Oppenheimer

Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is a three-hour biographical thriller that somehow makes committee meetings as tense as detonations. Structured around two timelines — Oppenheimer's 1954 security hearing and Lewis Strauss's 1959 confirmation hearing — the film interrogates not just the creation of the bomb but the political machinery that consumed its creator.

Cillian Murphy delivers the performance of his career, his gaunt intensity perfectly suited to a man who understood, perhaps better than anyone, what he had unleashed. The Trinity test sequence, rendered in IMAX without CGI, is cinema at its most visceral — Nolan withholds the sound of the explosion for an agonising beat before unleashing it.

The supporting cast is staggeringly deep. Robert Downey Jr.'s Lewis Strauss is a masterclass in petty vengeance disguised as patriotism. Emily Blunt's Kitty Oppenheimer burns with a fury the film barely contains. Florence Pugh, Matt Damon, Josh Hartnett, and Casey Affleck all deliver career-highlight work in limited screen time.

What elevates Oppenheimer beyond spectacle is its moral complexity. Nolan refuses to let the audience settle into comfortable judgment. The film's most haunting moment isn't the explosion — it's Oppenheimer's vision of his audience's skin peeling away during his victory speech.