Robert Downey Jr’s Dark Side: Every Time He Played the Villain Before Avengers: Doomsday

Robert Downey Jr. is trading savior status for a steel mask, stepping in as Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday—and the Avengers may finally meet a foe who knows all their moves. He’s gone dark before; this time, he’s aiming to break the team he once defined.

Robert Downey Jr. saving the world for a decade and change was fun. Now comes the swing the other way: he is set to trade the red-and-gold armor for a metal mask as Doctor Doom in 'Avengers: Doomsday'. If that sounds like a wild pivot, it kind of isn’t — RDJ has dipped into villain mode before, and not just once. Before Doom allegedly makes the Avengers miserable in 2026, here are five times Downey sharpened his edges on screen — with receipts.

Five times RDJ went dark before Doctor Doom

1. Lewis Strauss in 'Oppenheimer' (2023)

   Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning epic gave Downey a meaty antagonist in Atomic Energy Commission chair Lewis Strauss, the guy pushing to yank J. Robert Oppenheimer’s Q clearance in the 1950s by painting him as a Communist risk. The movie plays the rivalry as razor-edged ego and resentment, and RDJ threads Strauss’s pettiness, patriotism, and personal vendettas with unnerving control — enough to snag his first Oscar in 2024.

   Title: Oppenheimer | Release date: July 21, 2023 | Director: Christopher Nolan | Rotten Tomatoes: 93% | Box office (via The Numbers): $976 million

   "I challenged a little bit the Mozart-Salieri of it all. I said, 'I’m not sure in some ways that Strauss isn’t a bit the hero here,' which kind of raised an eyebrow on Chris."

2. Wayne Gale in 'Natural Born Killers' (1994)

   Oliver Stone’s media circus satire follows fictional spree killers Mickey and Mallory Knox. Downey plays Wayne Gale, a bottom-feeding TV journalist who turns murder into primetime and then gets drunk on the chaos himself. It’s a nasty, showboating turn — and fittingly, Gale’s sensationalist ride ends with him getting gunned down by the very monsters he helped mythologize.

   Title: Natural Born Killers | Release date: August 26, 1994 | Director: Oliver Stone | Rotten Tomatoes: 52% | Box office (via The Numbers): $50 million

3. Paul Avery in 'Zodiac' (2007)

   David Fincher’s slow-burn masterpiece isn’t about heroes and villains so much as obsession. Downey’s Paul Avery — a sharp, slippery San Francisco Chronicle reporter — starts out cocky and ends up unraveling: paranoid, isolated, and drinking his way to the margins. Not a mustache-twirler, but definitely a cautionary portrait of self-destruction.

   Bonus: the film’s stacked with Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Brian Cox, and it absolutely hums.

   Title: Zodiac | Release date: March 2, 2007 | Director: David Fincher | Rotten Tomatoes: 90% | Box office (via The Numbers): $83 million

4. Dr. Kozak in 'The Shaggy Dog' (2006)

   Yes, the Disney body-swap dog comedy. Under the goofiness is Downey as Dr. Kozak, a biotech ghoul chasing eternal youth by testing on a 300-year-old sheepdog’s DNA. When family man/prosecutor Dave Douglas gets bitten and starts turning into that dog, he stumbles onto Kozak’s scheme. The movie is broad; Downey’s vibe as a corporate mad scientist is surprisingly unsettling.

   Title: The Shaggy Dog | Release date: March 10, 2006 | Director: Brian Robbins | Rotten Tomatoes: 25% | Box office (The Numbers): $87 million

5. John Royce in 'U.S. Marshals' (1998)

   Sequel to 'The Fugitive', same dogged chase energy. Tommy Lee Jones’s Sam Gerard hunts fugitive Mark Sheridan, and Downey shows up as Special Agent John Royce to help — except he’s the mole. Royce frames Sheridan, racks up collateral damage, and takes out one of his own. Classic late-90s twist, executed with icy charm.

   Title: U.S. Marshals | Release date: March 6, 1998 | Director: Stuart Baird | Rotten Tomatoes: 31% | Box office (via The Numbers): $57 million

So about 'Avengers: Doomsday'

If the plan holds, 'Avengers: Doomsday' is slated for December 18, 2026, with Downey stepping in as Victor Von Doom. Based on the track record above, he’s more than comfortable playing ruthless, calculating, and petty — three boxes Doom checks before breakfast.

Does RDJ have the armor to pull off Doom? I’m leaning yes. Tell me where you land.