Synopsis
A dramatization of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in developing the atomic bomb, and the political reckoning that followed him for the rest of his life.
The Review
Nolan trades his usual puzzle-box structure for something closer to a courtroom drama wearing a biopic's clothes, and it works because the real suspense was never the Trinity test, it's the hearing that comes after. Murphy plays Oppenheimer as a man perpetually one step removed from his own conscience, which makes the black-and-white interrogation scenes hit harder than the mushroom cloud does. Three hours of dense dialogue shouldn't move this fast. The sound design during the detonation sequence, all that silence before the roar, is the best use of restraint in a Nolan film to date.