Avis Metacritic

It’s powerful, a technically dazzling achievement; so audacious is Nolan’s filmmaking that if it didn’t serve the story you’d think at times he was just showing off. He’s not.

The cumulative effect is so stunning and antithetical to anything Hollywood is doing at the moment – the equally audacious Barbie aside – that it feels like a completely different art form. And, frankly, hallelujah for that.

Oppenheimer is a towering achievement not just for Nolan, but for everyone involved. It is the kind of film that makes you appreciative of every aspect of filmmaking, blowing you away with how it all comes together in such a fitting fashion.

Taut and sprawling, riveting and haunting: firing on all cylinders, Nolan tackles world-changing history with fearsome force and focus.

Oppenheimer is one of those shoot-for-the-moon projects that feels thrilling and wonky, brilliant and overstuffed, too much and yet not enough. It’s also a movie that brings to mind the difficult era-spanning epics of yesteryear, from Reds to The Right Stuff, and is a movie made by adults for adults yet done with the sweep and majesty we now associate with movies made for kids and teens.

In what might be his magnum opus, Nolan has meticulously crafted a biopic that feels like a thriller.

A divided epic of awe and horror, fission and fusion. It’s simultaneously a unified portrait of a conflicted man and a singular achievement for Hollywood’s reigning blockbuster auteur.

Oppenheimer is a devastating portrait of man's hubris in the face of change, with some of the most startling & horrifying images of Nolan's career.

What you will piece together during the first viewing—including marvelous grace notes such as Oppenheimer’s taste for syrup-dipped cocktail glasses—will be enough to keep you glued to the action.

As a viewing experience, Oppenheimer is a whole lot of movie, a man's life given the epic treatment — because he did do truly epic things, things that elevate his life story beyond the limitations of genre. And thus, the film proves exceptional at drawing the audience into the experience, when it lets the power of its images do the talking. Its best moments stand out as some of the most original and exciting filmmaking of the year, highs that do a lot to counterbalance the sequences which dive back into bureaucracy and comparatively petty rivalries.