Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer is Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece. It is now one of my favorite movies of all time, and even after watching the lighthearted comedy that is Barbie, the film still haunts me.
Cillian Murphy gives one of the best performances ever as Oppenheimer. Even his eyes alone convey so much emotion, and he conveys the feeling of guilt perfectly. Robert Downey Jr and Florence Pugh, and Emily Blunt are also incredible. There is not a single bad performance in this film, all of them are excellent, which leads to amazing immersion.
It wasn’t what I expected, to be sure. The movie jumps between various points in time with various events occurring simultaneously. It surprisingly works well and kept me on my toes, and it knows when to stop and focus on one particular scene. This film is extremely tense for a movie basically about people talking the entire time. There’s no action, no CGI, it is purely character driven and somehow manages to be more tense than most action blockbusters I’ve seen, if not all of them. The score is fantastic, but my favorite part has to be the tense buildup in certain scenes. Speaking of audio, I saw this movie in Dolby instead of IMAX because my theater didn’t have it in IMAX. However, Dolby’s audio led to one of the most exhilarating moments I’ve ever seen in a film, that being the bomb drop. My seat actually shook, and it truly feels like it takes advantage of the audio-visual medium. There is one scene (you’ll know it when you get to it) which I won’t spoil that gave me chills due to Murphy’s performance and the chilling audio enhanced by Dolby.
I won’t spoil the ending, but it gave me chills. Me and my friends let the credits wash over us, as we didn’t even know how to process it. It might just be the best ending to anything I’ve ever seen. This film is near flawless and genuinely one of the best of all time. It easily earns my top 15 spot, and with a rewatch it might even go higher.