Oppenheimer (2023 | USA | 180 minutes | Christopher Nolan)

As long as I’ve been writing about the arts (somewhere near twenty years now), I’ve tried to keep any effusiveness in check, lest I feel like one of those critics whose names appear on movie posters declaring some Hollywood dreck like a Transformers movie life-changing. So when I left the theater after watching Oppenheimer, my emotions were almost foreign. I felt wonder and astonishment and like I had seen one of the best films I’ve seen in my life. Each of the films at the top of my EOY lists in recent memory, all masterpieces (Pain and Glory, One Night in Miami, The Card Counter, Holy Spider), now seem smaller (though still remarkable and still powerful) in comparison.

Oppenheimer is an epic, three hour biopic of the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Los Alamos lab as part of the Manhattan Project and called “the father of the atomic bomb.” It has two stories that interlock with each other: how the atomic bomb came to be and how Oppenheimer’s life and career began to unravel after the bomb’s use on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Two things unquestionably true: the bomb killed thousands upon thousands of innocent Japanese people and dropping the bomb led directly to the end of World War II. This movie, though, doesn’t much concern itself with the philosophical arguments around whether the bomb’s use saved more lives than it took by hastening WWII or if the existence of the bomb creates peace through the threat of MAD, mutual assured destruction. All the better, I had plenty of those discussions when I studied US foreign policy in college. What Nolan and Oppenheimer display how someone could create something so massive and powerful at the behest of his country can watch that same country use the full weight of its power to destroy that very same person. 

Oppenheimer possessed one of the most brilliant minds of his era, but past was pretty complex. He had left-wing sympathies and while never an actual member of the Communist party, he had enough associations (his brother, his ex Jean Turlock – Florence Pugh) that he’d at least be seen as commie-adjacent. There was once a time US policy held Stalin was considered the lesser of two evils when compared with Hitler, though they are two of history’s most notorious monsters. In 2023, any positive references to Stalin should be quarantined to “Tankie Twitter.” Of course, the US alliance with Stalin and Russia quickly soured after the war and led to the decades-long Cold War. 

Cillian Murphy gave the acting performance of his career in the title role as he’s able to convey Oppenheimer’s brilliance. His costars said they’ve never worked with someone who immersed himself that much for a character. The acting around him is quite strong, as well with Robert Downey Jr.’s performance as Lewis Strauss, the former head of the Atomic Energy Commission whose post-war treatment of Oppenheimer became a referendum for his worthiness to become Commerce Secretary under President Eisenhower. Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty and Matt Damon as Gen. Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project, are also quite excellent. 

I also enjoyed seeing a lot of well-known actors playing famous scientists (Vannevar Bush – Matthew Modine; Edward Teller – Benny Safdie; Niels Bohr – Kenneth Branaugh, as examples).

There is a scene after Hiroshima and Nagasaki where Oppenheimer is giving a triumphant speech to raucous applause where the man of the hour 90 seconds until midnight declares his only regret was not finishing the bomb soon enough to drop it on Germany that is one of the most potent scenes I can recall in a lifetime of watching movies. I don’t want to reveal the details but it shocked me to my core and it’s something I’ll think about often. Almost all of the movie’s moral and emotional weight reaches its apex at that moment. 

It was such a pleasure watching each moment unveil itself to where the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer comes into focus as the film’s unstoppable momentum continues. I found myself getting more and more invested each minute. It’s phenomenal filmmaking and I implore everyone to see it as soon as they can. 

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Oppenheimer is playing in theaters pretty much everywhere. 

This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist. More information about the strikes can be found on the SAG-AFTRA Strike hubs. Donations to support striking workers can be made at the Entertainment Community Fund.