Oppenheimer
David Block

Review by David Block

Oppenheimer

2023
★★★★★

Watched 20 Jul 2023

Oppenheimer is Christopher Nolan’s The Social Network. In both films the protagonists are asked to answer about the things they’ve created. Allies and foes alike are interrogated about them. Both films feature dazzling cross-cutting between different time periods. Oppenheimer soaked in the cheers and adulation for creating the most terrifying weapon known to man and immediately recognized the hell he had unleashed. He spoke up about the dangers of a nuclear arms war and his country turned his back on him. Nolan casting Cillian Murphy in the lead role was a stroke of genius. His gaunt face and piercing eyes enhance a spectacular performance. He’s arrogant, determined, haunted. Robert Downey Jr is in contention to win Best Supporting Actor for deliciously playing Lewis Strauss, Oppenheimer’s post-war nemesis. It’s a career-best performance that reminds us all that he’s more than just Tony Stark. 

Seeing this in IMAX was an incredible visual and aural experience. The score, editing, cinematography, production design, etc are across the board terrific. There are so many great actors in this that it’s almost like watching a WW2 Avengers film. If you’re there to watch the bomb go off, cool, but you’re gonna get some commentary about the morality of it all, the absurd witch-hunts of the 1950s that ruined the reputations of many great men and women, and about how it was Jewish scientists, some American and some that came over having fled their homelands, that helped win the war.

This is Christopher Nolan’s best film. 

Best Picture Winners, Ranked
Films Seen - 2023 (U.S. Release)
Christopher Nolan, Ranked

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