Oppenheimer (2023) is the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physicist. Oppenheimer and his team develop the first nuclear weapons, and he must wrestle with the consequences of his actions after the bombs are dropped on Japan.

I enjoyed the film immensely. The music for the film was composed by Ludwig Göransson, and it was incredibly good. Cillian Murphy’s portrayal of Oppenheimer was excellent, and the entire cast was fantastic (featuring talents such as Robert Downey Jr, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon and Kenneth Branagh). Without spoiling too much, I will say that the atomic bomb sequences were incredible moments. It’s fascinating to watch the way Oppenheimer wrestles with the morality of the atomic bomb throughout the film. His internal struggles are shown with some very imaginative imagery, and he feels incredible guilt after the bombs are dropped.

The film is three hours long, which I have no problem with, but as usual this has forced the filmmakers to condense certain things to prevent the film being even longer. Certain characters and events have been merged and moved closer together so the film can happen. For instance, the film has Downey Jr’s Lewis Strauss come to power as chairman of the AEC earlier than he did in real life. However, the film is in large part based on the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a biography written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. This resulted in most of the film sticking extremely closely to reality. If not in exact words, the film’s dialogue sticks closely in meaning to real accounts.

Final rating:

Enjoyability: 4.5/5

Accuracy: 4/5

Storytelling: 4/5

TOTAL: 12.5/15 or 83%