Meanwhile, despite the fact that many of them occupy only a few minutes of screen time, Nolan somehow gets career-high performances from a massive cast of familiar faces.
In J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant (and tormented) physicist known as the father of the atomic bomb, Nolan has found a real-life avatar for so many of his key obsessions: the idea of hidden knowledge that could upend the world; of infernal machines that must never be used; of the way our greatest achievements sometimes become our greatest regrets; of the thin line between heroism and disgrace. In Oppenheimer, he weaves all these themes into a breakneck piece of history. Though technically not a genre movie, it’s faster than most action films and more terrifying than most horror flicks. Oppenheimer also turns out to be the perfect part for Cillian Murphy, who has given many great turns for this director but who gets the role of a lifetime as the scientist who channeled his anxieties and fascination with the quantum world into an earth-shattering achievement, then spent the rest of his life quietly tortured by what he had unleashed. Meanwhile, despite the fact that many of them occupy only a few minutes of screen time, Nolan somehow gets career-high performances from a massive cast of familiar faces. Seriously, I could watch these scientists arguing for hours and hours. The whole film builds and builds and builds majestically — until a shattering finale that might well be the most emotionally resonant moment in Nolan’s entire filmography.