Oppenheimer(2023)

Submitted by Jeremy

The film goes back and forth between various points in the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the father of the atomic bomb. While teaching at Berkeley, he is approached by General Leslie Groves to become the director of the Manhattan Project to develop a bomb during World War II. Their efforts prove successful during the Trinity Test, but after President Truman orders bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer begins to feel a sense of guilt over the casualties in the bombings.

Oppenheimer becomes an advocate against further nuclear weapons developments, as his colleague Edward Teller has found a way to develop a hydrogen bomb more powerful than the atomic bomb, which can also possibly set off a chain reaction that would destroy the world. Oppenheimer is later involved in a security hearing due to his ties to communist circles, which included his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) as a former member. His affair with Jean Tatlock is also brought up. His security clearance ends up being revoked and he loses political influence. Meanwhile, Admiral Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr) works against Oppenheimer due to personal grudges against him, but a former technician testifying against Strauss costs him his chance at the Senate.

Oppenheimer is later given the Enrico Fermi Award near the end of his life, but the film ends with him fearing that his work in nuclear weapons may have doomed the world.