Skip to main content

Oppenheimer trailer teases the race for the atomic bomb

“We’re in a race against the Nazis, and I know what it means if the Nazis have a bomb,” J. Robert Oppenheimer (Dunkirk’s Cillian Murphy) states in the latest trailer for Oppenheimer. The new footage from Christopher Nolan’s next epic highlights the lead-up to one of the most important developments in history, the creation of a nuclear bomb.

The tense three-minute trailer focuses on the early days of the Manhattan Project as Oppenheimer works with Leslie Groves (Air’s Matt Damon) to create the Los Alamos Laboratory, a secluded site in New Mexico that would serve as the test site for the atomic bomb. As the trailer progresses, the two men begin to contemplate the severity of their work and the devastating impact it could have on the world. As the synopsis reads, Oppenheimer is the tragic story of an “enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it.”

Oppenheimer | New Trailer

The star-studded cast is featured throughout the trailer. Besides Murphy and Damon, the ensemble features Emily Blunt (A Quiet Place) as Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer, J. Robert’s wife; Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) as Lewis Strauss, one of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission’s founding commissioner, and Florence Pugh (The Wonder) as a psychiatrist, Jean Tatlock. Benny Safdie (Uncut Gems), Michael Angarano (Minx), Josh Hartnett (Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre), Rami Malek (No Time to Die), and Kenneth Branagh (Death on the Nile) also star.

Nolan (Inception) writes and directs Oppenheimer, which is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Nolan, his wife, Emma Thomas (Tenet), and Charles Roven (Uncharted) will produce. Oppenheimer is distributed by Universal Pictures, which marks Nolan’s first film outside of Warner Bros. in over two decades.

Oppenheimer hits theaters on July 21.

Editors' Recommendations

Dan Girolamo
Dan is a passionate and multitalented content creator with experience in pop culture, entertainment, and sports. Throughout…
Where to watch Oppenheimer in 70mm IMAX
Cillian Murphy as Robert J. Robert Oppenheimer in "Oppenheimer."

Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer Universal Pictures

Oppenheimer is finally here. As one-half of the now-famous "Barbenheimer" pop culture event, the Christopher Nolan movie has received an unusual amount of advance hype and breathless anticipation for a three-hour movie about the birth of the atom bomb. I'm not complaining though; any amount of additional press concentrating on the movie can only be a good thing, and is poised to turn the original drama into an unexpected summertime hit.

Read more
Christopher Nolan should direct a James Bond movie. Here’s why
tenet christopher nolan john david washington

Throughout his long career, Christopher Nolan has been fairly open about how much influence the Bond movies have had on his work. Whether it's the cool spies in Tenet or the sleek action of The Dark Knight, Nolan has been riffing on Bond in one way or another for years.

Now, as he's promoting Oppenheimer, his latest project, Nolan also made it clear that should the opportunity present itself, he would be happy to direct a Bond movie. “The influence of those movies in my filmography is embarrassingly apparent. It would be an amazing privilege to do one,” he said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, while acknowledging that making that kind of movie comes with certain constraints. Even so, it's somewhat thrilling to imagine what a Nolan Bond movie would look like. Here's what we'd like to see were he to ever actually take on the iconic British spy:
Cast Dev Patel as James Bond

Read more
7 best performances in Christopher Nolan’s movies, ranked
Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Knight

Christopher Nolan is back on the big screen with the biographical thriller Oppenheimer. Cillian Murphy stars as J. Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist who played a key role in developing the first nuclear weapons. Murphy and supporting player Robert Downey Jr. are receiving rave reviews across the board, with many critics considering them early contenders for the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor Oscars, respectively.

Rave reviews are not an abnormality for Nolan's films -- the auteur who revolutionized the comic book movie is behind many of the best sci-fi movies from the 2000s and 2010s. Still, Oscar talk for his leading actors is; after all, the late Heath Ledger remains the only performer to win an Oscar for acting in a Nolan film. However, his movies have several incredible performances, thanks to Nolan's heavy, thought-provoking dialogue and the top talent he attracts to his projects. From deranged clowns to loyal butlers and femme fatales, here are the best performances in Christopher Nolan's films.
7. Marion Cotillard (Inception)

Read more