Dominating the box office and the 2024 Academy Awards, Christopher Nolan’sOppenheimer is a cinematic masterpiece. The film is based on the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. With his impeccable eye for detail, Nolan assembled a cast of historical figures to portray onscreen the development and use of the atomic bomb by the United States during World War II. Nolan’s titular character, J. Robert Oppenheimer, is the backbone for the narrative of where physics and ethics meet.
With a star-studded cast to bring these real-life people to life, audiences exiting the theater may be wondering, how accurate are Oppenheimer’s depictions of the characters? Like any epic helmed by Nolan, there are a lot of names to keep track of; Oppenheimer may take the cake for characters to remember. With a cast list just as long as the movie, here are the instrumental figures ranked based on accuracy.
Oppenheimer
The story of American scientist, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and his role in the development of the atomic bomb.
- Release Date
- July 21, 2023
- Runtime
- 180 minutes
Warning: This list contains spoilers for Oppenheimer.
12 David L. Hill
Played by Rami Malek
Providing the nail in the coffin for Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), David L. Hill’s (Rami Malek) testimony in the final act of Oppenheimer is powerful but left a questionable hole in the logistics of Strauss’s downfall. Hill was another scientific mind who worked in one of the many labs contributing to the atomic bomb development. Hill worked at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory and was one of the seven signatories of the Szilard Petition that argued against the use of the bombs on Japan. Malek’s Hill only appeared briefly during the second portion of the movie as he urged Oppenheimer to sign the petition.
Hill wouldn’t appear again until the final plot twist of the movie, where he provides damning character witness testimony against Lewis Strauss by exposing his leading efforts to strop Oppenheimer’s security clearance. However, it’s unclear how Hill knew of Strauss’s campaign against Oppenheimer when Hill was briefly shown in one scene prior to his testimony. Malek’s partial speech, however, was taken directly from the Senate hearing’s transcript.
11 Ernest Lawrence
Played by Josh Hartnett
Josh Hartnett’s portrayal of Ernest Lawrence earned his place as one of the best-supporting characters in Oppenheimer. Lawrence was instrumental in making the University of California, Berkeley, a major center for nuclear physics alongside Oppenheimer. He worked as head of the Radiation Lab during the Manhattan Project and, after WWII, became a strong proponent of the hydrogen bomb and its military use.
What wasn’t strongly focused on in the film was Lawrence’s inevitable turn against Oppenheimer during the Atomic Energy Commission’s hearing to review Oppenheimer’s security clearance. Lawrence was unable to testify in person but interviewed with Oppenheimer’s prosecutors and stated, “[Oppenheimer] should never again have anything to do with the forming of policy.” In the film, Lawrence is seen congratulating Oppenheimer after he receives a presidential award decades later.
10 Harry Truman
Played by Gary Oldman
With very little screen time, audiences were treated to another brilliant historical figure performance from Gary Oldman. Once again, donning heavy makeup to portray a famous leader, Oldman is President Harry Truman for a brief cameo in Oppenheimer, where he and Truman meet to discuss the future use of the atomic bomb and the potential for the hydrogen bomb. The meeting took place in the Oval Office on October 25, 1945.
According to many accounts of the meeting, Oppenheimer famously expressed, “Mr. President, I feel I have blood on my hands.” Depicted in the movie and claimed to have happened by the president’s account, President Truman reportedly said, “The blood was on (my) hands, to let (me) worry about that.” Truman is also quoted as calling Oppenheimer a “cry-baby scientist” after dismissing him. The film’s depiction of the president is slightly more sinister, but overall, the portrayal was faithful to the reported facts.
9 Albert Einstein
Played by Tom Conti
In a performance that demonstrates the skill of making the most of limited screen time, Tom Conti is brilliant as Albert Einstein. Einstein’s role in Oppenheimer is to serve as a confidant of sorts for the titular character. During the Manhattan Project, Einstein was not involved but had written President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939, encouraging the start of nuclear weapon development. While Oppenheimer’s security clearance was approved thanks to Leslie Groves (Matt Damon), Einstein’s clearance was denied because of his political leanings.
The pair’s support for each other, as depicted in the film, was rooted in real-life camaraderie and mutual respect for one another’s scientific brilliance. Einstein’s reaction toward the way Oppenheimer handled his persecution and subsequent removal of his security clearance is clear in the movie, although his more unfiltered feelings were detailed in American Prometheus. Einstein is alleged to have said, “The trouble with Oppenheimer is that he loves a woman who doesn’t love him—the United States government.”
8 Jean Tatlock
Played by Florence Pugh
Academy Award nominee Florence Pugh portrays Jean Tatlock in Oppenheimer. The character is a psychiatrist with Communist interests who engages in an intermittent affair with Oppenheimer. The two share a complicated but genuine connection, with the film portraying her as a pivotal part of his life.
As the film states, Tatlock struggled with her mental health and died by suicide at age 29. Her death profoundly affected Oppenheimer, one of the many events that would haunt his adult life. Although she is a supporting character, Oppenheimer does a fairly good job portraying Jean Tatlock’s importance in the titular character’s life. However, the film doesn’t go deeper into exploring her psyche or her Communists leanings. It also leaves out the supposedly bizarre circumstances of her passing, with many suspecting foul play.
7 Roger Robb
Played by Jason Clarke
The ever-underrated Jason Clarke delivers a scene-stealing performance in Oppenheimer as Roger Robb. A special counsel to the AEC during Oppenheimer’s security hearing, Robb played a large role in revoking the physicist’s security hearing. Clarke brings considerable tension to the hearing scenes, becoming one of Oppenheimer‘s most crucial characters.
