Yes, Oppenheimer is based on a true story. This shouldn’t surprise you anymore if you just got out of the cinema. The history thriller has been in German cinemas since July 20th. Christopher Nolan’s work deals closely with the biography of the “Father of the Atomic Bomb”, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and encourages further study of the story. We show you the perfect film supplement.
True Story: What is Oppenheimer About?
J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) is a theoretical physicist and, like his biologist wife Kitty (Emily Blunt), a scientist through and through. As director of the Los Alamos Laboratory as part of the Manhattan Project, he developed the atomic bomb that would end or shorten World War II. Men like General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) and Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) from the US Atomic Energy Commission look over his shoulder.
Perfectionist Nolan researched the historical facts precise for his film. Oppenheimer is based in large part on the book American Prometheus* by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin. Author, history scholar and journalist Fred Kaplan commends the film’s accuracy in dealing with historical facts.
This atomic bomb documentary is the perfect complement to Oppenheimer – and above all it is very short
How accurately did Nolan actually trace the sequence of events in Oppenheimer? What do historical figures like Lewis Strauss and Leslie Groves really look like? You can see this in Rushmore DeNooyer’s excellent 2015 documentary The Bomb.
The Bomb by is a condensed, chronological, and of course unfictionalized take on the Nolan film. And above all, it is very short compared to the (over)demanding 180-minute ham that is currently showing in the cinema: You only have to invest 97 minutes in the film and you get a comprehensive overview.
More on the subject:
The documentary tells the story of the atomic bomb a little further and sets other priorities especially in the last third. So Oppenheimer’s communist associations are only a secondary aspect. Instead, you will learn more about the actual dropping of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the development of the even more fatal hydrogen bomb.
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