Oppenheimer: The Real Story

The documentary tells the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer. A road that began with a professorship in physics went somewhere else entirely when he led the making of the atomic bomb during the Second World War; in 1945 he watched the first test in New Mexico with his own eyes. After the war he worked for nuclear weapons to be brought under control, and that position cost him dearly. The film rests on interviews with people who knew him and with people affected by what he left behind. The account puts at its centre the fact that the man who made the bomb and the man who later tried to limit it were the same person; the real question is how that contradiction was carried. Robin Bextor’s ninety seven minute documentary was completed in 2023.