<img src="https://sb.scorecardresearch.com/p?c1=2&amp;c2=36750692&amp;cv=3.6.0&amp;cj=1"> What Is ‘Oppenheimer’ About? The True Story Behind Christopher Nolan’s New Thriller
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via Universal Pictures

What is ‘Oppenheimer’ about? The true story behind Christopher Nolan’s new thriller

We are in for a tense film.

Cillian Murphy as the titular character J. Robert Oppenheimer. In addition to Murphy, the film also stars Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, Benny Safdie, Josh Hartnett, Jack Quad, Kenneth Branagh, Gary Oldman, and many more. 

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What is Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer about?

via Universal Pictures

Oppenheimer is a biographical film that will tell the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role with the Manhattan Project, an American operation, ed by both the United Kingdom and Canada, to develop nuclear weapons during World War II. Oppenheimer, who died in 1967, was a theoretical physicist, whose contributions directly led to the first successful test of a nuclear bomb. 

The film is a true story and it is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, which was released in 2005. The book is a biography of Oppenheimer, which is not only limited to his time with the Manhattan Project. It is likely that Oppenheimer will document his life before and after the first “Trinity” test, and the detonations of “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945. 

If the trailer is anything to go by, the film will deal with the effects of Oppenheimer’s contributions on his life, and the general gravity of potentially having millions of deaths on his hands because of the sheer devastation nuclear weapons can cause. Roughly 200,000 people perished in Japan because of the detonations in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and the threat of devastation that large has impacted the last 75 years of warfare.

The film might also touch upon Oppenheimer’s personal life, and how both his wife Katherine Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt) and his brother Frank Oppenheimer (Dylan Arnold) were of the Communist Party. If you want more of a taste of the events that will be depicted in Nolan’s new film, feel free to go to your local bookstore or library and read American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Catch Oppenheimer when it explodes into theaters on July 21, 2023. 


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Tristyn Akbas
Tristyn Akbas is an SEO writer for We Got This Covered. He graduated from the University of New South Wales, with a Bachelor's Degree in Film and Writing. Tristyn specializes in the geekier side of writing and is always up to date on the latest movies, TV, comic books, and video games. He particularly likes anything superhero or horror-related, and in his free time, you'll find him earning PlayStation trophies.