Robert Downey Jr. wins his first Oscar for best-supporting actor

Robert Downey Jr. received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor at the 96th Academy Awards, marking his first win among three total nominations in his career.

At the 96th Academy Awards in Los Angeles, Robert Downey Jr. was awarded the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Oppenheimer. For one of Hollywood's most versatile actors, whose career has been characterized by severe disappointments, it was his third total Oscar nomination.

The film, directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Cillian Murphy as the groundbreaking atomic weapons scientist, features Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, J. Robert Oppenheimer's adversary. After being nominated for Best Actor in 1993 for Chaplin and Best Supporting Actor in 2009 for Tropic Thunder, this is Downey's first Oscar victory.

The actor was the frontrunner for the honor because he had previously taken home several significant best-supporting awards for the part, such as the Screen Actors Guild, Bafta, and Golden Globes. He had to defeat formidable opponents, including Mark Ruffalo for Poor Things, Ryan Gosling for Barbie, and Robert De Niro for Killers of the Flower Moon. 

Seven Oscars were awarded on Sunday for Christopher Nolan's three-hour in-depth examination of the creation and aftermath of the atomic bomb during World War II, "Oppenheimer." Nolan's wins included Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Cillian Murphy. The movie had thirteen nominations going into the evening.