robert Downey Jr.), must track down the escapee despite there being some doubt that he’s guilty.
A Loose Sequel
Remember The Fugitive? U.S. Marshals is a loose sequel to that film. Maybe not as good, but it has Tommy Lee Jones reprising the role that won him an Oscar. Jones and Downey Jr. have great chemistry as they are in pursuit of Wesley Snipes and have differing opinions on the matter. Think about that for a second. What a cast! Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Downey Jr., and Wesley Snipes. The film has predominantly felt irrelevant in pop culture even when it was in theaters, yet it had a spike in streams when it was on Netflix back in 2022.
9 A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006)
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is a coming-of-age drama that is set in the 1980s New York City, specifically in the Astoria neighborhood in Queens. It tells the tale of a boy growing up whose friends all fall into a life of drugs and crime and all end up dead, thus leaving the film’s protagonist to believe that he has been saved due to a higher power.
Another Overlooked 2000s Indie
This film comes out in 2006. We still have a few years before RDJ plays Tony Stark and finds out about the Avengers initiative. A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints very much feels like he’s on his comeback trail before he really hits big. RDJ plays an older Dito, while Shia LaBeouf plays the younger version of the same character. Dito returns to the neighborhood he grew up in upon hearing the news that his father is dying. It feels like Downey Jr. is pulling some emotion from his own personal life, as he is playing a character who has erased a dark past.
8 Charlie Bartlett (2007)
Charlie Bartlett is a coming-of-age comedy-drama about a high school outcast who is new in town and wants to make friends, so he decides to do something right for himself and the rest of the student body. He opens up therapy sessions in the bathroom for kids to come in and talk about their feelings. His tactics make him highly popular and a bit of a target as well.
Principal RDJ
Robert Downey Jr. pops up in the film as Principal Nathan Gardner. The supporting role faces the challenge of how to manage Bartlett’s new tactic of providing students with some help in regard to the pressures of teen life. This film was also another underrated performance from Anton Yelchin, an actor who left us all too soon. You don’t get a lot of feel-good teen movies anymore, so why not seek this one out?
7 The Judge (2014)
The Judge
- Release Date
- October 8, 2014
- Runtime
- 141
The Judge is a father-son story like no other. Robert Downey Jr. plays Hank Palmer, a brilliant, slick lawyer who returns to his Indiana hometown upon learning of his mother’s passing. There, he clashes with his father, a retired courtroom judge (Robert Duvall). Right before he leaves to head back, his father gets in a hit-and-run car crash. Hank decides that, despite his stubborn old father being at odds with him, he will take the case to defend him in court.
Why Does The Judge Make the List?
Robert Downey Jr. really thrives in father-son stories. His recent Netflix documentary, which pays tribute to his own father, is touching and sentimental. There are amazing themes woven throughout the MCU about Tony Stark and his relationship with his father. The Judge may get overlooked a bit because it looks like another touching drama recycled by Hollywood.
However, Downey Jr.’s wit and slick style are on full display, but they blend nicely with the dramatic turns he is also known to throw at an audience. Let us also not forget the Oscar-nominated performance of Robert Duvall in it.
6 The Soloist (2009)
In The Soloist, Robert Downey Jr. plays Steve Lopez, a Los Angeles columnist whose life is in shambles. While roaming the Skid Row section of Los Angeles, he encounters a homeless man playing a two-string violin named Nathaniel Ayers. What starts out as a chance encounter becomes an awakening in both men’s lives.
A Moving Tale of Friendship
Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. light up the screen as the pair intersect at pivotal points in their careers. Jamie Foxx was on a second wind after his Oscar win for Ray a few years prior, and Robert Downey Jr. had skyrocketed back to the forefront of Hollywood a year prior with Iron Man. The Soloist gets some flack for being surface-level in some parts, but 15 years since its release, it is a remainder of the power of what human connection can do to the mind. It also goes to show you what mental health reform can do if we just give a damn about it.
5 A Scanner Darkly (2006)
Based on a novel by Phillip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly is the story of an undercover cop in the not-too-distant future who experiments with a dangerous drug. From there, he starts to lose a grip on reality. A Scanner Darkly elevates the animation medium to new heights in a very subtle way that only director Richard Linklater could pull off.
