Oppenheimer (film)

Oppenheimer (film)
Film poster, depicting J. Robert Oppenheimer in front of the "Gadget" nuclear bomb Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Christopher Nolan
Produced by	Emma Thomas Charles Roven Christopher Nolan
Screenplay by	Christopher Nolan
Based on	American Prometheus by Kai Bird Martin J. Sherwin
Starring	Cillian Murphy Emily Blunt Matt Damon Robert Downey Jr. Florence Pugh Josh Hartnett Casey Affleck Rami Malek Kenneth Branagh
Music by	Ludwig Göransson
Cinematography	Hoyte van Hoytema
Edited by	Jennifer Lame
Production company	Syncopy Inc. Atlas Entertainment
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release dates	July 11, 2023 (2023-07-11) (Le Grand Rex) July 21, 2023 (2023-07-21) (United States and United Kingdom)
Running time	180 minutes
Country	United States United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$100 million
Box office	$180.4 million

Oppenheimer is a 2023 biographical thriller film written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Based on the 2005 biography American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, the film chronicles the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist who was pivotal in developing the first nuclear weapons as part of the Manhattan Project, and thereby ushering in the Atomic Age. Cillian Murphy stars as Oppenheimer, with Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer's wife, Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer, Matt Damon as General Leslie Groves, Oppenheimer's military handler, and Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, a senior member of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. The ensemble cast includes Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, and Kenneth Branagh.

The project was announced in September 2021 after Universal Pictures won a bidding war for Nolan's screenplay. Murphy signed on to portray Oppenheimer in October, with others in the main cast joining between November 2021 and April 2022. Pre-production was underway by January 2022, with filming taking place from February to May. Oppenheimer was filmed in a combination of IMAX 65 mm and 65mm large-format film, including, for the first time in history, sections in IMAX black-and-white film photography. As with his previous works, Nolan used extensive practical effects and minimal computer-generated imagery.

Oppenheimer premiered at Le Grand Rex in Paris on July 11, 2023, and was theatrically released in the United States and United Kingdom on July 21, 2023, by Universal Pictures. Its simultaneous release with Barbie led to the "Barbenheimer" phenomenon on social media, which encouraged audiences to see both films as a double feature. The film has grossed $174 million worldwide and received critical acclaim, with particular praise for its cast, screenplay, and visuals.

Plot

Note: The film's events take place in a non-linear timeline, alternating between Oppenheimer's story from Cambridge to Los Alamos, his security hearing in 1954, and Strauss' confirmation hearing in 1959. For the purposes of this article, the story is summarized in chronological order.

In 1926, 22-year-old J. Robert Oppenheimer grapples with homesickness and anxiety while studying at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, under the demanding Patrick Blackett. Oppenheimer completes his PhD in physics at the University of Göttingen in Germany, working alongside renowned physicist Werner Heisenberg. Oppenheimer returns to the United States and hopes to expand quantum physics research. He begins teaching at the University of California, Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology. He encounters figures such as Ernest Lawrence, the 1939 Nobel Prize winner who emphasizes practical applications; Jean Tatlock, a member of the Communist Party USA with whom he has an intermittent romantic relationship until her eventual suicide; and his future wife Katherine Puening, a biologist and ex-Communist.

U.S. Army General Leslie Groves recruits Oppenheimer to lead the Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb after Oppenheimer assures Groves that he has no communist sympathies. Oppenheimer, who is Jewish, is particularly driven by the possibility that the Nazis have a nuclear weapons program underway, headed by Heisenberg. Oppenheimer assembles a scientific team in Los Alamos, New Mexico to secretly create the bomb, intending it will save the world despite its potential global repercussions. At one point, he and Albert Einstein discuss the theoretical possibility that such a bomb might trigger a chain reaction that could destroy the world.

When Germany surrenders in World War II, some of the project's scientists doubt its continued importance. Nonetheless, the bomb is completed and the Trinity test is successfully conducted just before the Potsdam Conference. U.S. president Harry S. Truman decides to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forcing Japan's surrender and thrusting Oppenheimer into the public eye as the "father of the atomic bomb". Haunted by the immense destruction and suffering the bombs caused, Oppenheimer meets with Truman to urge restraint in developing even more powerful weapons. Truman is disgusted by Oppenheimer's distress, which he perceives as weakness, and insists that he alone, as president, bears responsibility for the bomb's use. Oppenheimer continues to feel intense guilt.

