Iron Man

"Heroes aren't born. They're built."

2008 2h 6m EN

🙌

7.7

BANGER

★7.7TMDB · 28,959

ActionScience FictionAdventure

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

After being held captive in an Afghan cave, billionaire engineer Tony Stark creates a unique weaponized suit of armor to fight evil.

“Heroes aren't born. They're built.”

WhatsApp X Facebook Telegram

Where to watch · US

Disney PlusSubscription

Amazon VideoRent

Apple TV StoreRent

Google Play MoviesRent

Google Play MoviesBuy

YouTubeBuy

Fandango At HomeBuy

Cast

Robert Downey Jr.
Tony Stark
Terrence Howard
Rhodey
Jeff Bridges
Obadiah Stane
Gwyneth Paltrow
Pepper Potts
Leslie Bibb
Christine Everhart
Shaun Toub
Yinsen
Faran Tahir
Raza
Clark Gregg
Agent Coulson

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Jon Favreau
Writers: David Lowery, Stephen Platt, Eric Ramsey
Languages: English, Persian, Urdu, Arabic
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

$140M budget — tentpole studio territory.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Made its money back 4.2× over at the box office.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 18 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 4 languages: English, Persian, Urdu, Arabic.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

Part of the "Iron Man Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

CAST

Did you know

265+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Jon Favreau, shot by Matthew Libatique. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Ramin Djawadi. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Jon Favreau directs. Matthew Libatique behind the camera. Ramin Djawadi scores. Dan Lebental cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English, Persian, Urdu, Arabic.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1$140M budget — tentpole studio territory.
2Made its money back 4.2× over at the box office.
3Released 18 years ago.
4Dialogue crosses 4 languages: English, Persian, Urdu, Arabic.
5Part of the "Iron Man Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
6265+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.
7Directed by Jon Favreau, shot by Matthew Libatique. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
8Original score by Ramin Djawadi. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
9Editor Dan Lebental shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
10Robert Downey Jr. and Terrence Howard and Jeff Bridges carry the top of the cast.
11Marketing tagline: "Heroes aren't born. They're built.".
12IMDB entry: tt0371746 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
13The top-rated still from this film on TMDB has 6 community votes — a signal the frame composition stuck with viewers.
1428,959 TMDB user ratings logged — serious cultural footprint.
15Classified under 11 themes, including "middle east", "kidnapping", "superhero", "arms dealer".
16Released under 16 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Matthew Libatique
Original score: Ramin Djawadi
Editing: Dan Lebental
Production design: J. Michael Riva
Costume design: Rebecca Gregg
VFX supervisor: John Nelson
Sound: Christopher Boyes
Stunt coordinator: Tim Rigby
Runtime: 126 min · 2h 6m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $140,000,000
Box office: $585,174,222
Return: 418% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): PG-13
IMDB: Iron Man (2008)

Awards

Saturn Award for Best Director
Saturn Award for Best Actor
MTV Movie Award for Best Summer Movie So Far
Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film
Film and Television Music Award for Top Box Office Films
Taurus World Stunt Awards for Best Fire Stunt
Taurus World Stunt Awards for Hardest Hit
Satellite Award for Best Editing
American Film Institute Awards

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Part of

Iron Man Collection

A superhero film series based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name and part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) series. Tony Stark AKA Iron Man, an industrialist and master engineer uses a powered exoskeleton to fight foes, with the aid of his personal assistant and love interest Pepper Potts.

