Oppenheimer is a 2023 epic biographical thriller film written, co-produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan. It follows the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist who led the development of the first nuclear weapons during World War II. Based on the 2005 biography American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, the film dramatizes Oppenheimer's studies, his direction of the Los Alamos Laboratory and his 1954 security hearing. Cillian Murphy stars as Oppenheimer, alongside an ensemble supporting cast that includes Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, and Kenneth Branagh.
Oppenheimer was announced in September 2021. It was 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. Murphy was the first cast member to join, 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, selected scenes in IMAX black-and-white film photography. As with many of his previous films, Nolan used extensive practical effects and claimed minimal use of compositing; despite these claims, the final film contained several hundred VFX shots made by a mostly uncredited VFX crew of around 160.
Oppenheimer premiered at Le Grand Rex in Paris on Tuesday, July 11, 2023, and was theatrically released in the United States and the United Kingdom on July 21 by Universal Pictures. 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 received widespread critical acclaim and grossed over $983 million worldwide, becoming the third-highest-grossing film of 2023. It was the highest-grossing biographical film of all time until being overtaken by Michael in 2026.
The recipient of many accolades, Oppenheimer was nominated for thirteen awards at the 96th Academy Awards and won seven, including Best Picture, Best Director (Nolan), Best Actor (Murphy), and Best Supporting Actor (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 10 films of 2023 by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute.
Plot
In the 1930s, J. Robert Oppenheimer teaches at the California Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley after studying theoretical physics in Europe. A number of Berkeley academics are also Communist Party members, but Oppenheimer does not join himself.
After World War II breaks out, Ernest Lawrence of the Radiation Lab cautions Oppenheimer against having communist connections. Oppenheimer scales back and is later approached by General Leslie Groves to lead the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer proposes a new laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, where they could endeavor to build an atomic bomb before the Nazis. Edward Teller is recruited to Los Alamos and theorizes that an explosion could cause global atmospheric ignition. When his theory is disproved, he starts researching fusion-based weapons instead of working on the proposed fission bombs.
In July 1945, the US Army successfully conducts the Trinity test, the first denotation of a nuclear weapon. Subsequently, the United States detonates two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to conclude World War II. In the immediate aftermath, Oppenheimer meets with President Harry S. Truman, to whom he expresses his remorse on building the bomb. Truman absolves him of all responsibility, but is annoyed at Oppenheimer’s remorse. Oppenheimer is labeled 'father of the atomic bomb', but his public stance in the post-war years changes towards nuclear non-proliferation.
In 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tests a plutonium bomb, similar to one developed at Los Alamos. In a meeting of top advisors, Oppenheimer frustrates Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chairman Lewis Strauss by favoring arms talks with Russia instead of escalating with Teller's proposed thermonuclear weapons. During a heated period of discussion, Oppenheimer's past security lapses are brought up, including rekindling an affair with Communist ex-lover, Jean Tatlock, immediately after gaining his security clearance in 1942. Oppenheimer had also protected his friend Haakon Chevalier from an espionage investigation, by directly lying to security officer Boris Pash.
In 1954, irritated at constantly being undermined by Oppenheimer, Strauss conspires with Borden to initiate a security clearance hearing for Oppenheimer. He appoints Roger Robb as the board's counsel, who replays the accusations of Oppenheimer's disloyalty towards the US. Groves, Isidor Rabi, and Oppenheimer's wife Kitty testify in favor of Oppenheimer, but Teller and staunch anti-communist William Borden testify against him. In the end, Oppenheimer's Q clearance is revoked by a two-to-one decision of the hearing's three judges, ending his government advisory role.
In 1959, Strauss is nominated as US Secretary of Commerce, which the US Senate is expected to confirm as per tradition. During his Senate confirmation hearing, Strauss is questioned over his actions relating to Oppenheimer's security hearing. Strauss alleges that the FBI was suspicious of Oppenheimer since his teaching days, well before Borden accused him of espionage in 1954. Strauss claims to not have acted against Oppenheimer through the security hearing, despite having many public disagreements with him. Strauss further alleges that Oppenheimer turned scientists against him, starting with Albert Einstein at Princeton University in 1947. Teller testifies in Strauss' favor, with Physicist David L. Hill of the Chicago Met Lab expected to follow suit. However, Hill instead exposes Strauss' personal vendetta and claims that scientific community is against Strauss. Shortly afterward, the Senate rejects Strauss' nomination.
While Oppenheimer receives the Enrico Fermi Award in 1963, a flashback reveals he never mentioned Strauss during his 1947 conversation with Einstein. Instead, he admits to Einstein that the global catastrophe they feared, and then believed was averted, was now ironically inevitable.