Oppenheimer advocates against further nuclear development, especially the hydrogen bomb, positioning him against fellow Manhattan Project scientist Edward Teller. His stance becomes a point of contention amid the tense Cold War with the Soviet Union. Lewis Strauss, chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission member, resents Oppenheimer for publicly dismissing Strauss's concerns about the export of radioisotopes and – per Strauss's belief – badmouthing him to Einstein. At a hearing intended to remove Oppenheimer from political influence, he is betrayed by the testimony of Teller and other associates, and Strauss exploits Oppenheimer's associations with communists and former communists, such as Tatlock and Oppenheimer's brother Frank. Oppenheimer's security clearance is revoked, his public image destroyed, and his policy influence neutralized. Later, at a Senate confirmation hearing on the nomination of Strauss as Secretary of Commerce, Strauss's personal motives in engineering Oppenheimer's downfall are revealed by journalist David Hill, and Strauss is not confirmed.

In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson presents Oppenheimer the Enrico Fermi Award as a gesture of political rehabilitation. His earlier conversation with Einstein is revealed to have been not about Strauss, but rather the far-reaching implications of nuclear weapons. Oppenheimer wonders whether the Trinity test – to a large extent his creation – set in motion a "chain reaction" of events that could lead to a nuclear holocaust.

Cast

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Cillian Murphy (L) plays J. Robert Oppenheimer (R)

• Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer
• Emily Blunt as Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer
• Matt Damon as Leslie Groves
• Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss
• Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock
• Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence
• Casey Affleck as Boris Pash
• Rami Malek as David L. Hill
• Kenneth Branagh as Niels Bohr
• Benny Safdie as Edward Teller
• Jason Clarke as Roger Robb
• Dylan Arnold as Frank Oppenheimer
• Tom Conti as Albert Einstein
• James D'Arcy as Patrick Blackett
• David Dastmalchian as William L. Borden
• Dane DeHaan as Kenneth Nichols
• Alden Ehrenreich as a Senate aide to Lewis Strauss
• Tony Goldwyn as Gordon Gray
• Jefferson Hall as Haakon Chevalier
• David Krumholtz as Isidor Isaac Rabi
• Matthew Modine as Vannevar Bush
• Gustaf Skarsgård as Hans Bethe
• Michael Angarano as Robert Serber
• Jack Quaid as Richard Feynman
• Josh Peck as Kenneth Bainbridge
• Olivia Thirlby as Lilli Hornig
• Danny Deferrari as Enrico Fermi
• Devon Bostick as Seth Neddermeyer
• Alex Wolff as Luis Walter Alvarez
• Scott Grimes as Counsel
• Josh Zuckerman as Giovanni Rossi Lomanitz
• Matthias Schweighöfer as Werner Heisenberg
• Christopher Denham as Klaus Fuchs
• David Rysdahl as Donald Hornig
• Guy Burnet as George Eltenton
• Louise Lombard as Ruth Tolman
• Harrison Gilbertson as Philip Morrison
• Emma Dumont as Jackie Oppenheimer
• Trond Fausa Aurvåg as George Kistiakowsky
• Olli Haaskivi as Edward Condon
• Gary Oldman as Harry S. Truman
• John Gowans as Ward Evans
• Kurt Koehler as Thomas A. Morgan
• Macon Blair as Lloyd K. Garrison
• Harry Groener as Gale W. McGee
• Jack Cutmore-Scott as Lyall Johnson
• James Remar as Henry Stimson
• Gregory Jbara as Warren Magnuson
• Tim DeKay as John Pastore
• James Urbaniak as Kurt Gödel
• Ronald Auguste as J. Ernest Wilkins Jr.
• Michael A. Baker as Joe Volpe

Production

Development

Following the publication of the 2005 biography American Prometheus written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, director Sam Mendes had been interested in adapting the book into a film. However, the project never materialized and the authors grew pessimistic about the prospects of the book being adapted to the screen. By 2015, J. David Wargo, who owned the film rights to the book, went through various scripts with the intent of a film adaptation. Wargo later flew to Hollywood and met James Woods, who had also set up a meeting with Charles Roven, who had previously worked as a producer on various films of Christopher Nolan. In 2019, towards the end of production on Nolan's film Tenet (2020), star Robert Pattinson gave the director a book containing Oppenheimer's speeches as a wrap gift. He had felt that as Tenet's main idea was "What if you could un-invent an awful technology? What if the toothpaste could be put back in the tube?", making the film would have been a logical extension and had also been fascinated with the idea of exploring the historical reality of the situation rather than employing it as an analogy in a science fiction context.