Why More People Should See A Scanner Darkly (and Not Just for Robert Downey Jr.’s Sake)
There is a lot to unravel in A Scanner Darkly in terms of themes and Robert Downey Jr.’s career trajectory at this time. Here he is somewhat flying under the radar, taking parts in films that don’t overshadow the lead role or make the film all about him. Yet, the movie tackles drug use and mental illness in a way we have not seen before.
This film came out around the time that the stigma of being an addict still surrounded him and his public appearance. As for the themes of the dystopian future, it tackles society and a life of constant consumerism. There is a lot to unpack about the deep fears of madness and how fear itself leaves us in the darkness of our own minds.
4 Wonder Boys (2000)
Curtis Hanson directs this dark comedy about a wild weekend where an English professor/novelist is suffering from writer’s block. All of this happens while his editor presses him for a copy of the novel he’s waited years for, his wife is about to leave him, and he befriends one of his outcast students. Wonder Boys is a slice-of-life movie that never lets up.
Hangout Movie
The “hangout” movie is a genre we get once in a blue moon; some also like to call it a “slice of life” movie. The film’s central character is distressed writer Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas). We get to know him and all the supporting characters who come in and out of his life, one of whom is Robert Downey Jr. in the role of his editor, Terry Crabtree. Wonder Boys was a hit at a kind of low point for RDJ’s career. Many have gone back and sought it out, as it is a form of comfort food. Wonder Boys is one of the films that you hate to see end; you just want to hang out with these characters for longer than you are allowed.
3 Due Date (2010)
Due Date
- Release Date
- November 4, 2010
- Runtime
- 95
Speaking of slice-of-life movies, 2010s Due Date falls into that category a bit as well. Mixed in with a fun road movie vibe too, Todd Phillips directs this movie about a man named Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.), who in five days will become a father. He gets stranded and has to get across the country to Los Angeles to be there for the birth of his child. He ends up getting stuck on the road with aspiring actor Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis), who nearly drives him to the brink of insanity.
“Dad, You Were Like a Father to Me”
Due Date was a Todd Phillips comedy that was squeezed in the middle of The Hangover and The Hangover II. The film rests on the chemistry between Galifianakis and Downey Jr., and thank God, because their comic timing is reminiscent of any comedy duos in films like this we saw sprinkled throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Due Date also delivers great drama that comes unexpectedly.
The scenes where Peter talks about his dad leaving him when he was young, in comparison to Ethan’s love for his recently deceased father. Thus propelling forward the narrative of what men need to do to be good fathers. Due Date is an overlooked comedic study of men and how we yearn to be the best version of ourselves for those we love, but the world sometimes gets in our way, and the heartache that comes with that.
2 Natural Born Killers (1994)
Natural Born Killers is one of Oliver Stone’s masterpieces. It’s a tale of two serial killers (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis) who become the topic of tabloid television, all thanks to a press campaign led by a man named Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jr.), who makes celebrities out of these murders.
Great Cast, Great Director, Violent Material
In terms of the content of the movies Robert Downey Jr. stars in, none of them are really as violent as Natural Born Killers. Although he is not playing a crazed murderer, things do get a little bloody for him in the movie. He’s part of a great ensemble in this movie. It’s a film on his resume that some forget that he was a part of, and adding Oliver Stone to the list of directors you’ve worked with is a plus. Stone utilizes RDJ’s character as a metaphor for how we glorify these awful people in the news, thus creating a fan base for horrid people and their vile acts.
1 Less Than Zero (1987)
Less Than Zero
- Release Date
- November 6, 1987
- Director
- Marek Kanievska
- Runtime
- 98
Based on the story by Brett Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero takes a good, honest look at the drug culture of the late 1980s. It follows the character of Clay (Andrew McCarthy), who returns home after a semester of college. There he learns his ex-girlfriend is now heavily addicted to cocaine, and her new boyfriend, Clay’s childhood bully, Julian (Robert Downey Jr.), is no real help to having her get clean, as he too is in too deep in a world of excess.
All Too Real
Knowing the dark path Robert Downey Jr. went down in life for many years, this role feels all too real. Movies about the excess of the 1980s usually came out long after the decade was over; here it was right in the middle of it. Since RDJ has battled back from addiction in his personal life, many forget about Less Than Zero, but its impact on the topic of hedonism and addiction should never go unnoticed. It’s reported that Robert Downey Jr. fell even harder into his own addictions while working on the film. However, all personal demons aside, this film does really show you the early stages of how great his dramatic range really was. Thank God we still have him here today.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
