Dominating the box office and conversations across the world, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a cinematic masterpiece. With his impeccable eye for detail, Nolan assembled a cast of historical figures to portray onscreen the development and use of the atomic bomb by the United States during World War II. Nolan’s titular character J. Robert Oppenheimer is the backbone for the narrative of where physics and ethics meet.
With a star-studded cast to bring these real-life people to life, audiences may be wondering as they exit the theater, how accurate are the depictions of the characters? Like any epic helmed by Nolan, there are a lot of names to keep track of; Oppenheimer may take the cake for characters to remember. The film is based on the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. With a cast list just as long as the movie, here are the instrumental figures ranked based on accuracy. Warning: This list contains spoilers for Oppenheimer.
10 David L. Hill
Providing the nail in the coffin for Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), David L. Hill’s (Rami Malek) testimony in the final act of Oppenheimer is powerful but left a questionable hole in the logistics of Strauss’s downfall. Hill was another scientific mind that worked in one of the many labs contributing to the atomic bomb development. Hill worked at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory and was one of the seven signatories of the Szilard Petition that argued against the use of the bombs on Japan. Malek’s Hill only appeared briefly during the second portion of the movie as he urged Oppenheimer to sign the petition.
Hill wouldn’t appear again until the final plot twist of the movie, where he provides damning character witness testimony against Lewis Strauss by exposing his leading efforts to strop Oppenheimer’s security clearance. However, it’s unclear how Hill knew of Strauss’s campaign against Oppenheimer when Hill was briefly shown in one scene prior to his testimony. Malek’s partial speech, however, was taken directly from the Senate hearing’s transcript.
9 Ernest Lawrence
In his portrayal of physicist Ernest Lawrence, Josh Hartnett portrayal earned his place as one of the best-supporting characters in the film. Lawrence was instrumental in making the University of California, Berkeley a major center for nuclear physics alongside Oppenheimer. He worked as head of the Radiation Lab during the Manhattan Project and, after WWII, became a strong proponent of the hydrogen bomb and its military use.
What wasn’t strongly focused on in the film was Lawrence’s inevitable turn against Oppenheimer during the Atomic Energy Commission’s hearing to review Oppenheimer’s security clearance. Lawrence was unable to testify in person but interviewed with Oppenheimer’s prosecutors and stated, “[Oppenheimer] should never again have anything to do with the forming of policy.” In the film, Lawrence is seen congratulating Oppenheimer after he receives a presidential award decades later, the pair aged.
8 Harry Truman
With very little screen time, audiences were treated to another brilliant historical figure performance from Gary Oldman. Once again, donning heavy makeup to portray a famous leader, Oldman is President Harry Truman for a brief scene in which Oppenheimer and Truman meet to discuss the future use of the atomic bomb and the potential for the hydrogen bomb. The meeting took place in the Oval Office on October 25, 1945.
According to many accounts of the meeting, Oppenheimer famously expressed, “Mr. President, I feel I have blood on my hands.” Depicted in the movie and claimed to have happened by the president’s account, President Truman offered a handkerchief and said, “Well here, would you like to wipe your hands?” Truman is also quoted as calling Oppenheimer a “cry-baby scientist” after dismissing him.
7 Albert Einstein
In a performance that demonstrates the skill of making the most of limited screen time, Tom Conti is brilliant as Albert Einstein. Einstein’s role in Oppenheimer is to serve as a confidant for the titular character. During the Manhattan Project, Einstein was not involved but had written President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939, encouraging the start of nuclear weapon development. While Oppenheimer’s security clearance was approved thanks to Leslie Groves (portrayed by Matt Damon), Einstein’s clearance was denied because of his political leanings.
The pair’s support for each other, as depicted in the film, was rooted in a real-life friendship and mutual respect for one another’s scientific brilliance. Einstein’s feelings toward the way Oppenheimer handled the persecution and revoking of security clearance are also seen in the film, although his more unfiltered feelings were detailed in American Prometheus, and is alleged to have said, “The trouble with Oppenheimer is that he loves a woman who doesn’t love him—the United States government.”
6 Isidor Rabi
David Krumholtz gives a career-high performance as Isidor I. Rabi. Rabi was an American physicist and friend to Oppenheimer, the pair sharing tender moments onscreen where Krumholtz delivers his half with heart as he provides a meaningful and honest friendship to the titular character. Rabi is also the comedic relief in certain moments as well.