In December 2020, Warner Bros. Pictures announced plans to give its 2021 films simultaneous releases in theaters and on HBO Max, citing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the film industry. Nolan, who had partnered with the studio on each one of his films starting with Insomnia (2002), was outraged with the decision as he had been a proponent of film theaters. In January 2021, media reports mentioned the possibility that Nolan's next film could be the first not to be financed or distributed by Warner Bros. By mid-2021, the filmmaker had already left Warner Bros. and had been meeting with other studios to develop his new project. Nolan had previously supported the studio's decision to give Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) a simultaneous release, stating that he perceived that situation to have been handled properly, but said he had been excluded from any discussions regarding the postponed release of Tenet.

In September 2021, it was announced that Nolan would write and direct a biographical film set during World War II about J. Robert Oppenheimer, creator of the atomic bomb, with Cillian Murphy in negotiations to star. The director would eventually read American Prometheus later that year, and decided to base his screenplay around the book, while also considering Oppenheimer to be the most important historical figure to ever live due to his role in the creation of the atomic bomb. Nolan approached multiple studios for the project, including Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, and Apple Studios due to his strained relationship with Warner Bros. According to insiders, Paramount was out of the selection early on in the wake of the replacement of CEO and chairman Jim Gianopulos with Brian Robbins, an advocate for increased streaming service releases. Nolan had connections to Donna Langley, the chairman and chief content officer of the NBCUniversal studio group, who agreed with the filmmaker's stance on the motion picture industry. As such, Universal agreed to finance and distribute the film, with production set to begin in the first quarter of 2022. The studio also agreed to Nolan's stipulations, which included a production budget of $100 million, an equal marketing budget, an exclusive theatrical window ranging from 90–120 days, twenty percent of the film's first-dollar gross, and a three-week period before and after the film's release in which Universal could not release another new film.

Writing

File:Christopher Nolan Cannes 2018.jpg

Writer, director, and producer Christopher Nolan

Oppenheimer is the first script written by Christopher Nolan in the first person, as he wanted the narrative to be conveyed from Oppenheimer's perspective and described the "texture" of the film being "how the personal interacts with the historic and the geopolitical" with the intention of making it a cautionary tale. He had began writing the script after he had finished Tenet and had written it in a few months, although Nolan had been envisioning the film for over 20 years. A primary theme of Oppenheimer is dealing with the consequences of Oppenheimer's actions, with Nolan opting to explore how consequences can affect people in a delayed manner as he felt people are not "necessarily confronted with the strongest or worst elements of your action in the moment". He had also deliberately chosen to alternate between scenes in color and black-and-white, explaining that he wanted the film to be conveyed from both an objective and a subjective perspective. Elaborating upon the dichotomy of color and black-and-white, he said that the majority of the film would be in the color timeline of Oppenheimer's subjective experiences, while a "more objective view of his story from a different character's point of view" would be present in the black-and-white timeline. Desiring to make the film as subjective as possible, the production team decided to visualize Oppenheimer's conceptions of the quantum world and waves of energy. The story's framing device had spanned from Oppenheimer's security-clearance hearing in 1954 to Strauss's Senate confirmation hearing in 1959 to become President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Secretary of Commerce, with the former being in color and the latter being in black-and-white. Nolan had also noted how Oppenheimer had never publicly apologized for his role in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, desiring to portray that guilt as he believed that Oppenheimer had been genuinely guilty of his actions.

I think of any character I've dealt with, Oppenheimer is by far the most ambiguous and paradoxical. Which, given that I've made three Batman films, is saying a lot.