Cast
Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist and director of the Los Alamos Laboratory Emily Blunt as Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer, Robert Oppenheimer's wife and a former Communist Party USA member Matt Damon as Gen. Leslie Groves, a United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) officer and director of the Manhattan Project Robert Downey Jr. as Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss, a retired Naval Reserve officer and high-ranking member of the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, a psychiatrist, Communist Party USA member, and Robert Oppenheimer's romantic interest Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence, a Nobel-winning nuclear physicist who worked with Oppenheimer at the University of California, Berkeley Casey Affleck as Boris Pash, a US Army military intelligence officer and commander of the Alsos Mission Rami Malek as David L. Hill, a nuclear physicist at the Metallurgical Laboratory, who helped to create the Chicago Pile Kenneth Branagh as Niels Bohr, a Nobel-winning Danish physicist, philosopher and Oppenheimer's personal idol Benny Safdie as Edward Teller, a Hungarian theoretical physicist known for being the "father of the hydrogen bomb" Jason Clarke as Roger Robb, an attorney and future US circuit judge who served as special counsel to the AEC at Oppenheimer's security hearing Dylan Arnold as Frank Oppenheimer, Robert's younger brother and a particle physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project Tom Conti as Albert Einstein, Nobel-winning German theoretical physicist known for developing the theory of relativity James D'Arcy as Patrick Blackett, Oppenheimer's doctoral supervisor and Nobel-winning physicist at Cambridge University David Dastmalchian as William L. Borden, a lawyer and executive director of the United States Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE) Dane DeHaan as Maj Gen. Kenneth Nichols, a United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the deputy district engineer of the Manhattan Project Alden Ehrenreich as a Senate aide to Lewis Strauss during Strauss's nomination for United States Secretary of Commerce Tony Goldwyn as Gordon Gray, a government official and chairman of the committee deciding the revoking of Oppenheimer security clearance Jefferson Hall as Haakon Chevalier ("Hoke"), a Berkeley professor who became friends with Oppenheimer at university, and was central to the Chevalier Incident David Krumholtz as Isidor Isaac Rabi, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who worked as a consultant on the Manhattan Project Matthew Modine as Vannevar Bush, head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development
Scott Grimes as Counsel to Lewis Strauss Kurt Koehler as Thomas A. Morgan, an industrialist and former chairman of the board of the Sperry Corporation who was one of the panel members at Oppenheimer's security clearance hearing John Gowans as Ward V. Evans, a chemist and academic who served as one of the panel members at Oppenheimer's security clearance hearing Macon Blair as Lloyd K. Garrison, a lawyer who helped to represent Oppenheimer at his security clearance hearing Gregory Jbara as Sen. Warren Magnuson, Chairman of Senate Commerce Committee Harry Groener as Sen. Gale W. McGee Tim DeKay as Sen. John Pastore Matthias Schweighöfer as Werner Heisenberg, a German Nobel Prize-winning physicist who worked in Germany's nuclear weapons program during World War II Alex Wolff as Luis Walter Alvarez, a Nobel-winning physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project Josh Zuckerman as Giovanni Rossi Lomanitz, a physicist who became Oppenheimer's protégé at Berkeley Rory Keane as Hartland Snyder, a physicist, who collaborated with Oppenheimer to calculate the gravitational collapse of a dust particle sphere Michael Angarano as Robert Serber, a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project Britt Kyle as Barbara Chevalier, Hoke's wife Emma Dumont as Jackie Oppenheimer, Frank's wife and Robert's sister-in-law Guy Burnet as George C. Eltenton, a chemical engineer in the US with ties to the Soviet Union Louise Lombard as Ruth Tolman, a psychologist close to Oppenheimer during the development of the atomic bomb Tom Jenkins as Richard C. Tolman, Ruth's husband and General Groves' chief scientific adviser on the Manhattan Project Olli Haaskivi as Edward Condon, a nuclear physicist who helped with the development of radar and briefly took part in the Manhattan Project David Rysdahl as Donald Hornig, a chemist who worked on the firing unit at Los Alamos Josh Peck as Kenneth Bainbridge, a physicist who was the director of the Manhattan Project's Trinity nuclear test Jack Quaid as Richard Feynman, an American Nobel-winning theoretical physicist who worked in the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos Gustaf Skarsgård as Hans Bethe, a German-American Nobel-winning theoretical physicist and the head of the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos James Urbaniak as Kurt Gödel, an Austrian logician and mathematician known for his theorems that revolutionized mathematics and had far-reaching implications for philosophy and computer science Trond Fausa as George Kistiakowsky, a Ukrainian-born Harvard professor who took part in the Manhattan Project Devon Bostick as Seth Neddermeyer, a physicist who discovered the muon and advocated for the implosion-type nuclear weapon used in the Trinity Test