Oppenheimer
3h
June 13, 2023
Oppenheimer is a 2023 epic biographical thriller film[a] written, directed, and produced by Christopher Nolan.[8] It follows the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist who helped develop the first nuclear weapons during World War II. Based on the 2005 biography American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, the film chronicles Oppenheimer’s studies, his direction of the Los Alamos Laboratory, and his fall from grace after his 1954 security hearing. Cillian Murphy stars as Oppenheimer, alongside Robert Downey Jr. as the United States Atomic Energy Commission member Lewis Strauss. The ensemble supporting cast includes Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, and Kenneth Branagh.
Oppenheimer was announced in September 2021. It is Nolan’s first film not distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures since Memento (2000), due to his conflicts regarding the studio’s simultaneous theatrical and HBO Max release schedule.[9] Murphy was the first cast member to sign on the following month, with the rest joining between November 2021 and April 2022. Pre-production began by January 2022, and filming took place from February to May. The cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema, used a combination of IMAX 65 mm and 65 mm large-format film, including, for the first time, scenes in IMAX black-and-white film photography. As with many of his previous films, Nolan used extensive practical effects, with minimal compositing.
Oppenheimer premiered at Le Grand Rex in Paris on July 11, 2023, and was theatrically released in the US and the UK ten days later by Universal. Its concurrent release with Warner Bros.’s Barbie was the catalyst of the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, encouraging audiences to see both films as a double feature. Oppenheimer grossed $966 million worldwide, becoming the third-highest-grossing film of 2023, the highest-grossing World War II-related film, the highest-grossing biographical film, and the second-highest-grossing R-rated film.
Among its many accolades, Oppenheimer won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Murphy, and Best Supporting Actor for Downey. It also won five Golden Globe Awards (including Best Motion Picture – Drama) and seven British Academy Film Awards (including Best Film), and was named one of the top ten films of 2023 by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute.
oppenheimer Plot
In 1926, the 22-year-old doctoral student J. Robert Oppenheimer grapples with anxiety and homesickness while studying experimental quantum physics under Patrick Blackett at the Cavendish Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. Upset with Blackett’s attitude, Oppenheimer leaves him an apple poisoned with cyanide but later retrieves it. The visiting scientist Niels Bohr advises Oppenheimer to study theoretical physics at the University of Göttingen instead.
Oppenheimer completes his PhD and meets the scientist Isidor Isaac Rabi. They later meet the theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg in Switzerland. Wanting to expand quantum physics research in the US, Oppenheimer begins teaching at the University of California, Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology. He marries Katherine “Kitty” Puening, a biologist and ex-communist, and has an intermittent affair with Jean Tatlock, a troubled communist psychiatrist who later dies by suicide.
When nuclear fission is discovered in 1938 after the Germans succeed in splitting the atom, Oppenheimer realizes it could be weaponized. In 1942, during World War II, US Army Colonel Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project, recruits Oppenheimer as the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory to develop an atomic bomb. Oppenheimer fears the German nuclear research program, led by Heisenberg, might yield a fission bomb for the Nazis.
Oppenheimer assembles a team consisting of Rabi, Hans Bethe, and Edward Teller, and collaborates with the scientists Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, and David L. Hill at the University of Chicago. Teller’s calculations reveal an atomic detonation could trigger a catastrophic chain reaction that would ignite the atmosphere and destroy the world. After consulting with Albert Einstein, Oppenheimer concludes the chances are acceptably low. Teller attempts to leave the project after his proposal to construct a hydrogen bomb is rejected, but Oppenheimer convinces him to stay.
After Germany’s surrender in 1945, some scientists question the bomb’s relevance. Oppenheimer believes it would end the ongoing Pacific War and save Allied lives. The Trinity test is successful, and President Harry S. Truman orders the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in Japan‘s surrender. Though publicly praised, Oppenheimer is guilt-ridden and haunted by the destruction and mass fatalities. After Oppenheimer expresses his guilt to Truman, the president berates him and dismisses his plea to cease further atomic development.
As an advisor to the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), Oppenheimer’s stance generates controversy, while Teller’s hydrogen bomb receives renewed interest amidst the burgeoning Cold War. AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss resents Oppenheimer for publicly dismissing Strauss’s concerns about exporting radioisotopes and for recommending negotiations with the Soviet Union after the Soviets successfully detonated their own bomb. Strauss also believes that Oppenheimer denigrated him during a conversation Oppenheimer had with Einstein in 1947.
In 1954, wanting to eliminate Oppenheimer’s political influence, Strauss secretly orchestrates a private security hearing before a Personnel Security Board concerning Oppenheimer’s Q clearance during which his loyalty to America is questioned. However, the hearing is a show trial. Oppenheimer’s past communist ties are exploited, and his associates’ testimony is twisted against him, with Teller’s being the most damaging. After Kitty delivers impassioned testimony in defense of herself and her husband, the board no longer suspects Oppenheimer of disloyalty but revokes his clearance, thereby damaging his public image and limiting his influence on American nuclear policy.
In 1959, during Strauss’s Senate confirmation hearing for Secretary of Commerce, Hill testifies about Strauss’s personal motives for engineering Oppenheimer’s downfall. Strauss’s nomination is voted down. In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson presents Oppenheimer with the Enrico Fermi Award as a gesture of political rehabilitation.
A flashback reveals that Oppenheimer and Einstein’s 1947 conversation never mentioned Strauss. Instead, the two discussed Oppenheimer’s legacy, and Oppenheimer expressed his fear that they had indeed started a chain reaction that will destroy the world.
oppenheimer Cast
- Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist and director of the Los Alamos Laboratory.[10]
- Emily Blunt as Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer, Robert Oppenheimer’s wife and a former Communist Party USA member.[11]
- Matt Damon as Gen. Leslie Groves, a United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) officer and director of the Manhattan Project.[12]
- Robert Downey Jr. as Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss, a retired Naval Reserve officer and high-ranking member of the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).[12]
- Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, a psychiatrist, Communist Party USA member, and Robert Oppenheimer’s romantic interest.[13]
