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Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer' Trailer Teases Atomic Bomb Biopic

In this explosive trailer, Cillian Murphy plays the father of the atomic bomb: "The most important man who ever lived."

Richard Trenholm Former Movie and TV Senior Editor
Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.
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Richard Trenholm
2 min read

The countdown is on until Christopher Nolan's next film detonates. This is the first trailer for Oppenheimer, the Dark Knight and Tenet director's biopic of the man who developed the first atomic bomb, coming out July 21, 2023. 

In a hypnotically looping YouTube livestream, Cillian Murphy is glimpsed in the trailer as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the real-life scientist who led the Manhattan Project to build a bomb for the US during World War II. Over images of roiling fire and flame (and a hat), various people offer their opinions of Oppenheimer: "The most important man who ever lived" and "the man who moved the Earth" -- but another voice asks, "How could a man who saw so much be so blind?"

The all-star cast includes Florence Pugh, Jack Quaid, Matthew Modine, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Josh Hartnett, Kenneth Branagh, Gary Oldman, Rami Malek, Olivia Thirlby, Dane DeHaan, Jason Clarke, David Dastmalchian, Alden Ehrenreich, Casey Affleck, James Remar, and Tom Conti as Albert Einstein.

Like many of the cast, Murphy previously worked with Nolan in Batman Begins and the Dark Knight movies, as well as Inception and Dunkirk. Murphy recently starred in A Quiet Place Part 2 and the latest season of TV hit Peaky Blinders, which will also be followed by a movie in 2023.

Nolan's film is based on Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin's Pulitzer Prize-winning nonfiction book, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. It's being released by Universal Pictures after Nolan's long-standing relationship with Warner Bros. seems to have been torpedoed when Warner released his time-twisting blockbuster Tenet on streaming service HBO Max.

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