— Christopher Nolan, Total Film

He had begun by trying to find the "thread that connected the quantum realm, the vibration of energy, and Oppenheimer's own personal journey" and had sought to portray the difficulties in his life, particular in regards to his sexual life. As such, Nolan wanted to candidly portray his affair with Jean Tatlock. He had also wanted to explore Tatlock's influence on his life, since she was a Communist, as Nolan had known that it would have "enormous ramifications for his [Oppenheimer's] later life and his ultimate fate". Nolan also sought to explore the relationship between Admiral Lewis Strauss, former chair of the Atomic Energy Commission during the Manhattan Project, and Oppenheimer. He had been inspired by the relationship between Mozart and Antonio Salieri in the film Amadeus (1984). Another critical moment of the film was the meeting in which President Harry S. Truman called Oppenheimer a "crybaby". Nolan had wanted to convey the scene from Oppenheimer's perspective and had felt that it was a "massive moment of disillusion, a huge turning point [for Oppenheimer] in his approach to trying to deal with the consequences of what he'd been involved with", while also underscoring that it is a "huge shift in perception about the reality of Oppenheimer's perception". He had also wanted to execute a quick tonal shift after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, desiring to go from the "highest triumphalism, the highest high, to the lowest low in the shortest amount of screen time possible". For the ending, Nolan had chosen to make it intentionally vague to be open to interpretation and had refrained from being didactic or conveying specific messages in his work. However, he did have the intention to have a "strong set of troubling reverberations at the end".

Nolan had first been aware of Oppenheimer after hearing the lyric "How can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer's deadly toy?" in the song "Russians" (1985) by Sting. He was also inspired by his fears of nuclear holocaust throughout his childhood, as he had lived during the era of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the anti-nuclear protests in RAF Greenham Common. He had also opined that "while our relationship with that [nuclear] fear has ebbed and flowed with time, the threat itself never actually went away", and felt the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine had caused a resurgence of nuclear anxiety. Nolan had also written a script for a biographic film about Howard Hughes approximately during the time of production of Martin Scorsese's The Aviator (2004), which had given him insight on how to write a script regarding a person's life. Emily Blunt had described the Oppenheimer script as "emotional" and resembling that of a thriller film. She had also commented that she felt Nolan had "Trojan-Horsed a biopic into a thriller".

Casting

Oppenheimer marks the sixth collaboration between Nolan and Murphy, and the first starring Murphy as the lead. To prepare for the role, the actor did what he summarized as "an awful lot of reading" on Oppenheimer's life and had also been inspired by David Bowie's appearance in the 1970s. Nolan had called Murphy one day requesting him to play the part, and Murphy had enthusiastically accepted his offer and was excited to play a lead role in a Nolan film. Afterwards, Nolan flew to Dublin to meet with Murphy, who had read the script in his hotel room by September 2020.

The casting process was so secretive that some of the actors did not know which role they were going to play until they signed on. Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, and Emily Blunt took pay cuts to work on the film, earning $4 million each in lieu of their usual $10–20 million salaries. Downey Jr. had gone to Nolan's house to read the script, which was printed in black on red paper. Blunt had met Nolan in Los Angeles and, when she was offered the role of Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer, she enthusiastically accepted; she had also contacted Murphy to get an expectation of what working with Nolan would be like. Meanwhile, Matt Damon had chosen to take a break from acting following negotiations with his wife Luciana Barroso in couples therapy unless Nolan had hired him for a film. Nolan cast writer-director Benny Safdie as physicist Edward Teller after asking director Paul Thomas Anderson about his experiences directing Safdie in Licorice Pizza (2021). Safdie worked alongside a nuclear physicist at Columbia University while in high school. Downey Jr. has described Oppenheimer as "the best film" he has appeared in.

Filming

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Filming took place at the University of California, Berkeley in May 2022.

Pre-production was underway by January 2022 in New Mexico, where a two-day casting call took place in Santa Fe and Los Alamos for people to audition to play local residents, military personnel, and scientists. Another casting call was held in February. Filming began in late February 2022, with Hoyte van Hoytema serving as cinematographer. Gary Oldman said he would be on set for a day in May for "one scene, a page and a half". Nolan's eldest daughter, Flora, had also filmed a scene in which she played a young woman in an explosion as part of a vision from Oppenheimer. His intention of including the scene was to convey that "the point is that if you create the ultimate destructive power, it will also destroy those who are near and dear to you" and felt that doing so was the best way of expressing it.

