Anytime you ever hear it said of an actor or actress with a troubled offscreen life, “his career is over,” remember Robert Downey, Jr., and remember that no matter how bad someone screws up their career, they can always come back, maybe even to become the face of a multibillion-dollar film franchise like the Marvel Comics film universe.
Whatever his troubles may have been in real life, nobody ever doubted that RDJ was a massive talent, as a review of his filmography proves. All the titles below are a click away on Blockbuster On Demand!
A couple of nerds (Anthony Michael Hall, Ilan Mitchell-Smith) use their computer to create their own woman (Kelly Lebrock) in one of the sillier John Hughes ’80s teen flicks — Downey plays one of the cool kids that torments the heroes but changes his tune when he gets a look at their science project.
Another supporting role, here as the too-hip-for-comfort best friend to Rodney Dangerfield’s college freshman son, whose life is made uncomfortable when Rodney decides to join them on campus. As in Weird Science, Downey makes an impression, even in a small part.
In Oliver Stone’s prescient satire of the American fascination with violence in the media, Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis supply the violence as a pair of murderous lovers, while Downey stands in for the media as a sleazy tabloid-news host who gets a little too close to the story.
This severely underrated ensemble comedy, set behind the scenes at a daytime soap opera, features Downey as a slimy network executive whose every decision is influenced by sexual favors, along with Sally Field, Kevin Kline, Whoopi Goldberg, Teri Hatcher, Cathy Moriarty, Carrie Fisher, and Elisabeth Shue.
Downey got one of his two Academy Award nominations in the role of the first film superstar, Charlie Chaplin, in Richard Attenborough’s 1992 biopic spanning the silent-film comic’s entire career.
After a long dance on the dark side that made him uninsurable and thus unemployable, rock-star screenwriter took a chance on Read More
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This John Hughes classic is the reigning champ of Thanksgiving films and for good reason. Both Steve Martin and the late John Candy are brilliant throughout the film as newly acquainted odd-couple Neal Page (Martin) and Del Griffith (Candy) trying to get home from New York to Chicago in time for Thanksgiving. As the two team up to try to overcome all kinds of transportation misfortunes on their journey home, there’s only one problem: Neal can’t stand Del and would do just about anything to leave him behind. Aside from one expletive-laden scene at an airport counter (that many people can relate to), this one is relatively family-friendly. Also, keep an eye out for a Kevin Bacon cameo.
