10 Best Moments That Define Christopher Nolan’s Movie, Ranked

Oppenheimer is Christopher Nolan’s most ambitious movie to date, and it’s unsurprisingly full of thought-provoking and cinematically ground-breaking moments. The new Nolan-directed movie follows J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), a physicist who led The Manhattan Project and became the father of the atomic bomb. Special IMAX lenses were developed for the movie (via Collider) and explosions were created practically, making the 2023 release one of the most spectacular theatrical events despite being a biopic where scientists mostly talk in small rooms.

Oppenheimer had a budget of $100 million, and not a single cent was wasted, as the film is full of never-achieved-before practical effects and a star-studded cast where multiple Academy Award winners are in single scenes. Not only that, but the 2023 movie marks multiple firsts for Nolan too. Oppenheimer also excels in areas where the filmmaker has struggled in the past, such as three-dimensional female characters. As a result, the movie has a strong 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and instantly became the Oscars front-runner. The best moments in the monumental three-hour movie range from the quiet emotional scenes to the most ear-deafening cinematic experiences ever.

10 Lewis Strauss Being Humbled By His Own Aide

Lewis Straus (Robert Downey Jr.) tried to drag Oppenheimer’s name through the mud after being humiliated by the scientist. However, when Strauss reveals that he orchestrated Oppenheimer’s hearing to the point where even he chose the special counsel, not even his Senate aide (Alden Ehrenreich) wants to back him. After Strauss was convinced that Oppenheimer and Einstein’s conversation was about him, the aide satisfyingly tells Strauss that Einstein and Oppenheimer probably had no interest in the AEC chairman. The aide turned out to be right, and at the end of the movie, it was the first time that Strauss realized that his narcism had gotten the better of him.

9 Oppenheimer’s Interrogation With Boris Pash

Casey Affleck has an incredible one-scene performance in Oppenheimer, as he plays Boris Nash, a United States Army intelligence officer. Pash is the one character who Oppenheimer seemed intimidated by. Oppenheimer chooses his words very carefully and never seems fazed by the U.S. Army officers at Los Alamos. However, Pash is the only U.S. army official who could make Oppenheimer sweat and stumble over his words under pressure, as the officer interrogated the scientist about his connection to the Communist Party. The moment is the most intense the movie gets outside the threat of nuclear warfare, and Affleck’s unnerving and threatening performance is a career-first.

8 Oppenheimer’s Meeting With President Harry S. Truman

Just like Affleck’s role, Gary Oldman’s role as Harry S. Truman is a one-scene, mic-drop performance. The moment in the Oval Office is riveting and unforgettable as Oldman plays the irrational U.S. President Truman. The character is another role the actor disappears into, as he’s unrecognizable when he calls Oppenheimer a “crybaby.” It isn’t until a close-up of Truman looking almost directly into the camera that it becomes clear the character is played by Oldman. Even then, general audiences likely wouldn’t have noticed. Both Oldman and Affleck are Academy Award winners, and if Oppenheimer wasn’t so stacked with phenomenal performances, these one-scene roles would potentially be award-winning.

7 Oppenheimer Trying To Poison His Professor

Early in the movie when Oppenheimer is still a student, the scientist attempts to kill his professor by injecting cyanide into his apple. The sequence cleverly foreshadows the bold decisions Oppenheimer can quickly make but also how indecisive and conflicted he can be, as he ultimately stops the professor from eating the fruit. However, while this happened in real life, Oppenheimer changed the story for the better by making the event run parallel to Niels Bohr’s (Kenneth Branagh) visit to the school. Bohr almost eating the apple before it’s slapped out of his hand by Oppenheimer makes the historical moment one of the few alleviating sequences in the film.

6 Oppenheimer Meeting Leslie Groves For The First Time

Oppenheimer and Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) make a great unlikely comedy duo in Oppenheimer. The two are often hurling wisecracks in each other’s direction, but every line of dialogue in their first scene together has classic-quote potential. The scientist and the United States Army Corps of Engineers officer are both experts in their respective fields, but between their big personalities and the dichotomy between their fields, Groves’ introduction is so entertaining. Between Oppenheimer schooling Groves about Alfred Nobel inventing dynamite and Groves dissecting Oppenheimer’s entire personality and life, they had immediate chemistry.

5 Oppenheimer’s Post-Hiroshima & Nagasaki Speech

Christopher Nolan has never directed a horror movie, but based on the scene following the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, he’d undoubtedly make a distinguished movie in the genre. In the scene, Oppenheimer enters a small room where he gives a speech. Americans are victoriously stomping on the wooden floorboards. However, while giving the speech, Oppenheimer imagines victims of the bombings, and the sights are absolutely terrifying. The terror combined with Oppenheimer’s guilt makes it Nolan’s most harrowing movie moment ever. The scene is a masterclass in sound design too, as the applause begins ominously before it’s revealed to be crowds of Americans cheering.

4 Kitty’s Interview In The Oppenheimer Hearing

One of the few common criticisms of Christopher Nolan’s movies is how badly written the female characters are. Whether it’s The Dark Knight, Following, or Dunkirk, female characters are either villains, killed off, or don’t even exist. However, Kitty Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt) is one of the strongest characters in Oppenheimer, and she has the best moment during Oppenheimer’s entire hearing. Roger Robb (Jason Clarke) was ruthless when asking Kitty questions about her husband, attempting to manipulate Kitty into giving him the answers that he wanted to hear. Regardless, Kitty was ready for war, turned the tables on Robb, and left the special counsel speechless with her epic monologue.

3 Oppenheimer’s Conversation With Einstein

The conversation between the two physicists and what Oppenheimer said to Einstein is the big mystery of Oppenheimer, and it’s the very reason why Strauss is so paranoid. In the final scene of the movie, the conversation is finally revealed, and it ultimately sums up Oppenheimer’s entire inner conflict. The father of the atomic bomb reveals to Einstein that he’s worried that creating the weapon might have started a chain reaction. Oppenheimer might have beaten the Nazis to the atomic bomb, but he realizes that as a result, he sped up a nuclear arms race across the world, ending in a totally harrowing but necessary way.

2 The Entire World Igniting In Flames In The Oppenheimer Ending

At the very end of Oppenheimer, immediately following the conversation between Oppenheimer and Einstein, there’s one final montage. The montage is a flash-forward to nuclear weapons being activated across the world, proving that The Manhattan Project really did start a chain reaction. Following that, the entire world is engulfed in flames, which is the very thing that Oppenheimer and the scientists had joked about an hour earlier. As visually stunning as the sequence is, the moment only reinstates how terrifying Oppenheimer’s concerns are, and it also serves as something of a visual adaptation of Oppenheimer’s most famous quote: “Now I become death, destroyer of worlds.”

1 Oppenheimer’s Trinity Test

While director Michael Bay is known for his explosions, Nolan shot a practical explosion for Oppenheimer that will remain unrivaled for the foreseeable future. There are even little moments within the showstopping Trinity Test sequence as the scientists prepare for the explosion, such as Edward Teller (Benny Safdie) lathering himself in sunscreen. The moment is another masterful example of sound design too. Nolan had conditioned audiences into waiting for the Trinity Test’s sound with the previous explosions in Oppenheimer, but the filmmaker kept audiences waiting, and waiting, and waiting. When the noise finally happens, it’s on a level that no viewer could possibly have been prepared for.

Source: Collider, Rotten Tomatoes