Rabi did actually turn down Oppenheimer’s offer to work on the Manhattan Project, instead opting to act as a consultant. He traveled several times to Los Alamos, including to witness the Trinity Test. Alongside Oppenheimer, he was a supporter of the Baruch Plan for international control of atomic energy while also actively opposing the development of the hydrogen bomb. He remained friends with Oppenheimer through the security clearance review and after.
5 Edward Teller
Nolan went as far as asking Benny Safdie not to trim his eyebrows in order to create a visual accuracy of the Hungarian physicist Edward Teller. During his time at Los Alamos, Teller was a group leader in the Theoretical Physics Division and was deeply upset when Hans Bethe (portrayed by Gustaf Skarsgård) was selected as the division’s director. His continued issues with feeling passed over or not listened to were translated from real life as he pushed for the development of a fusion weapon.
Accurately depicted during the Trinity Test, Teller was one of the few scientists who wore eye protection to watch the detonation instead of facing away from the explosion. In 1950, Teller was developing the hydrogen bomb, which he later would be named one of the “fathers of the hydrogen bomb.” Teller’s testimony against Oppenheimer was also historically accurate. The soon-to-be-famous scene of the pair at the White House years later actually happened, as Bird and Sherman documented, “Everyone watched with mounting tension as the two men came face to face. With Kitty standing stone-faced beside him, Oppenheimer grinned and shook Teller’s hand.”
4 Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer
This was an Oscar-worthy performance for Emily Blunt as Kitty Oppenheimer. In her expository dialogue, Kitty reveals that her second husband was killed in the Spanish Civil War after joining the Communist forces–that is accurate. Kitty was married three times before meeting Oppenheimer, divorcing amicably with her third husband to marry Oppenheimer. As depicted in the film, Kitty had quite an educational background as well, having attended multiple universities.
Her struggles with alcoholism and depression were also accurately depicted onscreen. During the pivotal testimony scene, Kitty’s checkered past and former affiliations were actually called into question; however, Oppenheimer’s security clearance was ultimately revoked.
3 Leslie Groves
In his second spot-on biographical performance of 2023 (the first as Sonny Vaccaro in Air), Matt Damon dons the military uniform of Lieutenant General Leslie Groves. Groves was responsible for overlooking Oppenheimer’s questionable political affiliations to appoint him head of the laboratory at the Los Alamos site during the Manhattan Project. Groves’s waiving of procedure to get Oppenheimer’s security clearance did happen, using his authority to override the process to get the project underway.
As seen onscreen, Groves and Oppenheimer had two very different personalities, but their mutual understanding and respect were an accurate depiction of the pair. Groves did testify during Oppenheimer’s hearings, then retired, and did provide the testimony that he’d be “amazed” if Oppenheimer had ever been disloyal, as depicted in the film.
2 Lewis Strauss
A masterful performance that’s sure to earn Robert Downey Jr. is due critical acclaim, his portrayal of the Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis Strauss was pivotal in progressing the three-hour epic. Strauss, an amateur physicist, was a proponent for the development of the hydrogen bomb, which Oppenheimer advocated against following the devastation of the atomic bombings in WWII. The tension between Oppenheimer and Strauss as portrayed onscreen, was not just for dramatics; it was real.
Following Strauss’s appointment of Oppenheimer to Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in 1947, the pair began to butt heads, especially after Oppenheimer mocked Strauss’s position on radioisotopes during a Senate hearing (as depicted in the film). Strauss would be instrumental in Oppenheimer’s downfall and the revoking of his security clearance in 1953, which served as Nolan’s plot twist in the final act of the film.
1 J. Robert Oppenheimer
Establishing himself as the front-runner for every leading actor award coming this season, Cillian Murphy is astounding as the father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer. From the poisoned apple left for his tutor to his career downfall, Nolan left almost nothing to chance with a detailed, accurate portrayal onscreen of this famous figure. He was indeed a tall, chain-smoking physicist who worked the devastatingly long hours to see the Trinity Test though.
A line that is now engraved in movie-lovers minds forever, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” is actually from the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita; however, Oppenheimer’s documented reference to the line came in an NBC News documentary in 1965 called The Decision to Drop the Bomb. Whether Oppenheimer uttered the scripture following the Trinity Test, remains to be proven.
