A three-hour biopic concerning the life of Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb is coming to the big screen.
On 16th July 1945, J. Robert Oppenheimer witnessed the world’s first successful detonation of an atomic bomb.
A line from the Hindu Bhagavad Gita ran through his mind, he later recounted in a 1965 interview: ”Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”.
Now, an epic three-hour biopic concerning the life of Oppenheimer and the role he played in the creation of the atomic bomb is coming to the big screen – and it’s been hailed as “fearsome” in early reactions.
Leading the film’s cast is Cillian Murphy, who plays the titular character, described the film as “an extraordinary piece of work. Very provocative and powerful. It feels sometimes like a biopic, sometimes like a thriller, sometimes like a horror.”
On the subject of Oppenheimer, he continued to The Guardian: “He was dancing between the raindrops morally. He was complex, contradictory, polymathic; incredibly attractive intellectually and charismatic, but,” he concludes, “ultimately unknowable.”
So, who was the real Oppenheimer and what’s the true story behind the movie? Read on for everything you need to know.
Oppenheimer true story
The new biopic by director Christopher Nolan tells the life story of the scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his involvement in the world-altering Manhattan Project which led to the creation of the atomic bomb.
Who was J. Robert Oppenheimer?
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The real Oppenheimer was born Julius Robert Oppenheimer in New York City in 1904 to German immigrant and wealthy textile importer, Julius Oppenheimer, and painter Ella Friedman Oppenheimer.
Today, he is considered “the father of the atomic bomb.”
Oppenheimer studied chemistry at Harvard University, before going on to study theoretical physics at both Cambridge University and the University of Göttingen in Germany, where he secured his doctorate at age 23.
He then returned to the United States to teach physics at the University of California at Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology, where he conducted research on black holes and neutron stars.
He worked alongside some of the greatest scientific figures of his age, including experimental physicist and Noble Prize winner Ernest Lawrence, who also appears in the film (played by Josh Hartnett).
What were the Manhattan Project, Los Alamos and the Trinity Test?
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In 1941, Oppenheimer was asked to participate in the top-secret Manhattan Project, which had been greenlit with the aim of developing an atomic weapon.
The following year, Oppenheimer was hired by General Leslie Groves Jr – the director of the Manhattan Project – to head up the secret lab where the bomb would be tested and lead the research team.
In 1943, the Los Alamos Ranch School in New Mexico, a private boys’ school near Santa Fe, was selected as the location for the lab, which soon became known as the Los Alamos Laboratory.
On 16th July 1945, Oppenheimer and others assembled at the Trinity test site south of Los Alamos to conduct a test involving the successful detonation of a plutonium device which they’d nicknamed “Gadget”.
The bomb design and test conditions led to the creation of the atomic bombs Little Boy and Fat Boy that were dropped over Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Oppenheimer is coming to UK cinemas on 21st July 2023. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on tonight.
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