Oppenheimer
The world forever changes.
The physicist who built the bomb spends the rest of his life being cross-examined by the country that asked him for it.
Three hours of rooms and conversations that plays like a thriller. The countdown is the easy part; the hearing is the horror.
- Director
- Christopher Nolan
- Signature
- Drama · Emotional · Pacing
- Worldwide
- $952M
Who's in it
Cast
The billed ensemble, with character names. Open any performer for their Nutevio filmography.
The Nutevio profile
Movie DNA
How Oppenheimer actually feels to watch, measured on the twelve traits our editors track across every Nutevio title.
Perfect if you enjoyed
Story overview
What It's About
Spoiler-free. Read the analysis below for the full argument.
The physicist who built the bomb spends the rest of his life being cross-examined by the country that asked him for it.
Nutevio Editorial Analysis
Why Oppenheimer works
Nolan's biography is structured like a trial, because it is one. Two timelines — the colour subjectivity of Oppenheimer's own memory, the black-and-white objectivity of Strauss's hearing — argue with each other for three hours until the film's real subject emerges: not the bomb, but the bureaucratic revenge taken on the man who built it.
Cillian Murphy plays Oppenheimer as a man permanently slightly out of phase with the room, and Hoyte van Hoytema shoots him in relentless close-up. The IMAX frame is used for faces rather than landscapes, which makes the Trinity test — silent, then unbearable — land as a psychological event.
The sound design does the moral work. Ludwig Göransson's strings accelerate past comfort, then drop out entirely; the loudest moment in the film is the stamping of feet in a lecture hall that Oppenheimer hears as detonation.
It is a blockbuster about committee meetings, security clearances and the ethics of expertise, and it made a billion dollars. That fact says as much about the moment as the film does.
By The Nutevio Editors
Where to watch
Streaming
Availability verified against regional listings.
Checking regional listings…
Why We Recommend It
Why It's Ranked
Oppenheimer appears in 3 Nutevio collections. Here is the argument behind each placement.
- Christopher Nolan Movies Ranked Ranked #4
Ranked #4 because he finally aimed the structural machinery at a real life.
Three hours of rooms, and none of them safe.
- Thriller Movies Ranked #5
Ranked #5 because rated 9.1 by the Nutevio editors — one of the strongest thriller titles in the catalogue.
The physicist who built the bomb spends the rest of his life being cross-examined by the country that asked him for it.
- Drama Movies Ranked #13
Ranked #13 because rated 9.1 by the Nutevio editors — one of the strongest drama titles in the catalogue.
The physicist who built the bomb spends the rest of his life being cross-examined by the country that asked him for it.
The record
Awards
30 wins · 28 nominations
Seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.
Academy Awards
7 wins · 6 nominations
- WinnerBest Picture
- WinnerBest Director
- WinnerBest Actor
- WinnerBest Supporting Actor
- WinnerBest Cinematography
- WinnerBest Film Editing
- WinnerBest Original Score
Golden Globes
5 wins · 5 nominations
- WinnerBest Motion Picture — Drama
- WinnerBest Director
- WinnerBest Actor — Drama
- WinnerBest Supporting Actor
- WinnerBest Original Score
BAFTA Awards
7 wins · 6 nominations
- WinnerBest Film
- WinnerBest Direction
- WinnerBest Leading Actor
- WinnerBest Supporting Actor
- WinnerBest Cinematography
- WinnerBest Editing
- WinnerBest Original Score
Screen Actors Guild Awards
3 wins · 1 nomination
- WinnerOutstanding Cast in a Motion Picture
- WinnerOutstanding Male Actor in a Leading Role
- WinnerOutstanding Male Actor in a Supporting Role
Critics' Choice Awards
8 wins · 10 nominations
- WinnerBest Picture
- WinnerBest Director
- WinnerBest Actor
- WinnerBest Supporting Actor
- WinnerBest Cinematography
- WinnerBest Editing
- WinnerBest Score
- WinnerBest Ensemble
The numbers
Box Office & Release
Oppenheimer returned 9.5× its budget worldwide.
- Budget
- $100M
- Opening weekend
- —
- Domestic gross
- —
- International gross
- —
- Worldwide gross
- $952M
- Release date
- Jul 21, 2023
- Runtime
- 3h 1m
- MPAA rating
- R
- Language
- Dutch, English
- Country
- United Kingdom, United States of America
Figures from the verified production record. Fields we cannot source are left blank rather than estimated.
Watch
Official Trailer
How it was made
Behind The Scenes
Production facts, technique and the decisions that shaped what ended up on screen.
No CGI for Trinity
The detonation was achieved with practical explosions, magnesium flares and forced-perspective photography.
IMAX black-and-white film
Kodak manufactured the first-ever black-and-white 65mm IMAX stock for the Strauss timeline.
Los Alamos rebuilt
The production constructed the wartime town on the New Mexico plain, near the historical site.
In their words
Iconic Quotes
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
“They won't fear it until they understand it. And they won't understand it until they've used it.”
“I believe we did.”