The film used a combination of IMAX 65 mm and 65 mm large-format film. It is also the first film to shoot sections on IMAX black-and-white photographic film, which Kodak created and FotoKem developed specifically for the movie. In the second week of April, filming took place at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Filming also occurred in California, primarily around the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. The production team had filmed scenes in Belen, New Mexico, with Murphy climbing a 100-foot steel tower, a replica of the original site used in the Manhattan Project, in rough weather. Filming wrapped in May 2022.

Filming involved the use of real explosives to recreate the Trinity nuclear test, forgoing the use of computer-generated graphics. A special set was created with gasoline, propane, aluminum powder, and magnesium being used. While using miniatures for the practical effect, the film's special effects supervisor Scott R. Fisher referred to them as "big-atures", as the team tried to make the models as large as possible. To make it look like they had natural size, the team used forced perspective. A 1940s-style town was also built from scratch for the film. Visualizations of the interactions between atoms, molecules and energy waves, as well as the depiction of stars, black holes and supernovas, were also achieved through practical methods. Nolan claimed the movie contains no computer-generated effects. Scenes had also been filmed in Oppenheimer's original cabin, which had been restored. Kai Bird was also on set and impressed by Murphy's performance as Oppenheimer during filming.

Post-production

During post-production, editing was completed by Jennifer Lame, who had previously edited Tenet. While inspecting the footage during editing, Nolan and Lame had performed "character passes" in which they made sure that all the characters were properly displayed due to the film having a faster pace than most traditional blockbusters. Visual effects were handled by DNEG, marking their eighth collaboration with Nolan. Andrew Jackson was the visual effects supervisor. Digital compositing was used for the Trinity scene to add multi-layers to the explosion which was shot in a multifaceted viewpoint.

The film received an R-rating from the Motion Picture Association for "some sexuality, nudity, and language", making it Nolan's first film to receive that rating since Insomnia (2002).

Music

Main article: Oppenheimer (soundtrack)

Ludwig Göransson composed the score for the film, after doing so for Nolan's previous film, Tenet. Göransson's score was featured in a trailer for the film on May 8, 2023. It was also featured in the Universal Pictures exclusive five-minute Opening Look on July 13. Nolan had advised him to use the violin for Oppenheimer's central theme in the film, with Göransson remarking that he had felt that it could go from "the most romantic, beautiful tone in a split second to neurotic and heart wrenching, horror sounds".

Release

Theatrical

Oppenheimer had its world premiere at Le Grand Rex in Paris, France on July 11, 2023, followed by the British premiere at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square in London on July 13, and the American premiere at AMC Loews Lincoln Square in New York City on July 17. Both the London and the New York premieres were affected by the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, as some actors left the London premiere early, and Universal Pictures canceled the red carpet event for the New York premiere. SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher later claimed the studios "duped" the guild into accepting a 12-day-extension for negotiations to continue promoting summer films like Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was released theatrically on July 21, 2023, by Universal Pictures. In addition to standard digital cinemas, it will be also released in various film formats including IMAX 70 mm (30 prints), standard 70 mm (113 prints) and 35 mm (around 80 prints).

The film was released on the same day as Barbie, a fantasy comedy film directed by Greta Gerwig based on Mattel's Barbie fashion dolls and media franchise, and distributed by Warner Bros. Due to the tonal and genre contrast between the two films, many social media users created memes about how the two films appealed to different audiences, and how they should be viewed as a double feature. The trend was dubbed "Barbenheimer". In an interview with La Vanguardia, Cillian Murphy endorsed the phenomenon, saying "My advice would be for people to go see both, on the same day. If they are good films, then that's cinema's gain."

Some lines of dialogue in the film were muted or removed before its release in India, however, a particular scene sparked controversy in the country.

Marketing

The film's teaser trailer was released on July 28, 2022, featuring a live countdown to 5:29 am (MST) on July 16, 2023, the 78th anniversary of the first detonation of an atomic weapon; it premiered in screenings of Nope before being posted online on Universal's social media profiles. Empire commented that it is exemplary of Nolan's style: "heady, brooding stuff with a real sense of weight". In May 2023, an official trailer debuted during preview screenings of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. It was subsequently released to the public on May 8, 2023, alongside a theatrical release poster.

