'Oppenheimer' latest in long line of Hollywood films about nuclear warfare

Father of the atomic bomb

The Cillian Murphy-starrer, inspired by Martin Sherwin's book "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer", centres around Julius Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist in charge of the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, US, during the Second World War.

A brilliant atomic physicist, Oppenheimer became known as "the father of the atomic bomb," due to his relentless pursuit of inventing such a nuclear weapon.

Indeed, the first atomic bomb saw the light in the 1940s. Throughout the following decade, several nuclear tests were carried out in the southern Nevada desert.

In 1954, Oppenheimer's leadership in the field of atomic physics and nuclear weapons came to a halt, when he was interrogated as part of the McCarthy era's "Red Scare" on suspicions of leftist inclinations.

Oppenheimer's personal stance on communism remained unknown. In an earlier job application, he had claimed he was a member "of each communist assembly" on the west coast of the United States. But during investigations by the McCarthy Committee, he denied it.

All of Oppenheimer's activities were nonetheless documented, and he was ultimately stripped of his power and positions – some of which were highly influential in US political circles.

Seven decades of nuclear war films

Nolan's "Oppenheimer" is only the latest in a long list of films to tackle nuclear weapons and the Cold War.

The earliest examples date as far back as the 1950s, when films first began addressing the fears of the American masses at the time — in particular, atomic capabilities and their devastating aftermath.

Some of them were horror films.

In Gordon Douglas' "Them" (1954) and Jack Arnold's "Tarantula" (1955), atomic radiation turns humans (or other creatures) into beasts; at the end of "Tarantula", Clint Eastwood, still an unknown actor at the time, shells a giant spider attacking a village with napalm bombs.

Others fell more under the science fiction umbrella, like Robert Wise's "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951), which features an alien landing on Earth to warn humans of the hazards of nuclear weapons.

In the noir thriller "Split Second" (1953), directed by actor Dick Powell, two fugitives escape to a desolate area, only to find out that it was cleared of human presence to be used for atomic testing.

Two years later, Robert Aldrich presented a more powerful take on atomic horror with "Kiss Me Deadly," in which a box containing strong atomic radiation – and capable of annihilating the entire human race  – falls into the wrong hands.

Black comedy: Kubrick's entry is a success

In 1964, director extraordinaire Stanley Kubrick approached a similar idea in "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb".

The film's screenplay was loosely based on Peter George's novel "Red Alert", which depicts a nuclear war on the cusp of breaking out between the US and the Soviet Union, all because of a singular decision taken by a US war general.

Kubrick suffused the film with a dark, comedic undertone that set it apart from George's novel.

The film starts with the anti-communist US Air Force General Jack Ripper (Sterling Hayden) ordering a B-52 bomber to drop an atomic bomb on Moscow. As the situation escalates, the US President (Peter Sellers) convenes with his general staff, including an ultra-nationalist commander (George C. Scott), to deliberate on the situation and attempt to avoid Soviet retaliation.

The Soviet ambassador to Washington is unusual at best, but he's not the only eccentric character. In the War Room, we find Dr. Strangelove (also portrayed by Sellers), an obscure strategist who looks like a robot because of his paralyzing injuries.

Impressively, Seller also portrays a third role in the film, appearing as the British Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, who rushes to General Ripper's office to discuss Ripper's command to bomb Moscow.

He finds that Ripper is obsessed with conspiracy theories about communism, believing that the ideology has already taken over the White House's decision-making process. Ripper is even convinced that the Soviets laced drinking water in America with a chemical toxin that turns them into communists.

Ripper's belief in these conspiracy theories only grows when the US Army eventually attacks his military base to arrest him.

Subliminal messages, and why they work

"Dr. Strangelove..." ends with a mutual atomic war and total destruction on both sides, to the sardonic tune of Vera Lynn's romantic track "We'll Meet Again."

Beneath its humorous veil, Kubrick's film, which was released at the peak of the Cold War, delivered horrific warnings of a potential nuclear war, at a time when both the US and the Soviet Union were mere steps away from pressing the Doomsday button and inflicting destruction on the world at large.

Kubrick managed to communicate these horrors subliminally rather than through overt rhetoric, depicting them through characters who showed no remorse and refused to admit failure.

To add to the film's dark comedy, Kubrick picked Slim Pickens, a well-known veteran of Western films, as the pilot of the B-52. In a surreal but meaningful scene, we see Pickens mounting the rocket as it heads towards Soviet territory, yelling cheerfully and waving his hat like a cowboy astride his horse.

