"When I came to you with those calculations, we thought we might start a chain reaction that might destroy the entire world."
"What of it?"
"I believe we did."

After what felt like an eternity of waiting, I’ve finally watched Oppenheimer, and it is an absolute masterpiece. From start to finish it was simply perfect in every way possible.

First of all, the plot. I knew pretty much nothing about The Manhattan Project before watching this and I think if I knew more I would have loved this even more. Nonetheless it was still perfect. Every scene was important and the second half of the film was completely flawless. The first hour or so was brilliant but not perfect, the rest was perfect. The bomb scene was honestly the most tense I’ve felt while watching a movie and being in a cinema only made that more tense. My hands were sweaty and my heart was beating so fast during the countdown and I can’t recommend that experience more.

Another extremely strong aspect of Oppenheimer was the acting. The cast was absolutely stacked and they all gave outstanding performances. The obvious standout was Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer. He is incredible in every scene he’s in and this is easily my favourite performance from him. Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh were also both amazing in their roles and Robert Downey Jr was absolutely fantastic as Strauss. It was also funny to see Devon Bostick as someone who’s not Rodrick.

Like every Christopher Nolan film the cinematography is immaculate and Oppenheimer is no different. Literally every scene looks amazing. The bomb scenes look absolutely insane and seeing it on the big screen was so cool. The scenes in New Mexico and Los Alamos were also stunning to look at especially the shots of the tower.

For a 3 hour movie Oppenheimer absolutely flew by. I checked my phone twice and each time I was surprised at how much time had passed. Maybe the time went quicker because I was in a dark cinema surrounded by people but it was amazing how fast 180 minutes can feel.

Finally the score. While Hans Zimmer did not compose the score in Oppenheimer like he did with the perfect score in Interstellar, it was still so well done. It made the tense scenes even more tense and the even though it I knew it was coming, I still got scared from the noise after the bomb test. The 30ish seconds of silence before that was one of the best 30ish second sequence in any movie ever.

An absolute masterpiece which I can’t recommend enough, especially whilst it’s in theatres. I’m unsure whether this or The Prestige is my favourite Nolan but it’s so close and Nolan is becoming one of my favourite directors. A completely flawless.