Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer Is Not Your Typical Summer Blockbuster: Review

Summer is typically a time for some of America’s most jingoistic entertainment. From Independence Day to Top Gun: Maverick, the sweltering season is often a moment for uncritical tribute to the Stars and Stripes. Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s latest, is not that.

A biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist and father of the atomic bomb—played here with a mixture of bravado and regret by Cillian Murphy—Nolan’s film grapples with two of the greatest atrocities committed by the US: The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even beyond this summertime reckoning with state-sponsored mass murder, Nolan has made a work of art that interrogates loyalty to country and how it can collide with ego with disastrous results. This is dense material that’s thoroughly engrossing and by its end, shattering.