Also by

Jon Favreau

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

izgzhen2017-09-28
Imaginative illustration of an epic story. It combines the modern background society, e.g. terrorism, with the unconventional high-tech fantasy. Our leading actor Robert Downey Jr. deeply embodies the soul of the Iron Man in himself. We common people never lived this way :P
Gimly2018-06-04
★ 8/10
A long form review originally posted in 2010: Marking the beginning of the latest Marvel franchise, The Avengers, is Jon Favreau's Iron Man. I'm quite fond of Super Hero movies, I don't love them to the same extent that I do the slasher or psychological thriller genres, but they do hold a small place in my heart all to themselves. I'm pretty pumped for this whole "Avengers" thing to come to fruition, 'cause honestly it's all been great so far, starting with Iron Man, whom Robert Downey Jr. (Natural Born Killers, Gothika, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, A Scanner Darkly, Zodiac, Sherlock Holmes, Due Date) portrays, and incredibly so. It's important to set yourself a starting point. More specifically, what I mean is, a reason. Batman's parents were murdered, and his home was destroyedby crime; The Punisher's whole family was murdered in front of him and he big-time snapped; characters like the X-Men and the Fantastic 4 are defending themselves and end up having a penchant for world-saving. Those are all fine, and so long as you have one, I'm happy. But I really kind of like Tony Stark's reason for becoming Iron Man... He's a dick. That's why. He's a dick that supplies the world with the most lethal weapons in existence, and they take lives left, right and centre. Then, he's put through the world where they get used, and finally is told by the person who helped him escape that world, not to waste his life. He believes he is still alive for a reason, he decides that reason is to become a dick that is intent on privatising world peace. Which I think makes perfect sense. That may have come across as sarcasm, but I was deadly serious. Tony Stark becomes Iron man, and that's why. It works fantastically. We then get to see all the incarnations of his suit, how difficult it was to make, what it runs on, the technology, everything. And I'm a huge fan of back story, which Iron Man delivers. It's sort of the antithesis of DC's Batman Begins. Though they're both young adults that come from money with no family, a British butler (although Iron man's butler Jarvis was transformed into AI for the film [he was an actual person in the comics]), they have a board of directors take care of their family's billionaire business until they're ready to eventually take the reins, they both become " Man" and go about saving the innocent, not through superpowers but technology. I'm sure I could go on. But they're also incredibly different. Where Batman is a total bad ass, the gothic unknown defender of the night that uses fear as a weapon to protect his home town, and yet refuses to kill; Iron Man is a bright, shiny, loud attention grabber, who goes all international to fight crime, he wants the world to know he's Iron Man and his enemies are totally lame, so no wonder he has no qualms about killing! Batman's secret identity, Bruce Wayne, is an angsty tosser, that tries way to hard. But Tony Stark, is a witty, brilliant inventor, who has basically harnessed all of Batman's training, strength, weapons, vehicles and flight, improved them, and put them in to a single suit. So though I personally prefer Batman as a hero, I prefer Tony Stark as a character. The interaction between Stark and Pepper Potts, played by Gwyneth Paltrow (Se7en, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Royal Tenenbaums, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow) was incredible. It just goes to show what good casting can achieve, even in an action flick, the dialogue is hilarious and clever. Is it possible for a Super Hero movie to be a bad Super Hero film but a great film? I guess it is. The antagonists are lacking to say the least, and their dispatching leaves even more to be desired. Which is normally not too huge when you get the rest so perfect, unfortunately, it's a comic book film, about Super Heroes, and Super Villains. They fight one another over and over, in fact that's pretty much what the comics are about in their entirety, so it's quite a major short coming. That being said, it's really the only one that Iron Man has. In a way though, they're a similar comparison to the latest Batman films again; Iron Monger and Whiplash are flashy, but disappointing, where The Joker, Two-Face, Scarecrow and Ra's al Ghul are top notch as bad guys. Whereas Ironman's Obadiah Stane and Ivan Vanko were great characters, but Batman's The Joker is only seen in his villain persona, and Harvey Dent, Jonathan Crane and Henri Ducard are nothing more than vessels for their alter-egos. All that aside, the film is just plain good, and you don't need to be a fan of Iron Man, Super Heroes or comics in general to enjoy Iron Man. 82% -Gimly
tmdb440066252019-03-09
★ 8/10
Iron Man did a lot more than just launch the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was the first comic book movie in a long time to integrate the fantastical nature of superheroes and supervillains into a real world setting with consequences. It also showed how great of a filmmaker Jon Favreau is and rebooted the career of Robert Downey Jr. For all this, Iron Man is a fantastic movie, still one of the best MCU films. It's so much fun to watch. Yet it displays a lot of intelligence, exploring the internal dilemma of a man profiteering off war when faced with the harsh reality that he is part of a system that corrupts absolutely.