American Prometheus

The definitive biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, twenty-five years in the making. Bird and Sherwin chart Oppenheimer's journey from privileged New York childhood through his radicalization at Berkeley, his direction of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, and his post-war persecution by McCarthyism. Pulitzer Prize winner. The authoritative portrait of 'the most important person who ever lived', as Nolan has called him.

Nolan's three-hour non-linear epic compresses 700 pages into a visceral experience, using Cillian Murphy's haunted face as the primary text. The Trinity test sequence is among the greatest scenes in cinema history. The film necessarily simplifies the biographical record — the security hearing scenes collapse years of testimony — but captures the tragedy of a man who unlocked the universe and was punished for it.