How does one deal with the moral quandaries of creating the most important technology of the 21st century but also the one piece of equipment that could single handedly bring about a man made apocalypse? The answer is…. Banging a bunch of hot communists. I’m kidding but this is a biopic on the infamous J Robert Oppenheimer one of the greatest minds in American history who is also responsible for over 200,000 deaths of innocent Japanese civilians. To make review on this complicated man this complicated movie and this complicated event in history is not a simple one many people want to present this as a black and white situation where what he did was 100% justified and Japan needed to be nuked or on the contrary he is the most evil person to ever exist America is a fascist state that just wants to destroy the world. I am not here to push my political opinions one way or the other I’m here to review a movie and as a movie showing the man showing the struggle that he had with it and it was pretty damn good damn near perfect it might end up being perfect on a second viewing. As we’ve come to know with Christopher Nolan the cinematography was as good as it could possibly be the score from one Ludwig Göransson was haunting dreadful and downright depressing a lot of people were saying that Nolan was going to be mystifying or glorifying Oppenheimer in this and to me that is the most lazy and brain dead take on this film at all if you walked out of this thinking this was American propaganda or in any way made Oppenheimer look like a good guy you need to get your third grade media literacy way better. If anything this painted the communists as the good guys the ones who wanted to stop once Germany was defeated but it was Oppenheimer himself that wanted to keep going. At the end of the day the very real scenario that the creation Oppenheimer was responsible for Can end the entire world in an apocalypse is very very real Russia has over 100 nukes America has over 100 nukes in China has around 100 nukes how does one deal with knowing that they not only were responsible for creating the fusion fission of an atom into a weapon but that this can destroy all of humanity and the planet that we live on? If existential dread was made into a film I would say that it was this one his story almost feels like something that you would only see in a movie because of how bigger than life and universal this feels but sadly it is real and it is one of the most important events in all of human history. Now onto the performances give Cillian Murphy and Emily blunt their Oscars right now I do not see anyone competing to the extent that these performances had I think that Cillian Murphy’s is as slam dunk an Oscar win since Daniel day Lewis in Lincoln. I think that Leonardo DiCaprio will put up a good fight in killers of the flower moon and I expect Bradley Cooper to put in a little bit of a fight in maestro but at the end of the day I don’t think it’ll be close.  However I have been seeing people say that Robert Downey Jr. is a shoe in for the supporting actor Oscar and to me personally this is just my belief he’s not even the best supporting role in the film I mean don’t get me wrong he was good it was a very good first big dramatic performance since his slavery time in the marvel but I think that Matt Damon was much more thought-provoking impressive and overall the much better performance. Now where we get controversial I think that Benny Safdie and Dave dehaan we’re way better than Robert Downey in this. Hell I’ll even go as far to say is I was more impressed with Alden Ehrenreich Than I was Robert Downey. No again I’m not saying Robert Downey was bad it was good but man were those three very very impressive in the fact that I was not expecting the performances that they gave. with Matt Damon he’s one of the greatest actors of all time his résumé stacks up with almost anybody you kind of expect that he might steal the show with those other three I mentioned talk about career changing performances. I would be remiss to not mention despite minimal screen time in Lyons the performances that Casey Affleck and Rami Malek put in were amazing I was literally like a marvel fan pointing and going oh my God when Casey Affleck was revealed that was amazing and Rami Malek with less than maybe 30 lines of dialogue deliver is some of the most important parts of the film and I almost forgot Gary Oldman as president Truman and his one seen you just like wow this guy is an all timer there are so many people I’m forgetting to mention here That put in all time performances Jason Clark being one of them it really seemed like Nolan got everybody on there a game I know there was a meme about it but yes even Devon Bostick a.k.a. Rodrick rules Josh Peck and Jack Quaid all put in really good input for what their roles were. Also got to see my young goat alex  Wolff in there which was amazing and by the way to all the young actors watch out for this guy‘s filmography he now has hereditary pig and Oppenheimer in there before turning 26. My campaign of him being the best young actor besides Chalamet has another notch. Also this movie did finally make me a believer on Florence Pugh I kind of thought she was One note only made this really weird sad face and screamed all the time and was in a very bad marvel movie but despite limited screen time here I was very impressed by her performance officially on the Florence Pugh hype train. 
Easily and all timer from Nolan with everybody putting in their best performances the soundtrack delivering almost as much as you would see in a Tarkovsky film in the cinematography just as beautiful as you would expect. Granted I did get to see this on a 1.43 IMAX here in Austin Texas at the Texas state bullock museum which was amazing literally one of the best theaters in the country 85 foot screen the perfect way to watch this film. Cannot wait to watch this a second time immediate contender for every single award there is and truly there are only four films that I could possibly see overtaking this that being Dune two, killers of the flower moon, Napoleon and a long shot on maestro.

See where it ranks in 👇

               Jon's 2023 Movies Ranked