Oppenheimer does something all too rare in Hollywood: it trusts Its audience

Christopher Nolan bases his ambitious biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) on a Pulitzer Prize-winning account of his subject’s life, American Prometheus, and the physicist’s shaping hand in the creation of the atomic bomb undeniably qualifies as the modern equivalent of stealing fire from the gods. Although Oppenheimer is spared Prometheus' physical punishment for that hubristic act — his liver remains safe from endlessly recurring consumption by an eagle — the film devotes much of its three-hour running time to the non-corporeal forms of retribution he suffers: the U.S. government’s Cold War-era accusations of Communist Party membership and possible Soviet spying, and his own escalating concern over the world-annihilating capacity of the weaponry he helped birth.