'Oppenheimer' Trailer

We got the briefest of glimpses at back in July via the teaser.

At last, though, we have the first proper trailer for the film, which promises musings on the destructive nature of humanity and plenty of shots of Cillian Murphy as the titular, real-life scientist for whom the movie is named looking horrified at what his discoveries have wrought.

Nolan here is adapting the Pulitzer Prize-winning book ‘American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer’ by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. It chronicles how he was part of the infamous Manhattan Project and played a key role in the creation of atomic weapons, yet later came to have complicated feelings about their deadly power. He lobbied for international control of nuclear power and opposed the creation of the even more destructive hydrogen bomb.

Robert Downey, Jr. as Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.

Josh Hartnett plays pioneering American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence.

Also among the cast? David Krumholtz… the list goes on, though only a few are glimpsed in the trailer.

The first movie since Nolan, unhappy with Warner Bros’ treatment of ‘Tenet’ and the studio’s same-day streaming plans during the height of the pandemic, moved his moviemaking to Universal, promises to be the typically tactile and epic production from a director known for both as much realism as he can commit to celluloid (he created several of the explosive tests seen on screen entirely practically) and tense dialogue.

And lest you think this will be some ordinary historical biopic? Nolan has bigger plans. "It’s a story of immense scope and scale," the writer/director told Total Film. "And one of the most challenging projects I’ve ever taken on in of the scale of it, and in of encountering the breadth of Oppenheimer’s story. There were big, logistical challenges, big practical challenges. But I had an extraordinary crew, and they really stepped up. It will be a while before we’re finished. But certainly, as I watch the results come in, and as I’m putting the film together, I’m thrilled with what my team has been able to achieve.”

We’re going to get to see those results in full once ‘Oppenheimer’ blasts into theaters on July 21.