Oppenheimer: An “Opening Look” at Christopher Nolan’s next epic detonates with 5 minutes of intense drama

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer detonates in cinemas in one week, marking the arrival of another epic from the director of Tenet, Inception, Memento, and more. Opening alongside Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, the 3-hour opus explores the work of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Father of the Atomic Bomb. Universal Pictures dropped an “Opening Look” at Oppenheimer on Thursday, teasing the nail-biting drama of the U.S. government’s race to build a weapon of mass destruction before the Nazis. The Oppenheimer Opening Look introduces a montage of scenes spanning the film, depicting the science, heartache, and paranoia of building a device that could destroy the world.

The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. The film is produced by Emma Thomas, Atlas Entertainment’s Charles Roven, and Christopher Nolan. Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer is an IMAX-shot epic thriller that thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world to save it.

The film stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer and Emily Blunt as his wife, biologist, and botanist Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer. Oscar-winner Matt Damon portrays General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project, and Robert Downey, Jr. plays Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Academy Award nominee Florence Pugh plays psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie plays theoretical physicist Edward Teller, Michael Angarano plays Robert Serber, and Josh Hartnett plays pioneering American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence. Oppenheimer also stars Oscar winner Rami Malek and reunites Nolan with eight-time Oscar-nominated actor, writer, and filmmaker Kenneth Branagh. 

The cast includes Dane DeHaan (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets), Dylan Arnold (Halloween franchise), David Krumholtz (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story) and Matthew Modine (The Dark Knight Rises).

Oppenheimer is filmed in a combination of IMAX 65mm and 65mm large-format film photography, including sections in IMAX black and white analog photography, for the first time ever. Fans of Nolan’s work anticipate the film as one of the director’s most visually spellbinding features, with IMAX being the ideal venue for viewing.

Today’s Oppenheimer Opening Look paints a grim but entertaining picture of the building of the Atomic Bomb and the people who ordered its construction. The bomb was considered a necessary evil when Oppenheimer and his team assembled the weapon, and its existence has haunted humankind ever since.

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