As depicted in the film, Robb held a personal bitterness against Oppenheimer and relentlessly pursued him during the hearing. Robb used multiple tactics, including intimidation, at the hearing and ruthlessly grilled Oppenheimer on his supposed Communist ties and multiple comings and goings throughout the years. Robb would go on to be appointed by President Nixon to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit before his passing in 1985.
6 Isidor Rabi
Played by David Krumholtz
David Krumholtz gives a career-high performance in Oppenheimer as Isidor I. Rabi. Rabi was an American physicist and friend to Oppenheimer, the pair sharing tender moments onscreen where Krumholtz provides a meaningful, honest, and supportive friendship to the titular character. Rabi is also the comedic relief in certain moments, adding some much-needed levity to an otherwise heavy narrative.
Rabi did actually turn down Oppenheimer’s offer to work on the Manhattan Project, instead opting to act as a consultant. He traveled several times to Los Alamos, including to witness the Trinity Test. Alongside Oppenheimer, he was a supporter of the Baruch Plan for international control of atomic energy while also actively opposing the development of the hydrogen bomb. As the movie depicts, he remained friends with Oppenheimer through the security clearance review and after.
5 Edward Teller
Played by Benny Safdie
Nolan went as far as asking Benny Safdie not to trim his eyebrows in order to create a visual accuracy of the Hungarian physicist Edward Teller. During his time at Los Alamos, Teller was a group leader in the Theoretical Physics Division and was deeply upset when Hans Bethe (Gustaf Skarsgård) was selected as the division’s director. His continued issues with feeling passed over or not listened to were translated from real life as he pushed for the development of a fusion weapon.
Accurately depicted during the Trinity Test, Teller was one of the few scientists who wore eye protection to watch the detonation instead of facing away from the explosion. In 1950, Teller was developing the hydrogen bomb, which he later would be named one of the “fathers of the hydrogen bomb.” Teller’s testimony against Oppenheimer was also historically accurate. The soon-to-be-famous scene of the pair at the White House years later actually happened, as Bird and Sherman documented, “Everyone watched with mounting tension as the two men came face to face. With Kitty standing stone-faced beside him, Oppenheimer grinned and shook Teller’s hand.”
4 Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer
Played by Emily Blunt
Emily Blunt delivers an Oscar-worthy performance as Kitty Oppenheimer. In her expository dialogue, Kitty reveals that her second husband was killed in the Spanish Civil War after joining the Communist forces–that is accurate. Kitty was married three times before meeting Oppenheimer, divorcing amicably with her third husband to marry the renowned physicist.
As depicted in the film, Kitty had quite an educational background as well, having attended multiple universities. Her struggles with alcoholism and depression were also accurately depicted onscreen. During the pivotal testimony scene, Kitty’s checkered past and former affiliations were actually called into question. The ever-resilient Kitty held her own during the interview, but Oppenheimer’s security clearance was ultimately revoked.
3 Leslie Groves
Played by Matt Damon
In his second spot-on biographical performance of 2023—the first being Sonny Vaccaro in Ben Affleck’sAir—Matt Damon dons the military uniform of Lieutenant General Leslie Groves. Groves was responsible for overlooking Oppenheimer’s questionable political affiliations to appoint him head of the laboratory at the Los Alamos site during the Manhattan Project. Groves’s waiving of procedure to get Oppenheimer’s security clearance did happen, using his authority to override the process to get the project underway.
As seen onscreen, Groves and Oppenheimer had two very different personalities, but their mutual understanding and respect were an accurate depiction of the pair. Groves did testify during Oppenheimer’s hearings before retiring, and did provide the testimony that he’d be “amazed” if Oppenheimer had ever been disloyal, as depicted in the film.
2 Lewis Strauss
Played by Robert Downey Jr.
Robert Downey Jr. delivers a masterful performance as Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis Strauss. Strauss, an amateur physicist, was a proponent for the development of the hydrogen bomb, which Oppenheimer advocated against following the devastation of the atomic bombings in WWII. The tension between Oppenheimer and Strauss, as portrayed onscreen, was not just for dramatics; it was real.
Following Strauss’s appointment of Oppenheimer to Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in 1947, the pair began to butt heads. Tensions rose after Oppenheimer mocked Strauss’s position on radioisotopes during a Senate hearing, as depicted in the film. Strauss would be instrumental in Oppenheimer’s downfall and the revoking of his security clearance in 1953. However, he would meet his own downfall after David L. Hill’s devastating testimony, which served as Nolan’s plot twist in the final act of the film.
1 J. Robert Oppenheimer
Played by Cillian Murphy
Establishing himself as a front-runner for the 2024 Best Actor Oscar, Cillian Murphy is astounding as J. Robert Oppenheimer. From the poisoned apple left for his tutor to his career downfall, Nolan left almost nothing to chance with a detailed, accurate portrayal onscreen of this famous figure. Oppenheimer was indeed a tall, chain-smoking physicist who worked devastatingly long hours to see the Trinity Test through.
A line that is now engraved in movie lovers’ minds forever, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” is actually from the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita. However, Oppenheimer’s documented reference to the line came in an NBC News documentary in 1965 called The Decision to Drop the Bomb. Whether Oppenheimer uttered the scripture following the Trinity Test remains to be proven. However, Nolan and Murphy successfully captured the physicist’s essence, resulting in one of the most loyal portrayals of a real person in modern cinema.
Oppenheimer is available to stream on Peacock.
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