American Christopher Walken received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in which movie?

Christopher Walken (born 1943) is an American actor of stage and screen. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and TV shows but has received only one Academy Award for his appearance in the 1978 film ‘Deer Hunter’. The story takes place in Clairton, Pennsylvania, a working-class town on the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh, and in Vietnam.

It was an epic war drama film about a trio of Russian-American steelworkers whose lives were changed forever after fighting in the Vietnam War (1955 -1975). The three actors are Robert DeNiro (born 1943), John Savage (born 1949) and Walken. Running for 184 minutes, the film was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won five: Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Camino), Best Supporting Actor for Walken, Best Sound, and Best Film Editing.

The plot takes the three friends who work in a steel mill to Vietnam in 1969 where they are reunited but captured by the Viet Cong. They are imprisoned in a cage along a river and forced to rotate participating in a torturous game of Russian roulette against other prisoners while the jailers place bets.

When the three finally escape, they float along the river’s current on a large tree trunk and are rescued by an American helicopter.

Returning to the U.S. and trying to adjust to civilian life is challenging as the three relive to varying degrees their trauma experience from Vietnam, including physical and psychological trauma.