Iron Man (2008)

Iron Man

Jon Favreau's film launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After a demonstration of his company's newest missile in Afghanistan, billionaire engineer Tony Stark is ambushed, gravely wounded, and held captive in a cave, where he builds the first of his armored suits. (IMDb)

Watches

Hublot Big Bang

Worn by Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. Worn through the opening Afghanistan sequence: as Stark shelters behind a rock during the convoy ambush, a steel-cased sports watch with a rich blue dial and chunky screw-set bezel fills his wrist. The brand is genuinely unsettled. The first published reading called it a blue Big Bang, probably in tantalum and gold, and the same article was later amended, after readers supplied images of preproduction Bvlgari models lightly shown at Basel, to call the opening watch a gold Diagono Chronograph built on closely similar lines. That amendment sits awkwardly against a frame reading steel and blue rather than gold, and Theo & Harris splits the same way, its text calling the watch a Big Bang of some variation while its caption labels it a Diagono Chronograph. Downey has said he wore Bvlgari in the film under a sponsorship, which is the strongest argument for the revision. (aBlogtoWatch, Theo & Harris) Montres de Luxe independently reads the same watch as a steel Big Bang chronograph on a rubber strap, worn on the right wrist through the Afghanistan sequence, corroborating the Hublot reading over the later Bvlgari revision. (Montres de Luxe)

© Marvel Studios / Paramount Pictures

Bvlgari Diagono Retrograde Day-Date Moonphase

Worn by Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. Worn in the Malibu workshop after Stark's return, and the most complicated thing in the film that is not a suit: a 42 mm rose gold Diagono running retrograde day and date across either side of the dial with a retrograde moonphase below, built in 300 pieces on brown alligator. Bvlgari supplied the film's watches under a sponsorship Downey has acknowledged, and the pieces shown were preproduction, only lightly announced at Basel when the film shot. (aBlogtoWatch; WorldWatchReview) Montres de Luxe independently names the Bvlgari Diagono as Stark's watch, without resolving it to this specific retrograde day-date moonphase execution. (Montres de Luxe)

© Marvel Studios / Paramount Pictures