Oppenheimer, the biggest film of 2023 and the darling of 2024's award season, comes to M-Net in the blockbuster Sunday night movie slot on 5 May at 20:05.
Having scooped seven Academy Awards, seven BAFTAs, eight Critics’ Choice Awards, five Golden Globes, and nearly 300 other international awards since its July 2023 release, the film’s critical reception is amongst the best in cinematic history – and its $965 million (R17.8 billion) in box office takings put it well within the top 100 grossing films ever made. The Best Director Oscar for Christopher Nolan – who once again amazes viewers with his visual style – was his first win after eight nominations, his first being for the screenplay of 2000’s Memento. He also won an Oscar for Best Picture alongside wife and fellow producer Emma Thomas, and producer Charles Roven.
During World War II, Lt Gen Leslie Groves Jr (Matt Damon) appoints physicist J Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) to work on the top-secret Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer and a team of scientists spend years developing and designing the atomic bomb. Their work comes to fruition on 16 July 1945, as they witness the world's first nuclear explosion, forever changing the course of history. The all-star ensemble cast includes Robert Downey Jr, Florence Pugh, Emily Blunt, Josh Hartnett, Gary Oldman, and Casey Affleck – almost all of whom scooped awards for their performances.
The New York Times’s Manohla Dargis called the film "a drama about genius, hubris, and error, both individual and collective. It brilliantly charts the turbulent life of the American theoretical physicist who helped research and develop the two atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II — cataclysms that helped usher in our human-dominated age". Wendy Ide, writing for The Guardian, called it "a towering achievement" and Matt Zoller Seitz, writing for RogerEbert.com, said that the film is successful because "the main attraction is not the tale but the telling".
Stare into the flinty blue eyes of the man who created the world’s most dreaded weapon – and lived to regret it – on Sunday 5 May at 20:05. Revel in it on your DStv Explora or live stream it on DStv Stream at the appointed time. Join the conversation on Facebook, X, Instagram, and TikTok.