"Fail-safe" take on war stumbles at the box office

In the same year (1964), Hollywood released another war-themed film.

"Fail Safe", by Sidney Lumet, featured a US president going head-to-head with his Soviet counterpart. Lumet, who had found success with "12 Angry Men" in 1957, aimed to build on that momentum. Alas, his critically acclaimed entry into the nuclear war subgenre didn't quite make an impact across cinemas.

As a screenplay, "Fail Safe" bears similarities to Dr. Strangelove. An American B-52 accidentally heads to the Soviet Union on a bombardment mission, and the film kicks off with characters across four American cities waking up at 5:30 am to news that an atomic bomb will likely be dropped over Moscow after failed attempts to abort the mission.

The plot quickly heats up; within ten minutes, we see the Pentagon and US Administration scrambling to avoid total ruin.

In his attempt to contain the Soviet threat of retaliation, the US president (Henry Fonda) descends to a bare underground room, accompanied only by a Russian translator.

Harking back to the character of General Ripper in Dr. Strangelove, Walter Matthau portrays a professor filled with utter hatred towards communists, who supports the deliberate destruction of Moscow. However, Matthau's professor felt more like a caricature, failing to match Sterling Hayden's convincing performance as Ripper.

Lumet managed to adapt Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler's eponymous bestselling novel into an intriguing drama. But the movie's persuasiveness fell short of the mark, as recurrent aeroplane scenes failed to capture the gravity of atomic warfare.

Despite their similarities, Kubrick's film was a commercial success, perhaps owing to its comedic undercurrent, while "Fail Safe" flew under the radar at the box office, in spite of critical acclaim.

BBC funds, then bans "The War Game"

Other films of the same era include John Frankenheimer's "Seven Days in May" (1964) and Peter Watkins' "The War Game" (1965).

Despite funding the production of "The War Game," the BBC proceeded to ban the movie for 20 years under the pretext that it might be too violent and shocking to public taste.

The British pseudo-documentary offered an unflinching portrayal of what the aftermath of a nuclear explosion in the UK could look like.

Earlier, "Above and Beyond," went nearly unnoticed in the 1950s. Co-directed by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, the film told the story of the pilot (portrayed by Robert Taylor) who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Despite varying levels of success, atomic horror remained prevalent in the film industry throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In "The China Syndrome" (1979), starring Jane Fonda and Jack Lemon, nuclear radiation leaks from a US reactor, and officials scramble to conceal the truth.

Mike Nichols' "Silkwood" (1983), starring Meryl Streep and Kurt Russell, offers much of the same.

Several documentary films also showed keen interest in this chilling subject matter.

"The Atomic Café" (1982), co-directed by Jayne Loader and Pierce Rafferty, reveals how the US Government lied to its own citizens in the 1950s about the lack of health hazards resulting from nuclear tests carried out near their towns.

The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 inspired several films, including Roger Donaldson's "13 Days" (2000), starring Kevin Costner and Bruce Greenwood, who portrayed former US President John Kennedy.

More recent portrayals and revelations

In 2022, director Steve James released the documentary "A Compassionate Spy," which recounts the story of a Jewish spy who worked for the Manhattan Project (of which Oppenheimer was one of the lead scientists).

Believing that the knowledge of nuclear weapons should not be restricted to one global power, the spy decides to leak nuclear secrets to the Russians.

The film's incredible story is complemented by an equally bold exploration of historical events. Among the astonishing facts it reveals is that several weeks prior to the atomic bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese Government had offered capitulation to the White House. However, Washington kept silent and sent its fighter jets to drop atomic bombs on the two cities.

With that revelation, the film challenges the commonly held belief that the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was in retaliation for what Japan did in Pearl Harbour, or an attempt to bring the war to an end.

But the film suggests it was merely meant to send a clear message to the Soviet Union, proving the amount of destruction the US war arsenal is capable of inflicting should it decide to bomb Russia.

Nolan's "Oppenheimer" awaits its place among this vast array of cinematic explorations of nuclear war – both fictional and non-fictional – spanning decades.

With a reported budget of $100 million and a sprawling 3-hour runtime, the film's success is yet to be seen, but it certainly joins a formidable league dedicated to comprehending the horrors of this grim reality.