Reception

Box office

As of July 23, 2023, Oppenheimer has grossed $80.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $93.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $174.2 million. Variety wrote that the film needed to gross $400 million worldwide to be profitable.

In the United States and Canada, Oppenheimer was released alongside Barbie, and was originally projected to gross $45–50 million from 3,610 theaters in its opening weekend. The week of their releases, AMC Theatres announced that over 40,000 AMC Stubs members had already pre-booked tickets to both films on the same day. After grossing $33 million on its first day (including $10.5 million from Thursday night previews), weekend estimates were raised to $77 million. It went on to debut to $80.5 million, finishing second behind Barbie and marking one of the best opening weekends ever for an R-rated drama; 64% of the audience was male, with 33% being 18–34 years old. The Barbenheimer phenomenon was credited with boosting interest in the film, with a total of 79% of tickets sold over the weekend (27% for Oppenheimer) being for the two films, a combined total of 18.5 million people. The film's opening weekend was Nolan's best for an original film, being the highest of his filmography outside of the latter two films from The Dark Knight trilogy.

Critical response

Critics praised Oppenheimer primarily for its screenplay, the performances of the cast (particularly Murphy and Downey Jr.), and the visuals; it was frequently cited as one of the best films of 2023 up to that point, although some criticism was aimed towards the writing of the female characters. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 94% of 331 reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Oppenheimer marks another engrossing achievement from Christopher Nolan that benefits from Murphy's tour-de-force performance and stunning visuals." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 89 out of 100, based on 64 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled at PostTrak gave it a 93% overall positive score, with 74% saying they would definitely recommend the film.

Richard Roeper of Chicago Sun-Times awarded Oppenheimer a perfect four out of four stars, describing it as "magnificent" and "one of the best films of the 21st century". The A.V. Club's Matthew Jackson deemed it a "masterpiece", adding that "it's Christopher Nolan's best film so far, a step up to a new level for one of our finest filmmakers, and a movie that burns itself into your brain". Empire's Dan Jolin labeled it a "masterfully constructed character study", taking particular note of Murphy's performance and van Hoytema's IMAX cinematography. Matt Zoller Seitz, writing for RogerEbert.com gave Oppenheimer a full four stars rating. He lauded Nolan's storytelling, exploration of Oppenheimer's character, and the film's technical achievements, concluding: "As a physical experience, Oppenheimer is something else entirely—it's hard to say exactly what, and that's what's so fascinating about it." Peter Travers of ABC News described the film as a "monumental achievement" and "one of the best films you'll see anywhere". Caryn James of BBC Culture similarly termed it "boldly imaginative and [Nolan's] most mature work yet", adding that it combined the "explosive, commercially-enticing action of The Dark Knight trilogy" with the "cerebral underpinnings" of Memento, Inception and Tenet. Saibal Chatterjee from NDTV rated the film 4.5 stars out of 5 and stated: "Oppenheimer, a cinematic achievement of blinding brilliance, achieves a sublime combination of visual grandeur, technical flair, emotional intimacy and an examination of the limits of human endeavor and ambition."

Despite praising the film's themes and performances, CNN's Brian Lowry believed that "Nolan juggles a lot, in a way that somewhat works to the movie's detriment".

Accolades

Oppenheimer received nominations for Best Thriller, Best Drama TV Spot (for a Feature Film), Best Sound Editing in a TV Spot (for a Feature Film), and Best Thriller TV Spot (for a Feature Film); and won Best Drama, Best Summer 2023 Blockbuster Trailer, and Best Sound Editing at the 2023 Golden Trailer Awards. It became a runner-up for Most Anticipated Film at the 6th Hollywood Critics Association Midseason Film Awards.

Bhagavad Gita scene

The Hindu right in India took offense at and demanded the removal of a scene in which Oppenheimer utters the "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds" verse from the Bhagavad Gita whilst having sex. Despite opposition from these elements, the film was well received in most of the country.

See also

• List of World War II films since 1990

External links

• Oppenheimer at IMDb
• Oppenheimer at AllMovie
• Oppenheimer at Rotten Tomatoes